It is entirely possible that Thomas Jefferson had 4 children by Sally Hemings.   Nobody said it was not. But it is not certain-- contrary to the fondest hopes of Mr. FO, the DNA evidence is by no means conclusive in pointing to Thomas Jefferson as the father. There are counter-arguments.   It boils down, as I've said before, to a question of probability. Some historians see a high degree of probability, some a lower degree. To claim it as a proven fact shows the sloppy writing--and sloppy thinking--we've come to expect from Mr. FO--on many topics.

Particularly interesting is the fact that Mr. FO has still, despite being asked multiple times to do so, not deigned to give us any evidence beyond the singular useless bromide " DNA doesn't lie".   Nobody said it did.

As Mousethief has noted, the burden is on the person who makes the assertion--here, that Thomas Jefferson had 4 children by Sally Hemings--to give the proof.   It is not the burden of the reader to convince himself that the other person is correct.

It's true I make no claim to being a professional historian. My claim is much more modest--I'm just a better historian, by far, than Mr. FO. This is indeed no great accomplishment--even Rig, who is beset on every hand by terrible conspiracies, is willing to change his view on an issue and to consider various possible interpretations of information.

This is called learning--a process totally foreign to Mr FO.

It's also interesting that Mr. FO has not found time to tell us whether he makes his living from history or not. Heaven knows that if he does, it's a sad commentary on the profession and a good indication of why the social sciences are held in such low esteem to practitioners of the hard sciences. The social sciences are far too often represented by ideological warriors--Mr FO, to take a completely theoretical example-- who insist in squeezing history into their particular straitjacket, rather than examining all sides of an issue.


To be continued.