Posted on 11/29/2001 5:53:24 AM PST by Magician
A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal.
Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away.
Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma.
'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.'
British geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer added: 'If the journal didn't like the paper, they shouldn't have published it in the first place. Why wait until it has appeared before acting like this?'
The journal's editor, Nicole Sucio-Foca, of Columbia University, New York, claims the article provoked such a welter of complaints over its extreme political writing that she was forced to repudiate it. The article has been removed from Human Immunology's website, while letters have been written to libraries and universities throughout the world asking them to ignore or 'preferably to physically remove the relevant pages'. Arnaiz-Villena has been sacked from the journal's editorial board.
Dolly Tyan, president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, which runs the journal, told subscribers that the society is 'offended and embarrassed'.
The paper, 'The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations', involved studying genetic variations in immune system genes among people in the Middle East.
In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited.
Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate, the authors state. Rivalry between the two races is therefore based 'in cultural and religious, but not in genetic differences', they conclude.....
The other major existing Jewish populations are the Europeans (Ashkenazi) and the Ethiopeans. Again, these two groups of Jews look little different than the European and Ethiopean populations respectively among who they have lived for 2000 or more years.
The useful thing about this paper is that it again brings out something that should have been universally appreciated by everyone long ago. Namely, that Judaism is a religion, not a race.
Junk science.
What a ridiculous claim. According to Scripture Isaac and Ishmael were half-brothers with the same father and two mothers from the same household.
This study confirms Scripture and does not contradict it in any way.
If the work is being suppressed it is due to PC fears of offending Arabs, nothing else.
Exactly. And the conflict from there remains these thousands of years later. Talk about the consequences of one mistake...
Wouldn't a lot of Pelestinians be descended from the Samaritans, who were Jews who has separated from Judah and Benjamin in much the same way that the South in the US almost tried to separate from the rest of the US.
Obviously this sort of thing has a political motivation, but the proposition is indisputable.
This study confirms the obvious. Jews and Arabs are semitic.
If the work is being suppressed it is due to PC fears of offending Arabs, nothing else.
errr.. this is an American journal. USA has been at war with Arabs for decades. Why in a time of war on Arabs would there be an attempt to act in a way in which not to offend Arabs? They are the enemy, remember? American institutions are working to demonize Arabs and portray them as subhuman (in case you hadn't noticed).
USA has been at war with Arabs for decades.
Oh really? Is that why we've been helping the Egyptian government meet its budget for decades? Is that why we've been providing defense for the Saudi government for the past ten years? Is that why we have been championing Jordan? Is that why we saved Kuwait from destruction?
Why in a time of war on Arabs would there be an attempt to act in a way in which not to offend Arabs?
What war on Arabs? Which Arab nation has the US declared war on? Which Arab countries currently have hostile US troops in deployment? None. We are at most, on a war footing with Iraq.
They are the enemy, remember?
Oh they are? That's funny, because the President has said that they're not. And the US is not at war with any Arab country.
American institutions are working to demonize Arabs and portray them as subhuman (in case you hadn't noticed).
Which American institutions are these? The Presidency? No. The President has expressed solidarity with American Arabs and publicly embraced Arab community leaders.
The US media? No. The US media has been continually calling for tolerance of Arab Americans. The major networks have given positive profile after positive profile on Arabs. Oprah hosted an Islam 101 show with Arab guests. MTV has been running ads praising Arab Americans.
Is it the US cOngress? No. The Congress has called for tolerance and understanding of Arab Americans.
Is it US educational institutions? No. US universities and school systems have bent over backwards to oppose any US military action and have called out for tolerance for US Arabs.
Is it US churches? No. All the mainline denominations, including Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Baptists have also called for tolerance and understanding for US Arabs.
Nope. You're clearly smoking crack or another mind-altering substance. You've become completely decoupled from reality.
Junk science.
Genetics is junk science?
Genetics can be junk science, or do you defend Dr. Mengele injecting dye into the eyes of Jews to see if he could turn their eyes blue?
I don't see that in the article above.
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