Proceeding with Caution: First global guidelines proposed for ancient DNA research

Jovialis

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Hmmm, I guess we will be needing to read between the lines a little more carefully:

It's our hope that these guidelines will raise the integrity of ancient DNA research around the world by minimizing damage to collections of human remains; ensuring sensitivity to the perspectives of stakeholder groups, especially when these groups are marginalized; and reducing opportunities for the misuse of results. We expect these guidelines will undergo further development as the field continues to evolve.

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-proceeding-caution-global-guidelines-ancient.html
 
This guy seems pretty woke. Lewontinism seems to be here to stay.

name
Thomas Booth


description


Francis Crick Institute, London, UK


My name is Dr. Tom Booth and I’m a senior research scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, in the UK.


I think part of these guidelines that’s particularly important to this part of the world is in disconnecting the link between genetics and ancient DNA and modern ideas of identity and belonging. So a lot of people, particularly with nationalistic political leanings, have tried to take advantage of ancient genetic data that labs like ours generate to construct nationalistic, exclusive narratives of peoples in Europe. So to establish who are the “true” people of Europe. And they use these ideas to try to sort of deny rights to marginalized people and particularly people who are descended from more recent migrations into countries like Britain and other European countries too.


I think it sort of … A bunch of professionals who work in ancient DNA and genetics getting together and releasing a statement that includes... part of it includes a refutation of that idea that you can define who belongs to a place or a group of people by their genetics or their ancient DNA in the modern world is an important way of countering those ideas slipping into the mainstream. It provides a good document for people to point to to discredit people who try to use genetics to exclude or marginalize people in particularly western parts of the world.

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/proceeding-caution
 
So the guidelines for analysis European DNA is to make a conscious effort to deny any trace of identity and belonging to people from Europe. Got it...

So if the results show Europeans do have affirmed beliefs in identity and belonging, they're going to try to disconnect that. Wow.
 
IMHO, Europeans DO have affirmed beliefs in identity and belonging. Here's is a model I produced that exclusively works only with Europeans, Western Jews and Uralic people. It fails to model modern day near-easterners, and others.

We see that Southern Eastern and South Central Europe can be modeled well with Minoan-like Substratum (with some Anatolia_BA/Isparta-like enrichment), in addition to other Neolithic farmer populations for others. We see an enrichment from various steppe populations. We see a rich tapestry of diverse ancient populations, but they are exclusive to Europeans. Because the model fails for others. It is what it is, it isn't inherently nationalistic... It is reality!

ko72RYU.png
 
Hmmm, I guess we will be needing to read between the lines a little more carefully:

It's our hope that these guidelines will raise the integrity of ancient DNA research around the world by minimizing damage to collections of human remains; ensuring sensitivity to the perspectives of stakeholder groups, especially when these groups are marginalized; and reducing opportunities for the misuse of results. We expect these guidelines will undergo further development as the field continues to evolve.

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-proceeding-caution-global-guidelines-ancient.html

Would you be opposed to similar scientific guidelines existing during the early 20th century, when the WASP American establishment tried to curb Italian, Greek, Slavic, etc immigration to the US by producing pseudo-scientific racial theories about the inferiority of said peoples?
 
Would you be opposed to similar scientific guidelines existing during the early 20th century, when the WASP American establishment tried to curb Italian, Greek, Slavic, etc immigration to the US by producing pseudo-scientific racial theories about the inferiority of said peoples?

Obviously, I already said it should not be politically biased.
 
Obviously, I already said it should not be politically biased.

I read the paper, Sirak is quoted a bit and what I read from her is not as political as this Booth fellow from England is. She has published some good stuff lately. To be quite candid, is there any paper that he has published that is worth reading. He seems to be someone who works as a Lab Research Assistant. I don't see that he has a teaching position and he has never published it seems to be an empirical paper in a top tier academic journal in his life. He is a co-author on the ethical guidelines paper on ancient DNA research, with 63 other authors, but that is not something that moves the needle if he were trying to obtain an academic job at a University with research and teaching responsibilities. Here is is research vita. Again, I gather he is really just a lab research assistant. His video suggest to me he is one of these open border globalist leftist types.

The guidelines spelled out if I got them correctly talked about making sure ancient DNA samples taken from countries by colonial powers respects where those samples came from and find a way to ensure those countries are involved in the research. It also clearly says that all DNA findings should be made publicly available for others to replicate the findings, which is a good thing. So the ethical guidelines paper is actually not that bad of a paper and makes some very good points.

This Booth fellow speaking in his video is just somebody trying to virtue signal in my opinion.

https://www.crick.ac.uk/research/find-a-researcher/thomas-booth
 
Would you be opposed to similar scientific guidelines existing during the early 20th century, when the WASP American establishment tried to curb Italian, Greek, Slavic, etc immigration to the US by producing pseudo-scientific racial theories about the inferiority of said peoples?

They actually did, the immigration laws of 1922 I think it was effectively shut down immigration till 1965. You can also add Eastern European Jews that came in with Italians, Greeks, Croatians, Slavic populations (i.e. Polish) in large numbers between 1885-1920, etc. Before the US Civil War, it was the Irish Catholics and Bavarian-Southern Germans (Catholics as well) that resulted in the know-Nothing party, etc. Yes their were ethnic pseudo theories, much of it was in the case of the Italians, Polish, Croatians, anti-Catholic as well, and of course the for the Eastern European Jews, anti-Jewish sentiment. The Greeks were kind of lumped in with the other European groups as the average American Protestant back then did not know what Eastern Orthodox was, many of them today still don't, particularly the Bubba types in the rural parts of the USA.

With all that being said, the moratorium on immigration in the early 1920's, despite some of its motivation due to pseudo theories and bigotry, did in the end result in all those ethnic groups quickly assimilating into the broader US society so much so by the 1950's in the post WW2 era, those older ethnic neighborhoods, which helped all those ethnic groups maintain group identity (religion, language, food, music), etc and solidarity vs. a not so friendly broader US WASP culture, was already starting to end as those groups were moving out of their ethnic Urban neighborhoods into the suburbs and beyond.

But Europe is not the USA. The comparison to me is not relevant. Sweden for example just elected a Nationalist and Center Right coalition government that is wanting to maintain the identity of Sweden as Sweden, its culture, people, history, language, ancient Norse mythology and myths, etc, etc. Now, while I have many times here debated the Nordicist narrative of Northern Europeans being the standard by which Europeans are measured against in terms of culture, history, physical appearances, which also includes of course ancient Southern European civilizations (Greece and Rome) were originally more "Nordic", blah, blah, blah (we have DNA evidence refuting that), I 100% respect their right to ensure Sweden remains Sweden and native Swedes do not see their culture, traditions, and their own native ethnic identity ended due to illegal migration. As long as Sweden is not a threat to any other country that it borders, etc, what they do for their internal affairs regarding immigration, or lack their of, is 100% their business.

I see Giorga Meloni is potentially going to be the first female Prime Minister of Italy. Of course, the far left will call her Nationalistic, hard right, etc, etc (you never here them talk of far radical communist any longer it seems). Again, she committed to Italy's role in NATO (it was a charter member) but she is obviously no fan of the EU and was no fan of Merkel when she was running Germany (She probably does not care for Macron either). But she seems she is no longer going to allow Italy to be a entry point for the Corporate interest in Europe, the EU and the likes of George Soros to continually be the entry door to illegal immigration to provide cheap labor (which is what this is all about when you do a deep dive).
 
If those would have been the rules for doing science, people would do what they want. The reality is that EU rules already in place are like 100 times more restringent.
1- when you write a proposal, you ALWAYS have an ethics section. If you by any chance have to deal with living things ,humans, or human remains then you have a lot of documents to provide. These include lab facilities certificated for bla bla bla, safety protocols for bla bla bla, qualified personnel for the standards and so on. The online system does not even complete your application if one of those documents is missing.
2- if you get funded, the starting Working Package is to accumulate Consent Forms from whoever is in charge of samples. These consent forms do not stop the owner of the samples to withdraw if interests don't match.
3- There is a Working Package for Dissemination/divulgation which includes publications, conferences, interviews, and others. For each of them you need to get approval (even though is a bare formality for most cases) from all interested parties, and from the funding agency which typically represent the taxpayers interests. If problems arise from any publication, they have the option to oblige you to withdraw the publication.
4- at the end of the project when they need to justify all your expenses, they check that you have green light from ethics and you intellectual property rights for all your activities.

HONESTLY, all this propaganda is MUCH ADO FOR NOTHING!
Point (4) is not even applicable at its core, because these researchers have their IP rights, as does any museum who might own the sample. You have to pay to get access, or you do have to give something in exchange. If you are idealistic you give it for free.
 
Obviously, I already said it should not be politically biased.

If you don't think that kind of (pseudo)science was politically motivated then I have a bridge to sell you. Archaeology, historiography, "genetics" (in the pre-1953 meaning of the word), anthropology, basically all fields adjacent to our hobby were immensely politicised and biased long before Tom Booth or David Reich were even born.
 
some specifics:
this is the code of conduct that none ever reads, it should say vaguely the same things as these guys.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-t...conduct-for-research-integrity_horizon_en.pdf

if you go for funding then you get into the ethics section, if one of those choices becomes YES.... a lot of work.
ethics.jpg

And most importantly, it is always the responsibility of the Institution to sign and maintain everything (legal and financial officers which are bureaucrats that deal with these administrative issues).
 
If you don't think that kind of (pseudo)science was politically motivated then I have a bridge to sell you. Archaeology, historiography, "genetics" (in the pre-1953 meaning of the word), anthropology, basically all fields adjacent to our hobby were immensely politicised and biased long before Tom Booth or David Reich were even born.

Are you purposefully reading my post incorrectly? Or is English not your first language? I believe both were/are politically motivated.
 
If you ever wonder how Both and Reich see us....
but in our eyes we are all Einstein, right
View attachment 13562
Just let this Booth guy be, he has bought with sweat his right to his professional opinion. He might be wrong, but is not up to us to judge him.
 
If you ever wonder how Both and Reich see us....
but in our eyes we are all Einstein, right
View attachment 13562
Just let this Booth guy be, he has bought with sweat his right to his professional opinion. He might be wrong, but is not up to us to judge him.

This is a discussion forum where we talk about population genetics and this topic is a part of it. If you don't like it, you don't have to participate.
 
This is a discussion forum where we talk about population genetics and this topic is a part of it. If you don't like it, you don't have to participate.

I thought you would be more open to criticism, especially when you start a criticism thread. I almost get the impression you are defending some stakeholders here.

the part about what i like and where I go was really low of you. i hope it was a lapsus and you realize that.
 
I thought you would be more open to criticism, especially when you start a criticism thread. I almost get the impression you are defending some stakeholders here.

the part about what i like and where I go was really low of you. i hope it was a lapsus and you realize that.

Gaslightling,

Bergin: "Just let this Booth guy be, he has bought with sweat his right to his professional opinion. He might be wrong, but is not up to us to judge him."

You're the one saying we should not question them. I created a thread which open to discussion, including criticism.

Low of me? That's a personal attack.
 
let him be, dont judge him. fight his arguments as much as you want.

anyway this went on for too long. will make you happy and turn back into sparse hybernation. Got to learn a lot of things on adna from your posts, so thank you.
 
let him be, dont judge him. fight his arguments as much as you want.

anyway this went on for too long. will make you happy and turn back into sparse hybernation. Got to learn a lot of things on adna from your posts, so thank you.

I am fighting his arguments, they're based on politically-motivated platitudes for the most part. How can one "fight" that?
 

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