Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Genographic Project Censorship

Got home last night, switched on my computer, went through my email and later on logged onto Facebook to check out who's 'poking' who. I happen to be a 'fan' of the Genographic Project on Facebook and noticed a post by them about a museum exhibit at the  San Diego Museum of Man that's being set up. I have a special interest in the Genographic Project since I had a DNA test done through the organization.

The Genographic Project tests your DNA for a fee and sends you a report on your 'deep ancestry' based on which Haplogroup you belong to. I'm sure that my DNA results from them were accurate enough, but the report that accompanied my results is based purely on speculation and unproven hypotheses of human migration. For instance, the 'story' of Haplogroup R(I belong to a 'sub-clade' of haplogroup R) is modelled to fit with the Aryan Invasion Theory - a racist 19th century colonial theory with no scientific backing. After doing further research I realised that their reports are highly biased towards a Eurocentric view of human history.

A couple of months ago the Genographic Project aired a program called 'The Human Family Tree'. In this program they sampled the DNA of random people of different ethnicities in the neighborhood of Queens, New York. Of course, their politically correct motto was that we all came from Africa in the very distant past, but I noticed that racial stereotypes were being used to portray people of different ethnicities. A Pakistani taxi driver, Thai waitress and restaurant owner, a Black body builder and a Greek(European) mayor of that neighborhood in Queens were a few of the subjects in that show. If that is not stereotyping then what is?

I posted a comment on their Facebook fan page about their incorrect portrayal of racial stereotypes on that show and mentioned that Spencer Wells(director of the Genographic Project) should just stick to his job as a geneticist and refrain from racial stereotyping. The comment was promptly removed even though it was not in the least bit offensive to anyone.

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