fundamentals of eDNA

What really stuck with me from this week’s reading was the section on the Kennewick Man in the TallBear paper. I had never heard of this issue or the debate that surrounds it. Reading the paper, it seemed so logical and clear why indigenous groups were upset. However, when I went to look up more information about it, I found plenty of insensitive, ignorant, or just plain racist and entitled comments. I found professional articles that lamented the loss of the remains to science when they were reburied, and seemed to resent the fact that indigenous groups held up the scientific process in the first place. No mention of gratitude for the tests that were run or the potential detriment to the remains while they were in holding, just grief that the scientists did not have free reign over them. As much as I love the pursuit of knowledge, this belief that science is totally pure, right, and should be entitled to study anything and everything does not sit right with me. Goodness knows how many people and cultures have been steamrolled in the name of knowledge. It is an issue that is often discussed (but likely still not enough) when embarking on fieldwork abroad, and should be equally or more often discussed with reference to our own past as a country. Perhaps these discussions need to be expanded further within the scientific community or shared more with laypeople, but this idea that science is pure and can be isolated from culture is frustrating to me. Navigating the two in concert with each other is certainly difficult at times, but I believe the effort is basic decency.