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Genetic Research In The Heart of Amish Country
FrenchyinOntario writes "Insular, inbred communities like the Ashkenazi Jews and Indian tribes can be a bonanza of genetic information for researchers, and the Amish & Mennonite communities in the United States are proving to be fertile ground as well for scientists who want to better understand the nature of genetic diseases and how rare illnesses occur more frequently in such closed-off communities. The Amish, famous for their renunciation of a lot of technology, are embracing a lab that has been built in the centre of their community because their faith teaches them to "help their fellow man", recognizing that helping scientists better understand the genetic causes of diabetes, mental retardation, and some of the rarer diseases in their families, helps themselves as well as others. For a better understanding of the Amish and their approach to technology, Wired magazine ran an excellent story a few years back better illustrating why they are not just mindless kneejerk technophobes."
Of course they are not mindless technophobes. For one thing every member of the sect is given a period in late adolecense where they are to go forth and experience the rest of society before they join the church. This insures that they have made a choice that is at least somewhat informed. They are an interesting group of very deeply religious folk who have very good reasons for believing as they do. Hell one of my favorite vacations was one where I didn't touch an electronic device for an entire week, it was SO much more relaxing than any other vacation I have ever taken that I have to sometimes wonder if I wouldn't be more happy if I were to give it all up and live life in the simpler fashion of the amish.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
If you spent a single year living as Amish people do, then you'd want to come back here, too. They send them out with little education and little support and no friends in the outside world. Of course they are going to come back after a year. They may think they are giving people the choice, but in the end, it's adding to the indoctrination because they come back thinking that they know what it's like outside their little community.
I'm not criticizing the Amish here. I have no doubt that they mean well by doing this, but it is not a fair way to do the comparison.
One of the women who works there lives a couple doors down from me in CT. A bunch of years ago some of the Amish came over to her house to do build an addition, and they basically did it barn-raising style. Cool stuff. This has definitely been going on for 10+ years though.
The Amish are an extremely important cultural group, IMHO. I'd be lost without my computer, but aside from that I consider them a positive example to the rest of us (at least in some respects) where sustainable living is concerned. I've believed for a while now that despite having had some people laugh at them, it may well be that the Amish themselves will have the last laugh once peak oil hits. Their lifestyle also has numerous sociological benefits as well. It's fairly self-evident that the level of communal interaction is higher among less technologically oriented societies, as well as overall levels of apathy being a good deal lower. People from such communities tend to care a great deal more about their fellow man, and on a day to day basis, as well...not just when disaster hits. The rest of human society could learn a lot from them.
I've always always heard it as ah-mish, never the other way.
Or you can just say "Pennsylvania Dutch" and be done with it... *smirk
Not all Pennsylvania Dutch are Amish though. I come from a Pennsylvania Dutch family, and while my great grandparents spoke low-german, and were farmers, my great-grandfather also worked in a commercial dairy for an hourly wage. My great-grandparents was buried in a lutheran church, in York, PA. Amish have much stricter(simpler?) religious convictions, but on the outside, I can see how people confuse the two. My grandfather joined the Navy out of high school, and then went to college, as did most of the males from his community (WWII), and took a government job. He was a member of a lutheran church, and later an alderman of a methodist church for many years. If you met him on the street, you would have no idea, other than he is very careful about how he spends money (not cheap, but thrifty), tends to shun anything more than the basics, and values education over pretty much anything else.
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
So yeah, it's not a good time to buy a new car, but the gears of industry aren't exactly about to come to a screeching halt.
Of course, depending on how rough the transition is, the Amish very well could have a lot to teach us.
The main thing to remember about true Amish is that they're an orthodox branch of the Anabaptist church.
:) But if they're standing side by side on a sidewalk you'd never be able to tell who is who.
The Mennonites are a non-orthodox denomination; however, to see them on the street together you'd have no idea which is the Amish and which is the Mennonite. Mennonites still hold onto the traditions except that they accept "modern" lifestyles - they own cars, TVs, computers, and so forth, but still honor the traditional dress and religious beliefs. My wife works with a Mennonite at a local grocer, and he's always in his straw hat and overalls whenever he works. It was actually a shock to see him in a "regular" suit and tie at the company Christmas party last year.
I live about 45 minutes from Strasburg and go through that area often. There are Mennonite churches all over the place, even as far out as Carlisle and as far north as Selinsgrove (not that those names mean anything to people who are not from the area).
Basically, if they own a buggy, they're Amish. If they own a car, they're Mennonite.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I've lived in Amish country now for some 17 years. When I was younger, I wondered about their community and what the deal was with their shunning of technology. After talking to a lot of my co-workers about it (many of whom were Old Order), the local bishop showed up on a lunch hour to help 'get me straight'.
According to the bishop, the primary reason for avoiding technology had to do with 'idle hands'. Anything that takes them away from the community or their families is considered 'not good' and there really didn't have to be a specific reason for a bishop to disallow something.
BUT... As much as the Amish outwardly show compliance, the truth is that many of them push the boundries with things like cell phones, solar cell recharging units (some roof-sized panels used to recharge batteries for electicity at night), and even computers. Clearly the letter of the law and the spirit of it are two different things.
In later years I worked for a small computer store in Ephrata. We catered to the Amish and Mennonite communities as they are often VERY wealthy and shrewd business people (uneducated does not mean stupid), and if the technology is considered necessary, they will not hesitate using it. In most instances, we would end up selling a computer to a farmer who used it for their milking machines or keeping track of finances, or in one instance, an egg counting machine that ran Windows NT!
One fine day however, we had a rather nervous looking young man come by on his bike and purchased (in cash) a brand new, top of the line, Acer laptop. Upon leaving he put the laptop in the cardboard box on the back of his bike, covered it up, and rode off.
A few days later a buggy pulls up and its this poor fellow and his bishop. The bishop appologized for his parishner's mistake and asked politely if he could get a refund. All this, and the purchaser never looked up once. Of course we gave him one - our relations with the local community demanded that, but I sure felt sorry for that kid.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
"Native Americans"? I'm a native American, seeing that I was born and raised in America. However, I'm not Indian.
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou. I remember visiting my grandparents in Pennsylvania, my grandmother would get really upset with tourists who would talk about wanting to go see the AIM-ISH like they were a tourist attraction.
More entirely on topic, I think it's a good thing that the Amish evaluate technology and its impact on community instead of chasing after every new thing without thinking. There are both negative and positive consequences to technology, but in our culture we are driven only to look at the positive. The case can be made that the Amish methods of farming are much more environmentally friendly, there's less environmental impact farming with horses than tractors, and there have been particularly rainy seasons where the Amish were able to plant their crops much earlier than farmers using tractors because horses don't sink in the mud nearly as much as a tractor. But, that doesn't mean that even in farming, they don't use technology, they're able to get much higher crop yield today than a hundred years ago because they're willing to use high tech fertilizers (the case can be made that they get the best of both worlds that way). It makes perfect sense that they'll allow genetic research, they see how diseases are affecting them, and research on understanding those diseases will benefit their communities and everyone else.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
if people are allowed to leave, are people allowed to join?
a search on google gave me this:
http://www.800padutch.com/atafaq.shtml#join
"Can an outsider join the Amish church/community?"
"A local Amishman recently remarked, "You do not need to move here to adopt a lifestyle of simplicity and discipleship. You can begin wherever you are." Yes, it is possible for outsiders, through conversion and convincement, to join the Amish community, but we must quickly add that it seldom happens. First, the Amish do not evangelize and seek to add outsiders to their church. Second, outsiders would need to live among the Amish and demonstrate a genuine conversion experience and faith that results in a changed lifestyle. Third, it is extremely difficult for anyone who has not been raised without electricity, automobiles, and other modern conveniences to adjust to the austere lifestyle of the Amish. And to truly be a part of the Amish community one would need to learn the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect."
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When I was growing up, one of my relatives was a physician in eastern Ohio, and had some amish patients. He was pediatrician and a strong christian, which was something the amish greatly appreciated. As a result, many members of their community brought their children to see him.
He mentioned in passing to one of them that he was thinking of remodeling his kitchen. The amish man immediately stated "we could do that for you."
I was there when they came to redo the place... it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Two truckloads of people, men and women, and they worked from sunup to sundown, breaking only briefly for lunch. The workmanship was incredible... everything fit perfectly. They also put in all kinds of clever little gadgets; sliding racks for table leaves, concealed hangers for towels, pivoting shelves and rack for dishes and pots... I've been in million-dollar homes that didn't have a kitchen as nice.
Whatever criticism are leveled at the amish, there's definitely nothing wrong their work ethic.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The article tells of systematic rape and abuse with no punishment, and with generations of incest producing an inbred and backwards society, condoned by the american govt. giving them the legal right to police themselves, dealing out their own justice where they see fit.
After reading the entirety of the article, it would be hard to dismiss this as an isolated case, but if you do and still consider that they represent some noble return-to-basics society and that their rejection of technology is somehow endearing, there are other sources, and a dedicated blog that may help to change your mind.
"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." -- Salvador Dali
I remember reading a story - I believe it appeared in the Plain Reader - that talked about the Amish approach to technology:
> why do they depend on us for medical care?
Think of it like a Debian user does.
Debian has several repositories:
* SID -- contains the latest and greatest, but it can be unstable and things may be
* Testing -- contains those parts of SID that have been around a while don't seem to break anything
* Stable -- contains those parts of Testing that have been around for a while and don't break things. Stable isn't updated that often, but receives constant security patches.
Given this, let's describe how the Amish see it:
* SID -- Geek enthusists who'll by anything new and shiny
* Testing -- the rest of society who'll only use stuff that's actually useful
* Stable -- Amish-like communities who'll only use generally available technology that is both useful and has a positive impact on their society.
Now you might claim that the people who rely on Stable are in this privileged position because of all the people who use SID or Testing. You'd be right. But who cares? SID users are happy on the cutting edge, Testing users are happy with the less wild and wooly pace, Stable users are happy with the tried and true. Everyone wins.