I hesitate about sending this because it may be off-topic. The
discussion (whether scientific work is being suppressed because the
conclusions are politically undesirable) is important and relevant.
What I question is whether the Human Immunology controversy is an
example of this.
Richard Hake wrote
RHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRH
"The evidence I've found on the internet (too complex for your young
minds to comprehend) strongly suggests that a scientifically accurate
article was pulled from a peer-reviewed journal because its conclusions
were politically undesirable."
RHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRH
When I read this statement of Richard Hake's, I get the impression that
he believes that the Human Immunology article was pulled because its
"scientifically-based conclusions" were politically undesirable. As I
mentioned before, it isn't clear to me that this was indeed the case.
After reading the article <http://tinyurl.com/pkz9w> and a summary of
the issue <http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/326/7401/1262>,
it appears to me that the article was NOT pulled because the
**scientifically-based conclusions** (i.e., that Jews and Palestinians
are closely related and that a massive immigration of Palestinians from
Crete probably did not occur) were politically undesirable.
Rather, it seems that the **language** used, particularly in the
introduction, reflected a bias that was politically undesirable.
Maybe that is just my own biased viewpoint, though. ;)
Whether such inappropriate wording warranted such a response from the
journal editors is another matter.
P.S. Much of what the authors write is based upon the unsupported
contention that modern-day Palestinians are uniformly descended from the
ancient Philistines. Perhaps this is a reflection of the politically
undesirable bias?
____________________________________________________
Robert Cohen, Chair, Department of Physics
East Stroudsburg University; E. Stroudsburg, PA 18301
570-422-3428; www.esu.edu/~bbq