Remember Ivory soap's 99.44% purity? The impurities were 1/179th of the total.
New meme rising
Some numbers are rendered inherently ridiculous by rash political claims, like George McGovern's standing behind soon-to-be-ex-running-mate Thomas Eagleton "1000%." So I suspect Elizabeth Warren's DNA-test face-plant will be with us for a while. Greg Gutfeld immediately claimed that he was 1/1024th Asian, which "is why I can't get into Harvard." A poster is circulating asserting that Sen. Richard Blumenthal's own test reveals that he is 1/1024th Viet Nam vet.
Remember Ivory soap's 99.44% purity? The impurities were 1/179th of the total.
Remember Ivory soap's 99.44% purity? The impurities were 1/179th of the total.
I don't believe that Beto, an Irishman raised in El Paso, ever claimed to be Hispanic. Beto- Spanish language nickname for Albert.Alberto- was picked up in El Paso. No big deal.
ReplyDeleteWhile Beto may not claim to be Hispanic, he will not object to picking up any votes from those who think they are voting for a Hispanic. Ted Cruz, being a Republican, is automatically not Hispanic. (Sarcasm.)
A bigger deal was Beto's using his judge father to get him out of DWI and fleeing the scene. Which means that Beto fans are correct to compare him to the Kennedys, as both Beto and Ted Kennedy used influence to escappe legal consequences
Nonetheless, the picture is funny.
Speaking of Irish and Spanish, my high school Spanish teacher claimed that Eamon de Valera, once President of Ireland, was descended from a Spaniard who washed ashore from the wreck of the Great Armada.
Speaking of Irishmen and Spaniards- Galicia province in Spain, the home of Franco and Fidel Castro's father, is Celtic.
“Whiter than Ivory soap” is going to burn.
ReplyDeleteIt annoys me that Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor and purported expert in a field involving statistics would dare argue that valid information can be had within the margin of error. The entire paper is an offensive mess of statistical gibberish.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, Elizabeth Warren's DNA was not compared with any American Indian tribe DNA because that was not available, so Bustamante substituted Central American DNA. The entire premise of the paper, that it had anything to do with a comparison between Elizabeth Warren and the Cherokee, is gone.
The population reference set was 148 individuals, a pathetically small (statistically insignificant) sample, given the worldwide variability of the human species. This reference set was further divided into 37 from Europe, Nigeria, Central America, and China. This is nothing close to enough background samples.
Given this tiny reference set, the paper simply cannot say that the 5 genetic segments it found are unique to Central American DNA, or have anything to do with Cherokee DNA. The comparison to another data set suffers from the same infirmity. Again, the comparison was to other people of European ancestry, not American Indians, and the numbers are pitifully small.
All this paper says is that Elizabeth Warren has predominantly, and possibly completely, European ancestry.
Valerie
Another anti-Beto poster reads "That awkward moment when a former burglar comes out against home gun ownership."
ReplyDelete@ Valerie - I can't agree with your science there. Razhib Khan thought Bustamante handled the data reasonably. Khan isn't afraid of controversy and is generally regarded as conservative. https://twitter.com/razibkhan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Eembeddedtimeline%7Ctwterm%5Eprofile%3Arazibkhan&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Frazib.com%2Frazib%2F
ReplyDeleteWarren's DNA does not show she belongs to any specific North American tribe - no test does that because most tribes resist the blood draws and tests, not trusting white scientists - but is solid enough evidence that she is slightly Native American. The five identified SNP's do not show up anywhere else in the world, but show up throughout the first-wave precolombian populations. (Not the second and third-wave Na-Dene and Eskimo Aleuts, though) They have to come from somewhere. They don't come from Europe, Africa, Asia, or Australia. They are shared with peoples known to be deeply related to Native Americans.
I keep reading that the average American has 0.18% Native American ancestry, but I haven't figured out yet where that number comes from and whether it's credible. Anyway, it certainly looks as if Warren had less than the randomly likely incidence of Native American ancestors. It's embarrassing for her to continue to insist it's meaningful for purposes of checking off an affirmative-action or diversity-credit box.
ReplyDeleteThat number is from a NYT study on race from a few years ago, Tex.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/science/23andme-genetic-ethnicity-study.html
Assistant Village Idiot, if you want to rely on a non-specific appeal to a "conservative" "expert" instead of dealing with the task at hand, you're part of the innumerate problem.
ReplyDeleteI learned better than this in high school. You cannot compare apples to oranges and report the result in plums.
Valerie