Talk:Black Athena

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Since Afroasiatic refers to a language family, not to an ethnicity or culture, some comment about what is meant with "Afroasiatic roots" is needed. Is there any such term as "Orientocentrism", "Levantocentrism" to contrast with Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism? From "Afroasiatic" alone, it is not clear what the thesis has got to do with Afrocentrism, since Afro-Asiatic languages were spoken all over the ANE. dab (ᛏ) 11:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] NPOV Badly Needed

Yow! One or two sentences devoted to the thesis, then a whole series to controversy; little explanation of actual arguments, pseudohistory category. Let's get to work. --Carwil 21:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Need help

This guy wrote three large volumes, he used literally thousands of references.

[edit] criticism

Should we include a criticism section in this page? For example show how he never is able to prove that it was central africans created the modern west. Or how he states specifically in his introduction that he intends to prove a point that has barin gon the civil rights movement? The Isiah 07:03, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

An account of controversy around Bernal's work can certainly appear here. It should of course be expressed in neutral terms (what is here now uses loaded language, and falls down in places when judged by the NPOV policy). Charles Matthews 09:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Ten months since concerns were raised. Any progress on providing substantial content to balance the thinly supported but strongly pressed "conflicting views" section?

Perhaps somebody should send Bernal an e-mail?

SkepticL 23:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't think that's necessary. In order to give readers of all points of view confidence in the article's neutrality, the article structure should simply be as follows: describe the arguments of the three volumes, in order, but not in as much detail as chapter by chapter; then a section "responses" where all scholarly reviews and responses, as well as reviews in the serious press are presented. The responses section can either be in chronological order, or with the favourable views first and the unfavourable ones after. Itsmejudith 17:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad article!

Maybe someone who is not totally against the book (Black Athena) should have written the article. An unbiased opinion is seriously needed. This should be an article about Black Athena not conservative views about the books. since plenty of focus in this article was placed on debunking it, maybe at least some attention can be placed on the supporting arguments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pharmicon (talk • contribs) 13:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I agree with the above comments. Unfortunately, I haven't read Black Athena, so I can't help much there. But I did remove the sentence noting that some obscure conservative group had listed Black Athena as one of the worst books ever written (my cat could write a list of the worst books ever written, but it doesn't mean that list belongs as a source on Wikipedia.) I checked their list, and it also included famous works by Alfred Kinsey and Margaret Meade, among others--not necessarily my favorite books, but both accepted classics in their fields. It made me think the list is politically motivated and not concerned with academic content, so its inclusion here violated Wikipedia's neutrality policy. I also removed the link to the book list at the bottom of the page. The other links point to the debate about the book, and so are more appropriate here because they represent a wide range of opinions about this book.

[edit] A scientific proof of his Thesis!

HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1034/j.1399-0039.2001.057002118.x

3) Greeks are found to have a substantial relatedness to sub-Saharan (Ethiopian) people, which separate them from other Mediterranean groups. Both Greeks and Ethiopians share quasi-specific DRB1 alleles, such as *0305, *0307, *0411, *0413, *0416, *0417, *0420, *1110, *1112, *1304 and *1310. Genetic distances are closer between Greeks and Ethiopian/sub-Saharan groups than to any other Mediterranean group and finally Greeks cluster with Ethiopians/sub-Saharans in both neighbour joining dendrograms and correspondence analyses. The time period when these relationships might have occurred was ancient but uncertain and might be related to the displacement of Egyptian-Ethiopian people living in pharaonic Egypt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.204.70 (talk) 09:05, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't celebrate just yet. Arnaiz-Villena's study has been denounced by everybody that's anybody in the field of population genetics for both its flawed methodology and grossly anomalous conclusions -- conclusions that have to date never been duplicated by any other multiple-marker analysis study. Arnaiz-Villena has also been suspended without pay after being charged with embezzling funds from the hospital he works at. Read all about it here. 76.65.183.102 (talk) 06:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Bernal was not writing about the genetic origin of present-day Greek people, so whatever the status of this study it would not constitute a proof of his thesis anyway.Itsmejudith (talk) 09:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)