Re: This used to be on disease and immunity
Eric Brunner (brunner@mandrake.think.com)
22 Jul 1996 21:27:58 GMT
Gerold Firl (geroldf@sdd.hp.com) wrote:
: In article <4socl0$44k@bone.think.com>, brunner@mandrake.think.com (Eric Brunner) writes:
: |> Gerold Firl (geroldf@sdd.hp.com) wrote:
: |> ...
: |> : Translation: you know full well that _red earth, white lies_ is
: |> : chock-full of nonsense, errors, and transparent blunders, but as long as
: |> ...
: |> Umm, last time there was a RE/WL thread I couldn't find a single person in
: |> all of the x-posted news groups, other than myself, who actually went to the
: |> bother to read the work. Before continuing this, is it too much to ask if
: |> anyone has read the work in question?
: Excerpts were posted, sufficient to show that there is no point to
: reading it,
I see.
: unless one wanted to catalog some amazingly bogus claims.
: Personally, I was embarrassed to see vine deloria touted as a "major
: spokesman" for native americans - ouch. If a crackpot like deloria is
: your spokesman, you've got troubles.
Wrong tribe.
: Deloria claimed to have identified amerindian myths and oral tradition
: which described the "red, shaggy fur" of the stegosaurus; evidence that
: biological evolution and scientific archeology were all wrong. The man
: is a crackpot and a loony, but you can't admit that, though you have no
: problem using the most vitriolic criticism against Others.
You are using whom, Ted Hodden (or whatever is the "Society for
Interdisiplinary Studies") for a pre-reader? You are offering as the
digester of context (in the context of oral history post-Conquest) a
ethnographer or a SIS "enlightened being"? You do see the problem of
actually _reading_ a Indian writing anything -- let alone one making
an attempt to understand Contact-surviving textual fragments, neh?
As for a critique of scientism (garden variety "biological evolution")
or the New Archaeology (processualism, but also pre-PoMo Americanist
Anthropology generally), nearly any Indian who can throw a rock can
score here, as can Euro-Americans if they care to check their surroundings.
Why in heaven's name are you capitalizing "others"?
: |> : To get back to the issue, you claim that humans have not made any
: |> : biological adaptations in the "post-holocene" time frame; anyone with
: |> None of relevance to the subject, Contact Period demographics and their
: |> causal mechanisms.
: How do you explain the fact that the haida tribe show a frequency of
: 50% for HLA-B27? Among japanese the frequency is more like 1%, while
: among europeans it's found in about 8%.
Umm, the relationship to Contact Period demographics and their causal
mechanisms is what?
: Do you claim that the extremely
: high frequency observed among the haida is the result of natural
: selection? Would that be pre- or post-contact selection? Or is it a
: founder-effect? In any case, the genetics of the amerindian immune
: system looks very different from old world populations. And yet, you
: deny that this is indicative of differential genetic resistance - why?
Absence of cause and effect.
: |> : MB Williams informs me that she has some background in evolutionary
: |> : biology; maybe she can explain it to you.
: |> Some? A student of Doug Charles just has "some background" in that area?
: |> Some one is offering understatement.
: Sarcasm, actually.
I think you actually got that part correct. Check with the author though.
--
Kitakitamatsinohpowaw,
Eric Brunner
|