Dienekes has already commented on this, but I thought I would go over Ewen Callaway's piece, Aboriginal genome analysis comes to grips with ethics. It's not surprising that this was written. Even if you take Keith Windschuttle's position when it comes to Aboriginal-European contact you can't escape the reality that Aboriginals did not fare so well in the interaction. In fact, they don't fare so well today in Australia. The life expectancy gap between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in Australia is most conservatively estimated at 10 years (do remember that the majority of indigenous Australians are mixed-race). In the racialized physical anthropology of the early 20th amongst the colored peoples Aboriginals occupied the lowest circle of hell. Because of the robustness of their physiques it was argued they were the most primitive exemplar of humanity. Perhaps relic H. erectus. Here are some interesting sections of Callaway's article:
...Researchers who work with ...
