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Antonio Arnaiz-Villena is a Spanish immunologist noted for his research into the genetic history of ethnic groups and fringe linguistic hypotheses. Arnaiz-Villena is head of immunology at the Hospital Doce de Octubre in Madrid and was president of Spain's National Society of Immunology from 1991 to 1995. He has written more than 300 papers in immunology and human and bird population genetics and 8 books in immunology and linguistics .

Ethnicity research

Jews and Palestinians

Arnaiz-Villena's research was internationally reported following the publication of a paper on the genetic history of Jews and Palestinians, in the journal Human Immunology. This became controversial because of its assertions about the origins of the Palestine/Israeli conflict. Following strong criticism, it was withdrawn from the journal and deleted from the scientific archive. Also, academics who had already received a copy of the journal were urged to "physically remove" the pages with the article, in a move that had no precedent in research publishing. The comments about Arab-Israeli conflicts were described as "extreme political writing", which included claims that Palestinians lived in "concentration camps". Arnaiz-Villena was removed from the journal's editorial board. The decision was met with opposition from several academics. Andrew Goffey, a Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University, England, observing that "it was conceded that the article had not been removed on the basis of its scientific evidence," failed to find anything offensive in the paper. Several scientists wrote to the publishers to support Arnaiz-Villena and to protest about their heavy-handedness. One of them said: "If Arnaiz-Villena had found evidence that Jewish people were genetically very special, instead of ordinary, you can be sure no one would have objected to the phrases he used in his article. This is a very sad business."

Greeks and Macedonians

A paper on the genetic relationship between Greeks and ethnic Macedonians had concluded that "Greeks are found to have a substantial relatedness to sub-Saharan (Ethiopian and West African) people , which separate them from other Mediterranean groups." The conclusions of the paper were related to the "Black Athena" debate and became embroiled in disputes between Greek and ethnic Macedonian nationalists. Shortly after this, three respected geneticists, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Alberto Piazza and Neil Risch, argued that the scientific limitations of Arnaiz-Villena's methodology. They stated that "Using results from the analysis of a single marker, particularly one likely to have undergone selection, for the purpose of reconstructing genealogies is unreliable and unacceptable practice in population genetics.", making specific allusion to the findings on Greeks (among others) as "anomalous results, which contradict history, geography, anthropology and all prior population-genetic studies of these groups."

Arnaiz-Villena et al. countered this criticism in a response, stating "single-locus studies, whether using HLA or other markers, are common in this field and are regularly published in the specialist literature" .

Other authors contradict Arnaiz-Villena's results. In The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton, 1994), Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza grouped Greeks with other European and Mediterranean populations based on 120 loci (view MDS plot). Then, Ayub et al. 2003 did the same thing using 182 loci (view dendrogram).. Another study was conducted in 2004 at Skopje's University of Ss. Kiril and Metodij, using high-resolution typing of HLA-DRB1 according to Arnaiz-Villena's methodology. Contrary to Arnaiz-Villena's conclusion, no sub-Saharan admixture was detected in the Greek sample.

However, Dörk et al found a marker in Chromosome 7 that is common to Sub-Saharans and only Greeks among Europeans. Also, the Arnaiz-Villena study was confirmed with the same HLA (Chromosome 6) markers by Hajjek et al.

Meso-Americans

Arnaiz-Villena also co-authored a paper on the origins of Mesoamerican populations, which made claims concerning multi-ethnic origins of pre-Columbian populations in the area. The paper argued that the peopling of the Americas "was probably more complex than postulated by Greenberg and others (three peopling waves)", but noted that "Meso and South American Amerindians tend to remain isolated in the Neighbor-Joining, correspondence and plane genetic distance analyses."

Fringe linguistic theories

Arnaiz-Villena and his collaborator Jorge Alonso-Garcia claim to have used Basque to decipher many of the ancient languages of the Mediterranean and Middle East which are known to be unrelated to Basque, including Egyptian, Hittite, Sumerian, Hurrian, Ugaritic, Akkadian/Babylonian, Elamite, and Phoenician, all of which they claim have been misidentified and mistranslated by the world's linguists and epigraphers for a century, qualifying their translations and researches as "sci-fi stories" . Arnaiz-Villena's Egyptian translations, for example, include the cartouche of the bilingual Rosseta Stone in which Champollion identified the name of Ptolemy, which in his version does not include that name, meaning that it is actually Arnaiz-Villena who deserves credit for deciphering the hieroglyphs; the Code of Hammurabi contains "no hint of laws" but is a Basque funerial text; and his purported Basque material proper includes the Iruña-Veleia graffiti, which had been identified as modern forgeries by an official report made by a multidisciplinary team of 26 reputed experts half a year before his decipherment was published. They also claim to be able to read poorly attested languages such as Etruscan, Iberian, Tartessian, Guanche, and Minoan, which no-one else has been able to decipher with any certainty. They posit that these are all part of a "Usko-Mediterranean" branch of the speculative Dene-Caucasian language family, which they extend to include the Berber languages of North Africa. This thesis flatly contradicts basic Egyptological, Sumerian, Semitic, Indo-European, and Mesoamerican scholarship. Phoenician, Akkadian/Babylonian, Ugaritic, and Eblaite, for example, are clearly Semitic languages, whereas Arnaiz-Villena excludes the living Semitic languages from his family; Egyptian along with Berber and Semitic have been demonstrated to be Afro-Asiatic, and generations of linguists have been unable to find a connection with Basque; and Hittite is widely acclaimed as a key in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, which Arnaiz-Villena acknowledges is completely unrelated to Basque.

Few scholars have found it worth their time to refute Arnaiz-Villena's work. De Hoz says that it "lacks the slightest value and is contrary not just to the scientific method but to common sense", and that "it is an unmitigated disaster which in principle should not be reviewed", but that he does so because it was published using public funds by the respected Editorial Complutense, which might give it undeserved credibility, and that this was a "crime" against legitimate research which has gone unpublished for lack of funds. Pichler likewise describes the "decipherment" of the Canary Island inscriptions as "comic", pointing out that Arnaiz-Villena "translated" an inscription of the alphabet as if it formed words (starting with "fire deceased earth prayer" in Basque), and also found it amazing that the university would publish his books. The "Basque" words themselves are dubious, including some that are neologisms and some that are loanwords from Romance languages such as bake (from Latin pace "peace"), which therefore say nothing of ancient Basque connections. Lakarra taking as a sample the list of 32 items entitled "Lenguaje religioso-funerario de los pueblos mediterráneos" afforded by Arnaiz-Villena and Alonso as evidence calculates that the alleged Basque roots proposed by Arnaiz-Villena and Alonso, 85% are faulty or even non-existent invented ad hoc, sometimes "verging on the clumsiest falsification" according to Lakarra's evaluation; while even the remaining 15% is not clear ..

Suspension, accusations and counter-accusations

In 2002, Arnaiz-Villena was suspended without pay from the Hospital Doce de Octubre, after being charged with embezzlement of funds. He was accused of "purchase of products not used in his department's health care activities; purchase of hospital products used in health care activities but in quantities much greater than needed; falsification of statistical data apparently to justify purchases; humiliating treatment of department staff; delay in health care activities; and transfer of department products to the university." Though suspended from the hospital he continued his work at the University. One year later he was reinstated to the hospital because "his basic and Constitutional Human Rights had been broken" according to a three body Court. All accusations were declared invalid (2003). Another three-body Court judgment again declared invalid all the accusations. Arnaiz-Villena was in practice never punished because he belongs only to University staff (Full Professor) and not to the Hospital one. The Public Prosecutor in an unusual thirteen type-written sheets concluded the accusations were not proved and that some of Arnaiz-Villena collaborators were pressured to declare against him. Lastly, The Royal College of Physicians of Madrid carried out an extensive investigation at Arnaiz-Villena's request and concluded that none of the accusations were soundly based.

See also

• Sub-Saharan DNA admixture in Europe
• Vasconic substratum hypothesis

External links

• British Medical Journal: Pitfalls of Editorial Miscommunication

References

1. http://scholar.google.es/scholar?q=Arnaiz-Villena&hl=es&btnG=Buscar&lr=
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
3. http://books.google.com/books?q=Arnaiz-Villena&btnG=Buscar+libros&hl=es
4. Robin McKie (25 November 2001). "Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians". The Observer. The Guardian.
5. Andrew Goffey, Mercenary molecules: immunology and the holy war. Mediactive, 1 July 2003.
6. A. Arnaiz-Villena , E. Gomez-Casado , J. Martinez-Laso (2002). Population genetic relationships between Mediterranean populations determined by HLA allele distribution and a historic perspective. Tissue Antigens Volume 60 Issue 2, Pages 111 - 121
7. PubMed, HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks.
8. Diana Muir & Paul S. Apelbaum: The Gene Wars, Azure, Winter 5767, 2007, NO. 27
9. Nature
10. Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, Eduardo Gomez-Casado,& Jorge Martinez-Laso (2002). Single-locus studies. Nature 416, 677 (18 April 2002) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v416/n6882/full/416677c.html
11. MDS plot
12. Ayub; et al. (2003 Nov). "Reconstruction of human evolutionary tree using polymorphic autosomal microsatellites". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 122 (3): 259–68. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
13. dendrogram
14. High-resolution typing of HLA-DRB1 locus in the Macedonian population
15. High-resolution typing of HLA-DRB1 locus in the Macedonian population
16. Dörk et al Evidence for a Common Ethnic Origin of Cystic Fibrosis Mutation 3120+1G→A in Diverse Populations American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 63, Issue 2, August 1998 , retrieved 08 November 2009
17. European Journal of Medical Genetics (2006), Vol 49, p. 43,
18. Arnaiz-Villena A, Vargas-Alarcon G, Granados J, Gomez-Casado E, Longas J, Gonzales-Hevilla M, Zuniga J, Salgado N, Hernandez-Pacheco G, Guillen J, Martinez-Laso J.; HLA genes in Mexican Mazatecans, the peopling of the Americas and the uniqueness of Amerindians.
19. See for instance the chapter "Cuentos de ciencia ficción" in Alonso and Arnaiz Egipcios, bereberes, guanches y vascos (Madrid, 2000). While they claim that Egyptian studies (Arnaiz & Alonso 2000, p. 443) "sigue anclados en un esoterismo descarnado alimentando toda clase de cuentos de ciencia ficción", while they repeat same phrase this time on Mesopotamian and Hittite studies in Alonso and Arnaiz "Caucásicos, turcos, mesopotámicos y vascos" Madrid 2001, p. 355
20. In the accepted translation, the cartouche in question reads "King Ptolemy, living forever, beloved of Ptah" which, according to Arnaiz-Villena, must instead be translated as "cremation-one-if-death-prayer-fire-brotherhood-deceased-sinners-if" in Basque. Arnaiz Villena, Antonio (2007): Lectura de la lengua ibérica
21. "no hay asomo de leyes en el llamado código. La temática es también funeraria y religiosa. Hammurabi se transcribe en vasco AMA-UR-API ("tumba en las aguas de la madre") —Caucásicos, turcos, mesopotámicos y vascos p. 178 and chapter 4d named "El titulado código de Hammurabi (AMA-UR-ABI) y otras "leyes"" pp. 253-265
22. Acta de la reunión de la comisión científico-asesora de Iruña/Veleia, despite some isolated attempts to vindicate the Basque words of the inscriptions made by other persons .
23. Antonio Arnaiz Villena: Los graffiti en euskera de Iruña Oka y la cultura usko-mediterranea
24. [http://chopo.pntic.mec.es/~biolmol/publicaciones/Usko.pdf
25. Arnaiz-Villena et al, The correlation between languages and genes: the Usko-Mediterranean peoples
26. Prehistoric Iberia, Antonio Arnaiz-Villena et al., 2000
27. Caucásicos, turcos, mesopotámicos y vascos‎, Antonio Arnáiz Villena et al., 2001
28. Egipcios, bereberes, guanches y vascos‎, Antonio Arnáiz Villena et al., 2003
29. De Hoz Bravo (1999). "Viaje a ninguna parte a través del Mediterráneo. Las lenguas que no hablaron ni iberos, ni etruscos, ni cretenses". Revista de Libros. es un desastre sin paliativos que en principio no debería ser reseñado carente del más mínimo valor y a contrapelo no ya de la metodología científica más elemental sino del simple sentido común.
30. W. Pichler (2005) "The Libyco-Berber inscriptions of the Canary Islands—misused as a playground for specialists and amateurs", in La Lettre de l’AARS 28:4-5.
31. Joseba Lakarra Andrinua (2001) "El vascuence en Europa", in V.M. Amado y De Pablo, S. (eds) Los vascos y Europa, Gasteiz, 75-121; (2006) "Protovasco, munda y otros: reconstrucción interna y tipología holística diacrónica", Oihenart 21 2006, 229-322. "De ello se deduce que el 85% de las formas vascas (supuestos cognados) son inservibles a efectos comparativos cuando no rozan la falsificación más burda; y no se piense que al menos las comparaciones basadas en el 15% restante son oro de auténtica ley"..."habría seguramente mucho que decir"..."sobre la antigüedad y orígenes de varios de ellos" page 245, footnote 29
32. Xavier Bosch (March 23, 2002). "Controversial immunologist faces court case". British Medical Journal. 324 (7339): 695.
33. Sentence 184, TSJ Madrid, February 19th, Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Madrid
34. Sentence TSJ, Madrid, January 10th 2004
35. Colegio de Medicos-Madrid

• Spanish scientists
• Population geneticists