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Comment by paul_funyun | Hacker News Reader

When they passed laws that put tribal myths on the same level as western science. Found a 10,000 year old skeleton? Sorry, the Lakota-Sioux say he's an ancestor and you're racist if you want to test DNA to confirm (not that DNA could ever show tribal membership). If you pay big bucks they'll let you test, but the right to do anything with the results will depend on the tribe's assessment of your results. Repatriation laws as they exist are cancer.

Of course, tenured academics have strong incentive to support the paradigm that doesn't require any real work, so there's that.

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The thing is, the context of such arguments may be an attempt by some pipeline-laying, mining or real-estate company to put their hands on ancestral native american lands. A lot of incentive to claim "we science-d it up and it's all fine and we can take your land."

I don't buy the argument that, because these other people might abuse the science for political or commercial ends, therefore it's ok for some other people to abuse the science for their own ends. Let's just fight abuse of the science.

I don't buy the way you're constructing your argument! You're saying that both party A and party B wants to "abuse the science for political or commercial ends". But the political ends of party B is to prevent the destruction of their native lands, including the historical artifacts within that land, by party A. One of these is defensive, only abusing the system to prevent destructive abuse, and one is offensive.

>Let's just fight abuse of the science.

We'd all love this, I think. But what about before that? I don't think it's in our interests to not use the rules to our advantage before a new ruleset (that's non-abusive) has been put in place.

I think there's an argument there when it comes to archaeological finds that are identifiably associated with a particular modern cultural group. There's a matter of scale though. 10,000 year old finds, sorry I don't see the argument. The australopithecine finds in Africa are also tribal ancestors.

That's not the argument. The argument is that what might be presented to you as inappropriate conduct by native-american tribes may be mis-represented, or taken out of the context of posturing by interested parties in disputes over land access. So I would treat reports of such stereotypical behavior with more than one grain of salt.

How would testing a skeleton's DNA help a company put their hands on ancestral lands? If a company wants to use the land you throw those bones and artifacts in the trash and never tell.

If you’re open to an exercise in the spirit of intellectual expansion:

Place yourself in the position of an indigenous person who is trying to help decide what the right path is. You don’t recognize the rights of the people asking to come on to your land. You are seeing your community and your way of life continually shoved in to the margins by the systems outside your “borders” and yet while you (now) understand how the capitalistic world works you would be happy to live prosperously off the land not even accepting the concept of money, just as your ancestors did.

Now, from that version of you: argue why your community should agree to the terms. Also: you have an opportunity to change the terms and to change the system that’s sitting at your borders. What changes would you ask for? Which would you stand firm for?

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