{"id":954096,"date":"2021-11-02T14:29:18","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T18:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=954096"},"modified":"2021-11-02T14:29:21","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T18:29:21","slug":"some-forensic-anthropologists-are-urging-their-peers-to-stop-identifying-the-race-of-skeletons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/some-forensic-anthropologists-are-urging-their-peers-to-stop-identifying-the-race-of-skeletons\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Forensic Anthropologists Are Urging Their Peers To Stop Identifying The Race Of Skeletons"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsome-forensic-anthropologists-are-urging-their-peers-to-stop-identifying-the-race-of-skeletons%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=954096&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A group of forensic anthropologists are arguing that trying to identify the racial ancestry of skeletons is based on racial stereotypes and are urging their peers to drop the practice.<\/p>\n<p>The College Fix <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/forensic-anthropologists-urge-scientists-to-stop-saying-skeletons-have-biological-race\/\">reported<\/a> that forensic anthropologists typically try to identify the age, sex, height, and racial ancestry of human remains, but a small group of scientists are trying to remove race from the list.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe urge all forensic anthropologists to abolish the practice of ancestry estimation,\u201d wrote Elizabeth DiGangi of Binghamton University and Jonathan Bethard of the University of South Florida in <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/ajpa.24212\">a study<\/a> earlier this year. The pair in July <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/1556-4029.14513\">wrote<\/a> a letter to the editor of the Journal of Forensic Sciences further arguing their case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cForensic anthropologists have not fully considered the racist context of the criminal justice system in the United States related to the treatment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; nor have we considered that ancestry estimation might actually hinder identification efforts because of entrenched racial biases,\u201d the authors wrote in their study.<\/p>\n<p>As the Fix noted, the study and the letter to the editor were \u201cwritten following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, which caused many academics to reconsider the racial implications of their professions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In their study, DiGangi and Bethard argued that \u201cAncestry estimation contributes to white supremacy.\u201d The pair said they use Critical Race Theory to \u201ccontinue to situate and contextualize our challenge to the use of macromorphoscopic (hereafter, morphoscopic) traits, as well as introduce critiques of craniometric and dental morphological analysis in ancestry estimation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DiGangi and Bethard\u2019s attempts to get forensic anthropologists to stop identifying skeletons by race has been met with criticism.<\/p>\n<p>San Jose State anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss told the Fix that, \u201cIf forensic anthropologists abandon determining race, then they are going to be doing victims and their families a big disservice and are basically engaging in a dereliction of their duty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s this weird phenomena; they want to place emphasis on the social construction of race (and racism), but want to deny the biological concept of race,\u201d she added. \u201cNevertheless, they would never support making the argument that one can self-determine race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Weiss also said that it was mainly the classification of human remains as White, Black, or Asian that appeared to be the most controversial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo far anthropologists have not been as good at determining the difference between Asians from various regions,\u201d Weiss told the Fix.<\/p>\n<p>Kyra Stull, a forensic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of forensic anthropologists are arguing that trying to identify the racial ancestry of skeletons is based on racial stereotypes and are urging their peers to drop the practice.The College Fix reported that forensic anthropologists typically try to identify the age, sex, height, and racial ancestry of human remains, but a small group of scientists are trying to remove race from the list.\u201cWe urge all forensic anthropologists to abolish the practice of ancestry estimation,\u201d wrote Elizabeth DiGangi of Binghamton University and Jonathan Bethard of the University of South Florida in a study earlier this year. The pair in July wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of Forensic Sciences further arguing their case.\u201cForensic anthropologists have not fully considered the racist context of the criminal justice system in the United States related to the treatment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; nor have we considered that ancestry estimation might actually hinder identification efforts because of entrenched racial biases,\u201d the authors wrote in their study.As the Fix noted, the study and the letter to the editor were \u201cwritten following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, which caused many academics to reconsider the racial implications of their professions.\u201dIn their study, DiGangi and Bethard argued that \u201cAncestry estimation contributes to white supremacy.\u201d The pair said they use Critical Race Theory to \u201ccontinue to situate and contextualize our challenge to the use of macromorphoscopic (hereafter, morphoscopic) traits, as well as introduce critiques of craniometric and dental morphological analysis in ancestry estimation.\u201dDiGangi and Bethard\u2019s attempts to get forensic anthropologists to stop identifying skeletons by race has been met with criticism.San Jose State anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss told the Fix that, \u201cIf forensic anthropologists abandon determining race, then they are going to be doing victims and their families a big disservice and are basically engaging in a dereliction of their duty.\u201d\u201cI think it\u2019s this weird phenomena; they want to place emphasis on the social construction of race (and racism), but want to deny the biological concept of race,\u201d she added. \u201cNevertheless, they would never support making the argument that one can self-determine race.\u201dWeiss also said that it was mainly the classification of human remains as White, Black, or Asian that appeared to be the most controversial.\u201cSo far anthropologists have not been as good at determining the difference between Asians from various regions,\u201d Weiss told the Fix.Kyra Stull, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, also opposed DiGangi and Bethard\u2019s study, writing along with a group of others who pushed back against the duo.\u201cAs part of the medicolegal community seeking justice for the deceased and closure for the living, forensic anthropologists must delicately balance the complicated relationships between population history, social constructs, and legal systems not only in ancestry estimation, but in the totality of the biological profile,\u201d Stull and the group wrote.\u201cSkeletal features can be used to make predictions about probable social race groups because of their correlations to local population distributions,\u201d the critics wrote, adding that, \u201cno empirical data indicate that forensic anthropological ancestry estimates promote racially biased investigative outcomes.\u201dThe Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-954096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}