3 ms·

I find that whole statement in the article totally unnecessary, especially from someone calling themselves science mag. To be honest I found the actual report

I find that whole statement in the article totally unnecessary, especially from someone calling themselves science mag. To be honest I found the actual report from the original study to be far more enlightening. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20682-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20682-3 From their discussion section >Our study provides a rare opportunity to link the LP status of specific ancient individuals with direct evidence for their consumption of milk, drawing on combined palaeoproteomic and archaeogenetic investigations. This research clearly demonstrates that ancient African individuals who do not appear to have had a genetic adaptation enabling lactose digestion were nonetheless drinking milk. As noted, not all individuals or populations who drink milk have LP, and ancient dairy consumption may have been enabled by fermentation practices10,11 or gut microflora12, as is suggested for populations today. That's actually pretty awesome. Yet the news article wipes it away with a snide comment about white supremacy. Why not explain how Africans seemingly adapted to drinking milk in ways that were different to Europeans? Why not talk about the possibilities this opens into more research and just how adaptable the human body really is? It turns what's actually a pretty amazing discovery into some political baiting nonsense and I really dislike how that kind of thing is creeping it's way even into scientific reporting.

mc32 6y ago
I don’t know. The media today is prone to stirring things up just because they can. I think it does a disservice to society to latch on to a boogeything without evidence or when evidence is disputed. All hacks are Russia or North Korea. Rigor and science (in some examples) perpetuate racism, etc. but it DOES generate clicks, that’s for sure.
bsanr 6y ago
Because, unfortunately, lactase persistence has been turned into a white supremacist talking point, as proof of a purported fundamental genetic separation between black Africans and white Europeans. It's become necessary to explicitly distance oneself from such ideologies, as people who subscribe to them become more overt in their bigotry and, in so doing, threaten to upset the social stability that makes research like this possible to conduct and disseminate. IMO the statement doesn't undercut the points expressed in the discussion section. I don't understand the kneejerk oversensitivity to it among people who ostensibly are able to read these types of articles critically and dispassionately. It's also worth mentioning that certain ethnic groups in East Africa feature hereditary lactase persistence (via a different SNP from European and Asian LP groups).
- grawprog 6y ago
  >I don't understand the kneejerk oversensitivity to it among people who ostensibly are able to read these types of articles critically and dispassionately. Because I expect reporting on scientific reports and journal articles to be critical and dispassionate. I expect it to report the methods, results and discussion from the original paper and summarize it in a succinct easy to understand way, not inject political statements referencing the nonsense rantings of idiots on the internet that have no business being in a report about a discovery in which the authors themselves completely refrain from referencing any such thing. There's plenty of ways they could have brought those 'theories' into the discussion, had they chosen, without ridiculous emotionally driven, inflammatory language. For the same reason why posting '$Topic is just white supremacy' Is not an acceptable HN comment. It adds literally nothing to the discussion and incites emotionally driven thinking.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bsanr 6y ago
    That's simply your white fragility speaking. For those with experience speaking on the subject, it is simply another (rather crucial) aspect of the science as it applies to our contemporary society. The article was sufficiently neutral; your hysteria is the only issue. Food is politics. Until we're back to scavenging from the nutrient-supporting biome in our immediate vicinity - as long as diet is subject to policy and public sentiment - what is and isn't available to eat and how it interacts with our bodies is inherently both scientific and political, and both deserve mention at points of intersection like this.
- chucksta 6y ago
  Its going to be really unfortunate for society when white supremacists start talking about how much they like air and water

mc32 6y ago

I don’t know. The media today is prone to stirring things up just because they can. I think it does a disservice to society to latch on to a boogeything without evidence or when evidence is disputed. All hacks are Russia or North Korea. Rigor and science (in some examples) perpetuate racism, etc. but it DOES generate clicks, that’s for sure.

bsanr 6y ago

Because, unfortunately, lactase persistence has been turned into a white supremacist talking point, as proof of a purported fundamental genetic separation between black Africans and white Europeans. It's become necessary to explicitly distance oneself from such ideologies, as people who subscribe to them become more overt in their bigotry and, in so doing, threaten to upset the social stability that makes research like this possible to conduct and disseminate. IMO the statement doesn't undercut the points expressed in the discussion section. I don't understand the kneejerk oversensitivity to it among people who ostensibly are able to read these types of articles critically and dispassionately. It's also worth mentioning that certain ethnic groups in East Africa feature hereditary lactase persistence (via a different SNP from European and Asian LP groups).

grawprog 6y ago
>I don't understand the kneejerk oversensitivity to it among people who ostensibly are able to read these types of articles critically and dispassionately. Because I expect reporting on scientific reports and journal articles to be critical and dispassionate. I expect it to report the methods, results and discussion from the original paper and summarize it in a succinct easy to understand way, not inject political statements referencing the nonsense rantings of idiots on the internet that have no business being in a report about a discovery in which the authors themselves completely refrain from referencing any such thing. There's plenty of ways they could have brought those 'theories' into the discussion, had they chosen, without ridiculous emotionally driven, inflammatory language. For the same reason why posting '$Topic is just white supremacy' Is not an acceptable HN comment. It adds literally nothing to the discussion and incites emotionally driven thinking.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bsanr 6y ago
  That's simply your white fragility speaking. For those with experience speaking on the subject, it is simply another (rather crucial) aspect of the science as it applies to our contemporary society. The article was sufficiently neutral; your hysteria is the only issue. Food is politics. Until we're back to scavenging from the nutrient-supporting biome in our immediate vicinity - as long as diet is subject to policy and public sentiment - what is and isn't available to eat and how it interacts with our bodies is inherently both scientific and political, and both deserve mention at points of intersection like this.
chucksta 6y ago
Its going to be really unfortunate for society when white supremacists start talking about how much they like air and water