Antonio Arnaiz-Villena is a Spanish immunologist noted for his controversial research into the genetic history of ethnic groups and fringe linguistic hypotheses.
Biography Arnaiz-Villena 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. He used to be head of the Department of Microbiology I (Immunology) at the Complutense University of Madrid As of 2011 and now is chairman and full professor at the same department. In 2009, he worked at Hospital 12 de Octubre. In 2010 he was invited to give a lecture in The French Academy of Sciences (College de France). In 2011 he gave a lecture at The Royal Society (London). In 2014 he and four other people were given an award on the 35th anniversary of the Law on Transplantations at the Spanish Senate by Queen Sofía of Spain.
Ethnicity research
Jews and Palestinians Arnaiz-Villena's research gained much attention following the publication of a paper on the genetic history of Jews and Palestinians, which he co-authored in the journal Human Immunology in 2001. The research results, which concluded that there are strong genetic ties between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, were controversial because of their political implications, as well as what some readers perceived to be political undertones in the article. Following a large number of complaints, the article was withdrawn from the journal and deleted from the scientific archive. Academics who had already received a copy of the journal were urged to "physically remove" the article pages in a move that had no precedent in research publishing. The comments about Arab-Israeli conflicts were described by the journal's editor as "extreme political writing" - a description that was challenged by Arnaiz-Villena. He was subsequently removed from the journal's editorial board. The journal's 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 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."
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