• Saini defines it as: early European settlers in the U.S. filled an empty land with visions of a better society and their superior technology
• what is your definition?
• is exceptionalism a good thing because it gives us unity and a sense of pride?
• only if we don't leave people out
• we don't want to abandon the American dream
• do we all need broader ideas of what makes us who we are
  
• some anthropologists have even tried to argue that native American technology came from prehistoric contact with Europe
• how do we think about small groups of scientists with ideas widely rejected by other scientists?
• they aren't playing by the rules of science that make knowledge a community enterprise

What about the Native American world view?

• they believe they have always been in this land, not migrated from elsewhere
• research not only threatens that but also brings up memories of disrespect and robbing of graves by European anthropologists and collectors
• White archeologists claimed that the very old Kenwick Man skeleton looked more European than like Native Americans
• Native Americans claimed him as theirs and deserving a decent re-burial according to their customs rather than to be used for research
• A judge ruled that research could continue because the skeleton was not related to native tribes, but then DNA research showed that it was
• he was most closely related to the tribe that had originally claimed him as an ancestor, and they re-buried him

Scientists have hoped that science could teach people to abandon "racial" hatreds, but it hasn't worked that way

• politicians pick the science that suits them, ignoring other evidence
  
• often this is work by marginal scientists who are glad to get support
• science and archeological evidence are powerful because people use them to feel morally justified in harming others
• nationalism is powerful because people like being told they are special rather than ordinary
• what are advantages and dangers of patriotism, and how does it relate to nationalism