LewDan -

Yeah, I wasn't really equating the 9/11 controversy, but just pointed it out because it is what got me thinking about the whole issue.

More later, gotta run now...

-CW

As to protesting housing unidentified remains in a museum? That is clearly ignorance and prejudice, not a legitimate ethical dilemma. Museums are uniquely suited to maintain and preserve remains. No other institution exists for the purpose of preserving remains. Families of victims as yet unidentified have as much right to closure and possession of their loved ones remains as those who've already received them.

This is just another example of the hostile to science, pro conspiracy theory, paranoid of government, perpetual professional victim portion of the population.

As to your question Chris, people donate bodies and body parts of themselves and close relatives to science all the time, for use in both medical experimentation and corrective surgeries. Many find using remains to enlighten and benefit others to be honoring them. Believing that the deceased would choose to continue to be of benefit to their society even in death and that the additional respect and gratitude earned for doing so IS honor. I see no reason why respectful exhumation and examination of remains hundreds and thousands of years old should automatically be derided as "grave robbing."

--To the consternation of all, I agree with everyone else above.

"Stuart? Don't agree with me. It just makes me doubt myself..."
-Michael Flaherty, SPIN CITY

:D

Michale

I just read article that the have located the remains of Columbus' Flag Ship, the SANTA MARIA.. It's likely that there are human remains there..

So, what do you do??

As much as it will probably pain DSWS to hear, my attitude is the same as his.. A body is a body is a body. Sure, at death, at a funeral, treat it with respect. It's worm food..

If remains can be used to further human knowledge, why not??

Always love your non-political commentaries, CW... :D

Michale

During a funeral, sure, de mortui nil nisi bunkum. During living memory, sure, go the extra mile to respect the feelings of family of the deceased. Even during indirect memory, when someone knows that their grandfather told about his grandfather who fought in the Civil War, there's justification for some consideration to the living descendants. Beyond such memory, if it were up to me, I would pretty much give carte blanche. Don't feel the need for any special respect to my ancestors in Plymouth Colony*. Dig 'em up, same as you would with Lucy.

I recognize that my attitude is probably in the minority, and I don't expect to have it prevail. My say-so is not special on this.

So I suggest that beyond the boundaries of living memory, we should consider recognizing a somewhat vague boundary in the range of five hundred to a thousand years. That's long enough ago that if someone who lived then has any living descendants at all, then it's likely that pretty much everyone now alive is also their descendants. So the person doing the studying has as much right as anyone else to say whether the studying should be done.

If a population is more or less stable, a typical individual has two children, four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and so on -- except that after a few generations, some of those are being double-counted. Setting aside the double counting for a moment, after ten generations the typical individual has two to the tenth descendants (1024 -- a k of them); after twenty generations, a meg; after thirty generations, a gig. After thirty-three generations, it's at eight gig, or 8,589,934,592. That's more than the number of people in the world. So beyond that point, the double-counting has to account for the overwhelming majority of lines of descent.

There are reasons why the threshold of universal common ancestry of humans might be more recent or less recent: Some people had twelve kids all survive, while many others had none, so the threshold may be more recent. On the other hand, mixing is slowed by geographical separation, so the threshold may be more distant. Beyond a thousand years, my guess is that the mixing is pretty complete.

*I don't have any ancestors who came over on the Mayflower, as far as I know. But I think I'm descended from someone who came over on the second boat-load.