My colleague, geneticist Ken Kidd,
wrote
in last month to complain about my
criticisms
of the Human Genome Diversity
Project.
Let me clarify.
Nobody can pin on me any opposition to
the
idea of establishing a genetic database
on
human variation. The issue in particular
is
how it is to be carried out: whether it is to
be
done in the light of anthropological
knowledge,
or in spite of anthropological
knowledge.
The original proposal for the
project
(Genome 11:490, 1991) was written
by
Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Allan Wilson,
Charles
Cantor, Robert Cook-Deegan and
Mary-Claire
King. Of those, at least Allan
Wilson
knew an anthropologist. The origi-
nal
write-up in Science (252:1614, 1991)
did
not suggest any anthropological guid-
ance
or input, except to quote Ken Weiss to
the
effect it was a good idea.
And it is. But it had some design flaws.
After the HGDP had begun to roll, now
with
some anthropologists involved, some
other
anthropologists (myself included)
began
to express our concerns about several
statements,
attitudes and assumptions that
were
being intimately associated with the
HGDP
in the primary and derivative litera-
ture.
When the advocates of the HGDP pro-
claim
in the primary literature that Euro-
peans
are genetically 65% Chinese and
35%
African (Proc Natl Acad Sci, 88:839,
1991),
and this is repeated in the popular
literature
promoting the HGDP (Time, Jan-
uaD
i 6, 1995), anthropologists will natural-
ly
perceive a nested series of conceptual
problems.
Alas, it is a brutal fact that the
universe
of people who have opinions about
anthropological
matters is considerably
larger
than the universe of anthropologists.
It
is an equally brutal fact, however, that
whatever
else he is, or may consider him-
self
to be, Kidd is a coauthor of that article.
And
if that is the science the HGDP rcprc-
scnts,
it deserves to be rebuffed.
I articulated my criticisms in the AN
(April
1995, p 72). and still feel that if this
project
will do the field of anthropology
credit,
I'm for it. But it looks like a huge
embarrassment
thus far: It is being formu-
lated
in classically archaic terms, and to
paraphrase
Alan Swedlund (New Scientist,
May
29, 1993). it consistently sounds like
21st-century
technology in the service of
19th-century
ideologies.
If the anthropologists now involved can
reform
the project to make it reflect modern
anthropology,
they'll have my blessing.
But that doesn't seem to be happening.
When
Nature
editorialized last year
(September
21, 1995) that the HGDP is
physical
anthropology modernized and
should
be supported at the expense of phys-
ical
anthropology, which is irredeemably
racist,
no spokespeople for the HGDP wrote
in
to correct the record. Where was Kidd
then?
Where were the HGDP anthropologi-
cal
recruits? Is it possible they simply rea-
soncd
that Nature's support was good for
the
HGDP, and that if it happens to come at
the
expense of biological anthropology,
hey,
what the heck?
Their silence was eloquent. Who did
write
in to correct Nature's mischaracteri-
zation
of biological anthropology and the
HGDP?
I did (October 19. 1995). And
shortly
after their original editorial, Nature
itself
somewhat sheepishly noted that "the
HGDP
has insufficiently anticipated the
inevitable
objections to its plans' (October
5,
1995).
In brief, I'm for biological anthropology.
That's
it. When the HGDP is for biological
anthropology,
I'm for the HGDP too.
Jonathan Marks
Yale University