Veronika Lipphardt

University of Freiburg | Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg · University College Freiburg

Analysis of how papers and databases are handled and interpreted shows that geneticists in Europe must stamp out unethical research practices at home, not just abroad. Analysis of how papers and databases are handled and interpreted shows that geneticists in Europe must stamp out unethical research practices at home, not just abroad.

Argument Moreau (2019) has raised concerns about the use of DNA data obtained from vulnerable populations, such as the Uighurs in China. We discuss another case, situated in Europe and with a research history dating back 100 years: genetic investigations of Roma. In our article, we focus on problems surrounding representativity in these studies. We...

Greater scrutiny and demands for innovation and increased productivity place pressures on scientists. Forensic genetics is advancing at a rapid pace but can only do so responsibly, usefully, and acceptably within ethical and legal boundaries. We argue that such boundaries require that forensic scientists embrace ‘ethics as lived practice’. As a sta...

Moreau (2019) has raised concerns about the usage of DNA data obtained from vulnerable populations, such as the Uighurs in China. We discuss another case, situated in Europe and with a research history dating back 100 years: genetic investigations of Roma. While Moreau is mainly concerned with ethical issues, especially regarding informed consent,...

Since the early 1990s, DNA data has been collected in Roma communities in international collaborations from forensic and medical genetics, yielding 45 forensic genetics publications drawing on DNA data from Roma. No other minority or population group from Europe has received such a high level of attention. This paper examines data collections repre...

Inference of the Biogeographical Ancestry (BGA) of a person or trace relies on three ingredients: (1) a reference database of DNA samples including BGA information; (2) a statistical clustering method; (3) a set of loci which segregate dependent on geographical location, i.e. a set of so-called Ancestry Informative Markers (AIMs). We used the theor...

Inference of the Biogeographical Ancestry (BGA) of a person or trace relies on three ingredients: (1) A reference database of DNA samples including BGA information; (2) a statistical clustering method; (3) a set of loci which segregate dependent on geographical location, i.e. a set of so-called Ancestry Informative Markers (AIMs). We used the theor...

Zusammenfassung Durch eine Gesetzesänderung im Dezember 2019 ist im Rahmen von Strafermittlungsverfahren nunmehr der Einsatz des „Forensic DNA Phenotyping“, d. h. von Technologien zur Vorhersage von Haut-, Haar- und Augenfarbe sowie biologischem Alter, erlaubt. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die Verlässlichkeit, Nützlichkeit und Legitimität von solchen...

Critical Interventions in the Life Sciences – not a Task for the History of Science? This brief paper asks whether historians of science – along with scholars from Science and Technology Studies – should intervene if, in their research, they come across ethically and societally problematic behavior of scientists. I discuss whether and how intervent...

Wasted Chances? The Current Political Debate on DNA Phenotyping and Biogeographical Ancestry Analysis in Criminal Investigation in Germany. This paper discusses diverse understandings of ‘responsible science’ in heated political debates. It takes a current public debate around a German law amendment draft concerning the use of novel forensic geneti...

Ein Essay desGenetikers David Reich, erschienen am 23. März in der New York Times, löste eine heftige internationale Diskussion aus. Der Text mit dem Titel „How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‚Race‘“ (Wie die Genforschung unserVerständnis von„Rasse“ verändert) erntete sowohl Kritik als auch Zustimmung, auf die Reich in einem zweiten Arti...

Tagesspiegel Causa https://causa.tagesspiegel.de/ethik/vom-erbgut-zum-phantombild-ein-noetiger-tabubruch/die-bestimmung-der-biogeographischen-herkunft-eine-voraussetzungsreiche-methode.html

Statement on three current legislative initiatives to expand the use of DNA analyses in criminal investigations (Changes to Article 81 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure [Strafprozessordnung, StPO]), June 2, 2017. 1 We are a multidisciplinary consortium of scholars from the Universities of Freiburg (DE), Newcastle (UK), and Basel (CH), and fr...

Wir sind ein multidisziplinärer Zusammenschluss von Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern der Universitäten Freiburg i. Br., Newcastle (UK), FU Berlin, Basel (CH) und des Universitätsklinikums Freiburg. Im Dezember 2016 haben wir uns in einem Offenen Brief gegen die sofortige, nicht-regulierte Einführung von erweiterten DNA-Analysen in der Fore...

https://stsfreiburg.wordpress.com/english/open-letter/

This article suggests to focus on the history of human variation instead of focussing on the history of race science. It views the latter as a subset of the former, hence views race science as embedded into the larger field of life scientists' investigations into human variation. This paper explores why human variation is such an attractive and pro...

https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/73698/Pro-und-Contra-Analyse-von-DNA-Bereichen-zur-Erstellung-eines-Taeterprofils

http://ejournals.duncker-humblot.de/doi/abs/10.3790/rup.53.2.220

https://www.bioskop-forum.de/files/bioskop_78_03-05.pdf

Die Anwendung von DNA-Technologien in der Ermittlungsarbeit ist weder einfach noch trivial. Wer eine Ausweitung der polizeilichen Möglichkeiten in diesem Bereich fordert, sollte zunächst die Komplexität dieser Ermittlungsinstrumente zur Kenntnis nehmen: Sie birgt rechtliche, ethische und soziale Risiken, die jeden einzelnen Bürger treffen können. D...

Images are at the heart of strategies of persuasion. They render certain aspects visible and leave others unrepresented; and they may shape processes of scientific reasoning and imagination. By tracing diagrammatic images in the anthropological sciences throughout the 20th century, the contributions to this special issue highlight some dominant pic...

This article gives an overview of the visual culture shared by a number of scientists studying human variation in the first half of the 20th century. This was a time when most scientists shared the conceptual and terminological framework of ‘racial classifications’ to capture the structure of human variation. Clearly, drawings – and later photograp...

After WWII, physical anthropologists and human geneticists struggled hard to demonstrate distance from ‘racial science’ and ‘eugenics’. This was a crucial factor in the ‘revolution’ of physical anthropology in the 1950s, as contemporary accounts referred to it. My paper examines the apparent turn during this period from anthropometric measurements...

Als Vertreterin einer exakten Wissenschaft nahm Elisabeth Schiemann in den 1930er Jahren auch Stellung zu Begriffen wie " Rasse " und " Bastard " , die in der zeitgenössischen experimentellen Genetik und Züchtungsforschung Verwendung fanden und den Nazis zur Rechtfertigung ihrer ver-brecherischen " Rassenpolitik " dienten. Selten äußerte sich ein/e...

Historians have drawn a line between scientific racism, exemplified in the typological approach of German race scientists, and population-based approaches toward races or human genetic diversity. The postwar time is often understood as a watershed in this respect. My argument is that typological and population-based race concepts cannot be so easil...

In 1953, geneticist Leslie Clarence Dunn approached the Jewish community of Rome for a genetic study. The community seemed to be an appropriate object for a genetic study because it had allegedly been an ‘isolated population’ since antiquity. His son, a cultural anthropologist, employed sociological methods to harden this assumption. After the team...

Europe has often been imagined as the cradle of modern science and knowledge production. It is therefore not surprising that in the context of the European Union and its research agenda, the notion of a knowledge-based society has become a central focus. In fact, infusing knowledge production with Europeanness, on the one hand, and basing notions o...

This text was published in Hans-Walter Schmuhl, Kulturrelativismus und Antirassismus. Der Anthropologe Franz Boas, transcript Bielefeld, 2008. It is posted here by permission of transcript Verlag for personal use only, not for redistribution.

Taking the example of research on biological diversity in the 20th century, this article analyzes the social practices that are entailed in the emergence, stabilization, and circulation of scientific knowledge. It stresses that scientific knowledge also depends on processes of recognition and that very often a special aura is constructed that goes...

Taking the example of research on biological diversity in the 20th century, this article analyzes the social practices that are entailed in the emergence, stabilization, and circulation of scientific knowledge. It stresses that scientific knowledge also depends on processes of recognition and that very often a special aura is constructed that goes...

CantorGeoffrey and SwetlitzMarc (eds.), Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. Pp. xii+260. ISBN 0-226-09276-3. $60.00, £38.00 (hardback). ISBN 0-226-09277-1. $24.00, £15.00 (paperback). - Volume 41 Issue 2 - Veronika Lipphardt

Taking the example of research on biological diversity in the 20th century, this article analyzes the social practices that are entailed in the emergence, stabilization, and circulation of scientific knowledge. It stresses that scientific knowledge also depends on processes of recognition and that very often a special aura is constructed that goes...

The full text is available through HU Berlin: https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/20104

This paper brings together thinking from the history of science, science and tech- nology studies and social/cultural anthropology to better understand how human diversity is handled in everyday practices in science and beyond. Our aim is to take the social and historical contingency of practice as a starting point and to focus on the patterning of...

… had a properly formulated discussion of the course program for education courses at the University of Potsdam (UP) and the student teaching program pertaining to it. After receiving the blessing of the Ministry, these henceforth constitute the core of the Potsdam model of teacher training (PML). The genesis of this set of guidelines, binding on s...

"Die These, die 'Natur der Gesellschaft' sei ein soziales Konstrukt, stößt im Rahmen der deutschen Sozialwissenschaften weitestgehend auf Zustimmung. Diese These ermöglicht einerseits, Essentialisierungen und Naturalisierungen in den Blick zu nehmen und einer kritischen sozialen und ethischen Bewertung zuzuführen. Andererseits entzieht sie jedoch d...