Double standards approaches to studying Africa

[Charlie Bass]

During my time in studying anthropological and genetic studies on Africa it seems to me that rather than test a hypothesis to for truth and multiple explanations it seems as though the authors already a priori have their conclusions and tailor and use their studies to prove. In that regard, it seems as though these studies seem intent on justifying and bringing back the long dead Hamitic Hypothesis though the scholars themselves who conduct these studies vehemently deny and reject the Hamitic Hypothesis in word.


When so called "non-African" genetic lineages are found in an African population the authors of the studies always seem to want to connect it to the introduction of some kind of technology or spread of language and or farming and stubbornly rule out all other alternatives including the possibility that the said lineages originated in Africa; the recent papers on R-V88 and R1*-M173 are examples of this, except for the presence of these lineages themselves there is nothing else that proves a migration of Eurasians into the heart of central Africa, the so called migrants left nothing behind indicating a migration. Ditto for M1 and U6 who's alleged time of back migration overlaps strongly with migrations out of Africa. Thus in the eyes of these scholars, Africa was mainly a recipient of foreign lineages but not a donor of lineages except for slavery and the initial OOA migration.

Now on the flip side, Y haplogroup E3b has anthropological and archaeological evidence to back such a migration yet none of the geneticists write of a bonafide migration of Africans into Europe and the Near East; the only "real" evidence of an African presence in Europe and the Near East comes from the slave trade and the first dispersals of modern humans OOA, as if there were no more dispersals after the initial OOA wave.


Do we need to get together and composed an email to one of these geneticists to get some feedback on the above points raised? Keita in his studies has raised similar points about the flawed approaches to studying Africans so the points raised so nothing new is being rally said, maybe its up to some of use to bring this up to these geneticists and anthropologists who write these studies.


Feedback?

[clydewin98]

You make a number of valid points in the article. Writing letters to researchers will not change how they interpret genomic and genetic data in relation to Africans. The only thing you can do is write articles expressing a different point of view.

The recent move to support ancient demographic movements with archaeological and linguistic data offers an opportunity to shift opinion in expressing African history. This results from the fact that many claims made by population genetics are not supported by the archaeology. For example, many researchers attempt to make many haplogroups originate in Western Europe around 40kya. This is highly unlikely because Cro-Magnon man had not entered Western Eurasia at this early date . And if he was in Europe at this time he would have been primarially in Spain.

[truthteacher2007]

Scientist and scholars are just people, ordinary people. I think too often we make assumptions that people in certain positions are elevated beings who are not subject to the petty insecurities of the human condition. Bias and dishonesty are par for the course 9 times out of 10. If this boggles your mind, you should see what happens behind the scenes in medicine. Its all a dog and pony show and the task of those of us who are serious and honest, is to clean up the shit left behind by their prancing antics. You will never get them to change. All you can do is call it out in a respectful professional way so that enough people can see the logic in what you have to say.

Undersand that these people are still products of their environment and the times they live in and so of course their perspective is scewed. How can they not have a belief in the superiority of the white race when everything has been carefully crafted around them to reenforce this illusion? They went to schools that were mostly white, work in professions that are mostly white, live in neighborhoods that are mostly white, were educated according to curriculums where European achievement was the main focus and everything else was treated as a garnish or side to the main meal, which was the story of Europe. Is it any surprise then that they are unable to look at Africa without bias or preconceived notions?

I'm not too knowledgable about all this genetics stuff. Its confusing as hell to me and I often wish that people could put it in layman's terms. However, looking at the presence of so called Eurasian DNA in places like Central Africa. Lets say that it was drought in by migrations, its possible, but where is the evidence that it came with some sort of new technology? Why couldn't it just be that these people did wat all people do, migrate to areas where there are more resources to survive. Why the assumption that they were somehow, "better" than the native in the area? Its just a colonialist default setting. Nothing arises independently in Africa. It has to be broght in. So Egypt has to be explained by "Eurasian colonists", agriculture has to be explained by Eurasian settler etc and so on and so forth. These are people who have grown up on tales of colonial exploits in Africa and seeing feed the children adds of bloated bellied African children with flies in their eyes, (funny how no one was starving or dropping like flies before the Europeans got there, but that's another topic). So this is the world view of Africa that they have and they will look to for proof to make their world view make sense.

I teach Egyptian dance and in the community there are all sorts of wild speculations as to where the dance originated. It was goddes worship fertility rituals that came from Greece, the Gypsies brought it from India, the Turks brought it, the Arabs brought it. I offered a radical theory that really shook a lot of people up......... What if...... just..... maaybe, Egyptian dance originated right where it is, IN EGYPT? Why assume it had to come from somewhere else? Then you see the glazed look of confusion in people's eyes. They never even realized WHY they made these assumptions in the first place. Its a world view that is taken for granted as valid and no one even thinks to question it or where it these ideas come from. Problem is, most people do not think independently or critically, they just go on automatic pilot. Therefore, it is left to the small minority to constantly turn the lights on in the room and pull peoples coat tails and wake them up to let them know we've reached the last stop on the train.

[homeylu]

They have to formulate a hypothesis, then test it for accuracy. The bias comes from the 'hypothesis' itself. There can be more than one explanation for genetic evidence. Which is why these 'theories' are consistently debunked.

For example, it is said that most major language families were spread by the first farmers. But this does not seem to be the case with the Indo-European language. Most of the evidence shows this language was spread by hunter-gathers. However they can use genetic evidence to try to show that these farmers interbred with the modern population, and other evidence shows they replaced this population, and then still other evidence shows no relationship to the population, so it remains "inconclusive" with regard to Europe and early farmers. So we have to use 'caution' when interpreting this conflicting data.

[truthcentric]

Jun 9, 2010 13:42:41 GMT -5 homeylu said:

For example, it is said that most major language families were spread by the first farmers. But this does not seem to be the case with the Indo-European language. Most of the evidence shows this language was spread by hunter-gathers.

I looked this up. Reconstructions of proto-Indo-European suggest that the early Indo-European-speakers practiced agriculture and animal husbandry. Where did you hear that they were hunter-gatherers?

[zarahan]

Jun 5, 2010 11:51:22 GMT -5 Charlie Bass said:

During my time in studying anthropological and genetic studies on Africa it seems to me that rather than test a hypothesis to for truth and multiple explanations it seems as though the authors already a priori have their conclusions and tailor and use their studies to prove. In that regard, it seems as though these studies seem intent on justifying and bringing back the long dead Hamitic Hypothesis though the scholars themselves who conduct these studies vehemently deny and reject the Hamitic Hypothesis in word.


When so called "non-African" genetic lineages are found in an African population the authors of the studies always seem to want to connect it to the introduction of some kind of technology or spread of language and or farming and stubbornly rule out all other alternatives including the possibility that the said lineages originated in Africa; the recent papers on R-V88 and R1*-M173 are examples of this, except for the presence of these lineages themselves there is nothing else that proves a migration of Eurasians into the heart of central Africa, the so called migrants left nothing behind indicating a migration. Ditto for M1 and U6 who's alleged time of back migration overlaps strongly with migrations out of Africa. Thus in the eyes of these scholars, Africa was mainly a recipient of foreign lineages but not a donor of lineages except for slavery and the initial OOA migration.

Now on the flip side, Y haplogroup E3b has anthropological and archaeological evidence to back such a migration yet none of the geneticists write of a bonafide migration of Africans into Europe and the Near East; the only "real" evidence of an African presence in Europe and the Near East comes from the slave trade and the first dispersals of modern humans OOA, as if there were no more dispersals after the initial OOA wave.


Do we need to get together and composed an email to one of these geneticists to get some feedback on the above points raised? Keita in his studies has raised similar points about the flawed approaches to studying Africans so the points raised so nothing new is being rally said, maybe its up to some of use to bring this up to these geneticists and anthropologists who write these studies.


Feedback?

You have hit the nail on the head. It is the same old double standard that we see in studying the Nile Valley, and much of Africa. They know it is a double standard, but are reluctant to give it up because then that would put a spike in the Eurocentric desire to appropriate as much as possible and put themselves at the center of advanced culture and civilization.

They can't do it with China but they can get away with a lot in Africa. They cannot do it with people from Europe strictly, because Europeans are latecomers as far as civilization goes, so they use the 'Eurasian" umbrella as part of the pattern of appropriation and grasping. They will draw a rigid "sub-Saharan" line but somehow conveniently skip a similar line to create the "Eurasian" cover- allowing more to be grasped and appropriated. They are desperate to appropriate the Nile Valley because its antiquity and glory links back to a much more ancient culture and tradition than Europe that does not have Europe as its center. Hence their need to push aside and minimize what is indigenous.

The whole enterprise at times reeks of Eurocentric hypocrisy. A key element of that hypocrisy today as well like you say, is liberal rhetoric- their WORDS deny that is their purpose, but their DEEDS point towards restoration of new versions of the discredited Hamitic Hypothesis. I don't think the pattern will change soon. It is embedded and entire careers, and massive sums of circulating money are built on it. We are dealing with an entrenched machine. You can see it in study after study- where the same skewed sampling and stacked decks, the same preset hypotheses, the same manipulation is going on time and time again,

What we can do at this point is;

1) expose the hypocrisy

2) build up a more balanced database that more accurately reflects the bio diversity of African peoples and cultures.

3) Put forward credible alternative scenarios that more accurately reflect African biodiversity.

4) Push down the above data to lower levels among the masses, in a clear, understandable manner. There is a crying need to break down the DNA issues clearly and understandably for mass consumption for example.


5) Start using updated information in "popular" presentations. Unfortunately too often what is out there is plain outdated or so simplistically stated that it plays into the hands of the enemies of true African diversity. I ran into a guy 2 years ago going to do a presentation to schools during Black History Month. All he had on tap really was old quotes from Diop circa 1974. Diop is perfectly fine to a certain point but unless clear updated info is on tap the enterprise suffers. He had NO updated DNA info. NO limb proportion studies. NOTHING by Keita. NOTHING updated on the Nubians. It was like he was stuck in the 1970s. And so it went. He had to fight initially with the schools to do his presentation.

I told the dude- I would not present what you have in this form. It lacks credibility. It is outdated. It provides ammunition for enemies to trash the whole package. He would not listen and went ahead. The school allocated him a mere half hour. I got the impression they were laughing at the whole presentation package. And even then some controversy erupted from one school administrator who charged "inaccurate Afrocentric" information, And that controversy overshadowed the whole effort. A window of educational opportunity was thus ruined. And that is exactly what opponents want- weak data, weak presentations, weak arguments, like the cynical articles asking 'Were the Egyptians black?- twisting the whole question into whether they were West African negroes, and thus neatly avoiding the data. That is why cynical moles remove credible scholarship time and time again on Wikipedia.

6) Build up alternative communities and forums like Egyptsearch Reloaded and others as storehouses of credible info. This means starting individual blogs reinforcing the information storehouses and adding to them.

7) Summarize, summarize, summarize - consolidate and boil down info into concise chunks and cut jargon so it can be reasonably accessed. There is a need for streamlining and summarization, and consolidation of scattered data. Much of the info out there is complex, but there is a great need for concise summaries. Instead of a 10 page exposition on Haplogroup U6 or E, boil that down into one page and show within that page why assorted Eurocentric claims are dubious. The 10 pages can be the backup info. This summarization can be done on blogs, on forums like ESR or wherever. But to push down the data to the masses and make them informed, it was to be presented in accessible form. Note I did not say the 10 pages was unneeded. To the contrary, such detail is very much to be desired, but there should be more condensation of these widely scattered studies into concise form.

For example, is there a concise 1 or 2 page argument showing that M1 and U6 coincide with migrations out of Africa and how this nullifies certain wild Eurocentric migration claims or does one have to sift thru 20 pages of studies and threads on 10 different websites to tease out that argument, and indirectly at that? I am not saying such conciseness can be done on everything, but there are certain key areas and key issues. U6 and assorted claimed migrations would be one of those. There are a few blogs doing this consolidation and summarization, but we need many more.


8) The ability to summarize and be concise will be essential if you are going to write various authors. They can send back evasive or soothing replies without substance, sandbagging further inquiry. Sets of questions should be delivered where they are encouraged to give detailed answers. If I was to write some of these authors for example I would send them a package of questions, not a single one that could be answered as narrowly as possible, dismissing other important data and implications.