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Originally Posted by DSTRen13
I did not see this particular special. So I don't know exactly what it claimed. But the problem with many things of this nature is simply that it isn't good science to claim that you can tell racial heritage through DNA testing. Good TV, maybe, but not good science. "Race" is not science - it's sociology. When the two start getting too mixed together (not that I believe they are ever truly separated, but it should at least be a goal), then things turn out very, very badly. JMO.
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Originally Posted by Sista
I saw that show and I don't remember Whoopi 's situation but I am sure if her situation is what you say it was, I would have remembered.
Any how, if one is to test for African Ancestry, that test is different from any Native American or European DNA test, they are all separate so if Whoopi asked to be tested for her European ancestry, that is the test she would have been given. Another thing is this, depending on the test center they used, different testing centers have more or less African DNA. The test center they used just may have been one of those places that didn't yet acquire blood results from the Africans whoopi came from.
Any way, this is just something to think about, those kinds of shows are rigged and one has to be very careful not to believe everything they see on Television. It is not a secret that Whoopi only dates and marries white men, that part of the show could have been fixed in order to promote some type of propaganda. Who knows? Not that looks really say anything but I know this though, Whoopi look mo' African than me
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I wasn't precluding that race is a "science" and I'm well aware that it is a sociological construction. I used the term race because it was the term floating around in the thread. So to clarify, according the the special, Henry Louis Gates Jr., a well known author and Harvard University professor, compared the DNA a group of well know celebrities against the DNA of a subsection of the WORLD'S population (the basis of the comparison is that currently there is a "file" of the DNA of the world's people that has been compiled since the advent of genetics/DNA testing). The DNA, or rather the portion of a person's DNA that has been shown to related to
ethnicity/heritage was compared to the "samples" that were currently housed and given the volunteers as a possible window of their culturo-historical roots.
And Sista, I do remember the special-very well in fact-and Whoopi was indeed surprised/shocked/unprepared for the results of her comparison. And while I do recognize that no test is fail proof, motivations, etc. I do lend a measure of validity to research and "testing" completed by HLG, supported by Harvard University, and presented via PBS. But that's just me. If it was that great television, it would have been broadcasted on other stations besides PBS
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