Gość: Egon
IP: *.idzap.com
06.03.02, 05:26
...i udaje, że nie jest jego bratem!
Praca naukowa wykazująca, iż Izraelici i Palestyńczycy
genetycznie są niemalże w 100% identyczni (opublikowana
w Human Immunology, jednym z czołowych pism naukowych),
została ocenzurowana pod wpływem bezpardonowego nacisku
ze strony...;-).
www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4307083,00.html
JOURNAL AXES GENE RESEARCH ON JEWS AND PALESTINIANS
Robin McKie, science editor
The Observer
Sunday November 25, 2001
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.
But the journal, having accepted the paper earlier this
year, now claims the article was politically biased and
was written using 'inappropriate' remarks about the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its editor told the
journal Nature last week that she was threatened by
mass resignations from members if she did not retract
the article.
Arnaiz-Villena says he has not seen a single one of the
accusations made against him, despite being promised
the opportunity to look at the letters sent to the
journal.
He accepts he used terms in the article that laid him
open to criticism. There is one reference to Jewish
'colonists' living in the Gaza strip, and another that
refers to Palestinian people living in 'concentration'
camps.
'Perhaps I should have used the words settlers instead
of colonists, but really, what is the difference?' he
said.
'And clearly, I should have said refugee, not
concentration, camps, but given that I was referring to
settlements outside of Israel - in Syria and Lebanon -
that scarcely makes me anti-Jewish. References to the
history of the region, the ones that are supposed to be
politically offensive, were taken from the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, and other text books.'
In the wake of the journal's actions, and claims of
mass protests about the article, several scientists
have now written to the society to support
Arnaiz-Villena and to protest about their
heavy-handedness.
One of them said: 'If Arnaiz-Villena had found evidence
that Jewish people were genetically very special,
instead of ordinary, you can be sure no one would have
objected to the phrases he used in his article. This is
a very sad business.'
