GIGO

Genealogy and Genetics

I had a phone-call the other day from a rather indignant reader of the New Zealand Yearbook, annoyed by some of the statements made under the History of Science in New Zealand heading, particularly the sentence that read:

Maori familiarity with genealogy (whakapapa) is evidence of an awareness of genetics.

Now I would be the first to admit pride to having a whakapapa that stretches back 27 generations in this country and beyond, but I would not contend that this demonstrates that my tupuna had an awareness of genetics. There is much more to whakapapa than merely tracing lines of consanguinity, which is about as close to applied genetics as it comes.

Other cultures also have genealogical interests, but one would hardly say that the royal families of Britain or ancient Egypt were thereby demonstrating their knowledge of genetics. Indeed, looking at some of the results, far from it!

There is a certain enthusiasm to want to change history to suit whatever interpretation is currently riding high. In some cases it is appropriate to revisit history and look at it afresh, but one has to be very cautious about the tendency to want to rewrite past tempores to suit current social mores. Science, being a part of our cultural heritage, has as much potential to suffer from this as any other area of knowledge.

Take the recent example of the news item on immunization trials done in the 1950s on Australian orphans. It was not a simple case of unfeeling scientists predating upon unprotected youngsters, but appears to have been a genuinely carefully considered attempt to provide a "social good". One report I read suggested that the orphan group was not over-represented in the sample, merely in the news coverage.

In viewing the issue from our current standpoint, we have the potential to fall into one of two extremes: one where the trials are interpreted as an evil with the "perpetrators" to be condemned out of hand; or one where they are dismissed as merely a product of the cultural context in which they occurred. Each distorts our view of what happened and each has the danger that we fail to learn from such lessons of history.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.