Genealogies

So I watched the DVD African American Lives by Gates.  I really really really enjoyed the film, so much so I watched all four hours all the way through. 

 Anyways, the film follows the lives of 9 different prominent African Americans and their journey in unraveling thier family history and DNA composition.  It was interesting how the experts traced the ancestral backgrounds of all the participants and what their family composition was like. 

Scientists also completed DNA testing on all the participants to determine the “racial” background of all the participants.  It was interesting to see the different reactions they had to their results.  Quincy Jones and Gates for example were shocked to learn about their European background.  Another participant was shocked to learn she had ancestral ties to Asia, while another was disappointed to learn she had no ties to Native Americans. 

One thing I didn’t like about the film was how they conveniently tied in certain stories about certain people.  For instance, investigating Oprah’s family history revealed that there were educators in her family.  The show and Oprah used this fact to indicate that as a reasoning for why Oprah loved education and educators.  I thought this was stretching it, because this same logic can be applied to criminals.  If a couple of criminals exist in a family does that mean members of that family are all now criminals? 

Despite a few problems I had with this film, overall it was pretty good.  It was interesting to see how science was used to explain the past. 

 One thing I kept thinking about during this film was the idea of social constructions.  If things are a result of how we constructed them, then how do we know that what science tells us is true?  How do we know that these DNA results are truth?  Scientific experiments are about repeatability through step by step procedures that tell you to do things a certain way, so if I detract form those instructions are my results just as valid?  These were some of the questions I started to ask myself while watching the film. 

 I know it might sound stupid, but how do we know what we know is real?