ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on indigenist critiques of the Human Genome Diversity Project, and on how they illustrate and resist the presence, force, and consequences of value-bifurcation in Western culture. Three concepts are central to author's discussion: value-neutrality, value-bifurcation, and indigenist science criticism. Value-neutrality is a familiar, widely acknowledged thesis about the practice and ideology of Western science, especially in its positivist and neo-positivist formations. Value-neutrality is buttressed by the long-standing Western philosophic practice of value-bifurcation, which sharply distinguishes ethics from politics. The history of the encounter of Western science and indigenous peoples has been devastating, and it is being updated, reproduced, daily. Whatever medical applications do result are likely to benefit those who can afford expensive pharmaceuticals and genetic therapy tests.
