Ancestry Surprises From New Genetics Analysis Method

An anonymous reader commends a recently published study involving a new way to analyze genetic variation in human populations (full article published in PLOS Genetics): "[S]cientists from Ireland, the UK and the US analysed 2,540 genetic markers in the DNA of almost 1,000 people from around the world whose genetic material had been collected by the Human Genome Diversity Project. The results include a number of surprises... the Yakut people of northern Siberia were found to have received a significant genetic contribution from the population of the Orkney Islands, which lie off the coast of Scotland... there must have been a period of gene flow from northern Europe to east Asia. The study also shed light on the peopling of the Americas, as the results suggest that the native populations of north and south America have different origins."

The N./S. America thing has been controversial

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people didn't want to give up on the idea that the arctic bridge was the only way people got to the Americas, when it made much more sense that some people could've traveled the ocean to settle here.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Mormons have been saying this for nearly 200 years. No, they don't claim that they're the only people that arrived there, only a portion.

Re:RTFA

[HadouKen24]

You'd be wrong there.

Depends on what period of history and what area you're talking about, actually.

There's evidence of Jewish presence in China as early as the 7th century. There were reports in the 9th century of Christian, Muslims, and Jews killed in a massacre in the 9th century. And Marco Polo reported encountering Jews in China in the 13th century. They lived mostly in Kaifeng, where a synagogue was built in the 11th century.

However, it wasn't until the 15th century that Jews in China had much recognition by the local government. In 1421, Jews were finally allowed to take the civil service test. The population in Kaifeng was discovered by European Christians in the 17th century, who used their version of the Torah to crosscheck it against the versions being used in Europe. They were identical.

So... yeah. Not many Jews, but there are signs dating back to the 7th century that Jews were present.


'Course, that's not nearly early enough to match up with Mormon scripture.

Re:

[notadoctor]

I'm not trying to perpetuate a religious argument or anything, but I would just like to point out two or three things in response. First, map 34 in Figure 4 shows the Colombian people having some origin in the regions around Eastern Iran and Western India, not China. The Jewish nation was taken captive into Persia (modern Iran) circa 722 B.C. A couple of other contemporary invasions also sent descendants of Israel all over the old world. That is early enough to match Mormon scripture, though the migrato

Polynesians

[Bananatree3]

If people reached Easter Island [google.com], which is almost off the coast of South America, what would have stopped Polynesian explorers from traveling all the way to Chile? It seems statistically low that explorers would have been able to hit a tiny island off the coast of S.A. and not have at least had one or two exploratory parties hit the coast.

This isn't to say Polynesians were the first to South America, as Easter Island was populated around 2000 years ago while S.A. was populated many thousands of more years before that. However, it seems likely that there might have been genetic mixing between Polynesians and South American coastal tribes.

Re:Polynesians

[hengist]

> If people reached Easter Island, which is almost off the coast of South America, what would have stopped Polynesian explorers from
> traveling all the way to Chile?

As I understand it, current thinking is that polynesians did make it to South America, which is where they got gourds and sweet potatoes from. Then, they turned around and followed the prevailing winds home.

Thor Heyerdahl thought that polynesians came from South America and followed the prevailing winds in migrating west. But, genetic evidence proves that they come from Taiwain. The current theory is that they explored into the wind because it gave them a free trip home if they didn't find anything.

Most people in Taiwan are not "Taiwanese"

[Anonymous Coward]

"But, genetic evidence proves that they come from Taiwain."

Most people in Taiwan are not "Taiwanese", they are ethnic Chinese which have outnumbered the original, mostly Malay people groups. I am not sure which of these you mean by saying "from Taiwan". The ethnic Chinese have not lived there for so long, just a few centuries.

Re:Most people in Taiwan are not "Taiwanese"

[Oligonicella]

Context. It's called context. When you're talking thousands of years ago, it gives context to the term.

Re:Polynesians

[DerangedAlchemist]

Recently, ancient chicken DNA from South America was found to be most closely related to Polynesian chickens. I believe it was specifically chickens from Tonga, which is close to Easter Island. Previously, there was some dispute because carbon dating of the oldest chicken skeletons suggested they were a couple of hundred years older than the Spanish had arrived.
So it probably did occur something like you suggest, even if the human populations were wiped out by local tribes and show no genetic mixing.

Re:Polynesians

[maglor_83]

carbon dating of the oldest chicken skeletons suggested they were a couple of hundred years older than the Spanish had arrived.

You don't happen to know the results of carbon dating of the oldest chicken eggs do you? We might be able to answer the question once and for all!

Re:

[corbettw]

Recently, ancient chicken DNA from South America was found to be most closely related to Polynesian chickens.

The two species are closely linked, yes. But you can easily tell them apart by a simple test: the Polynesian chickens have a sweet, pineapplily after taste.

Re:

[b4upoo]

Considering the remarkable ability of Chinese vessels in the era before Christ we may have Chinese settlers in early South America. Japanese vessels are another distinct possibility.
If we go back about 14,000 years and get any good information on which of the Asian nations allowed females on board ships we might get a better clue as to early colonization. Or it just might be that only males made it to the Americas in the early days and that they bred with wha

silly

[nguy]

Considering the remarkable ability of Chinese vessels in the era before Christ we may have Chinese settlers in early South America. Japanese vessels are another distinct possibility.

Despite extensive Chinese record keeping, there is no evidence at all that the Chinese made it to South America before the Europeans. If they had made it, they would have encountered a populated continent with many different cultures already, quite able to defend themselves against a few Chinese ships. If it hadn't been for s

Re:silly

[cheesybagel]

You are forgetting gunpowder guns, steel armor, and horses. Those improved the chances significantly. The fact that at least in Central America the natives were a bunch of bickering and warring tribes helped as well. Try reading about how Cortes invaded Tenochtitlan. If I was getting my place raided and my people enslaved to provide for live sacrifices, I would have joined the Spanish too. Besides, they may have got smallpox, but we got gonorrhea.

Re:silly

[DerangedAlchemist]

Disease made all the difference. Europeans had gunpowder, gun, steel armor and horses over the Africans too, but Africa had it's own terrible diseases. The dominant population in Africa is still black. It's estimated that 80-95% of North American natives died from disease. For comparison, the black plague killed 30-50% of the population of Europe.

Re:

[Mr. Slippery]

there is no evidence at all that the Chinese made it to South America before the Europeans.

There is some suggestive evidence [cristobalc...eibiza.com]: the Fu Sang legends [wikipedia.org], South American folktales about "people from the sea", old stone anchors found off the Pacific coast, certain artistic motifs found in both Chinese and South American art. Joseph Campbell spends a few pages on this idea in one of the essays in Flight of the Wild Gander, but I'm too lazy to dig up my copy at the moment. I don't mean to suggest that it's a well

Re:

[elrous0]

They were stopped by the EVIL STATUES!

Re:

[Ramsés Morales]

I love it when the books have to be redone to fit new evidence. Now I'm waiting for genetic evidence to settle the question of multiple or single origin.

and the llost tribes of Isreal too

[peter303]

If you read the Mormon books. (I've been seeing too many FLDS stories on the tely lately.)

Re:

[somersault]

If you believe in the bliblical flood, then you would also believe that the survivors all got off in the same location. Duh.. the only way you could use this to explain the biblical flood was if their analysis showed that we are all descendants of one man (Noah).

Wow!

[mrbluze]

there must have been a period of gene flow from northern Europe to east Asia.

That was one helluva Khyber toss!

Confirmation of previous theories

[steelfood]

Well, there's anthropological evidence that there were several migrations from Asia to the Americas, namely, two island-hopping sea routes and one over the land bridge in the north. This just sort of confirms this idea.

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[William Robinson]

I knew my boss had something to do with cannibals.

Re:

[Threni]

> Could the Book of Mormon be on to something?

No. Being a religious text, it'll just be a bunch of crap thrown together by idiots in a bid to control people. It's fairly easy to use language - any language - to succinctly and precisely describe something. If you're not doing that then you're just fishing.

Re:

[Torvaun]

Succinctly and precisely describe the color blue, without resorting to wavelengths, as that's definition, not description. Or music. Or love.

Re:

[m.ducharme]

Blue is the colour most often taken by the sky on a cloudless day.

Re:

[norminator]

But what does that look like? How would you describe it to someone who hasn't ever seen the color before?

You didn't describe it, you just pointed it out.

Re:

[mikael]

The color you get when you mix yellow and green.

Maps of human travel on earth

[Frekko]

This story sparked my interest so I searched for a while on the internet to find some maps of what the world looked like back in the ages and where evidence of people has been found linked with DNA evidence of how people actually have moved.
I sadly came up with nothing... anyone who knows where to find anything like this?

Re:Maps of human travel on earth

[ya really]

Probably one of the best sources I can think of off the top of my head is the book, Guns Germs and Steel. The book gives a great in depth look at the origins of man, and the crops/domesticated animals we eat as well as lots of maps showing movements through the ages. It's a pretty long read though, but well worth it. The book also goes well into why the decendants of those from Europe and Asia control the world today and not those in Africa, North America or Oceana.

Re:Maps of human travel on earth

[digitig]

The theory I am most familiar with is that it's to do with land distribution and early technology. Early technology was largely plant and animal based. That technology spread easily east-west because of broadly similar climate, but didn't spread well north-south because of climate changes. Eurasia provided a massive east-west area, but Africa, India, Polynesia and so on were relaively isolated in the east-west direction. That means that technology advanced faster in the north than in the south. Add in the general human tendancy of the powerful oppressing the weak and hey, presto! White (and Yellow) colonialism. No racial causes, just the luck of the draw in who was in the right place at the right time.

Re:Maps of human travel on earth

[corbettw]

I've always suspected that one of the reasons for Europe and the Middle East's preeminence through much of history was the Mediterranean Sea and the easy trade routes provided by it. The Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans all made great use of the sea in building their empires; I doubt any of them would've been half as successful without it.

Re:

[digitig]

Yes there is. The question is whether it is a social construct or a scientific distinction (there's another issue of whether science itself is a social construct anyway, and yet another issue of imprecise boundaries, but most categories we use have imprecise boundaries). Denial of the concept of race is a creative approach to racism, but it remains a form of denial.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

Bad white man! Now go off and kill yourself.

It's by Jared Diamond, not Stephen J Gould.

Re:

[molarmass192]

How exactly does one go about objectively measuring "intelligence"?

Re:

[DerangedAlchemist]

Strange, all the racial science I knew of never found a link between race and intelligence. Unless, of course, you mean studies that ignored cultural and economic differences, etc. For example, African Americans as a race are much less accomplished academically, but if you look for genetic markers of mixed race with whites (not just skin pigmentation but a full comparison), you see no influence of race. Or if you control for wealth, education of parents, etc. the differences disappear also. African-Ame

Re:

[mikael]

Are houses the same sizes? Do they have somewhere quiet to study? That's my theory anyway.

Re:Maps of human travel on earth

[ResidntGeek]

Have you checked out Movie S1 in the current article? It's an animation of how people moved based on DNA evidence.

Also, the world didn't look any different geologically, if that's what you mean by "what the world looked like back in the ages". The timescales of human migrations are far smaller than those of geological processes.

Re:Maps of human travel on earth

[BungaDunga]

Except for the Bering land bridge. That's a function of sea level, but the world did look quite a bit different. Lots more ice around, less water.

Re:

[ombwiri]

While continents would have been pretty much in the same positions as they are now there would have been massive differences in the actual landscape. Just going from memory at around 12000BCE you had the Bering Strait land bridge, large parts of (what is now) the North Sea and English Channel were plains like hunting grounds for nomadic societies and western Sweden/southern Norway was much more a land of lakes, inlets and islands due to a higher than present sea level.

Re:

[SwordsmanLuke]

Just going from memory at around 12000BCE

...That's some memory you've got there, chief!

Re:

[Rashdot]

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/ [nationalgeographic.com]

Re:

[e1618978]

The world looked the same as it does now, minus the air and water pollution, etc. Continental drift is less than a mile in 10,000 years, and the ice caps have been fairly stable during that time as well.

It's a smaller world up there...

[CptNerd]

There's not as much area when you move further north, so it's not surprising that the peoples up there would interact more. There's probably been some interaction with the Ainu people of Japan, too, due to many Caucasoid traits they have. The one thing about Homo Sapiens is, we tend to move around a lot.

Re:

[Harmonious Botch]

...and fuck a lot when we get there.

So "Native Americans" were invaders?

[whoever57]

From the summary:

In their proposed scenario, the population which first colonised North East Asia also crossed the Bering Strait and eventually made it to South America. This population was subsequently replaced by a population more closely related to modern East Asians. These people also successfully crossed the Bering Strait and contributed to the ancestry of the native North Americans.

So what does this mean for Native Americans? They were aggressive immigrants who displaced the original population?

It doesn't say agressive

[Moraelin]

Well, primitive tribes _were_ extremely aggressive, and did fight all the time.

On the other hand "contributed to the ancestry of the native North Americans" implies interbreeding, rather than genocide. I.e., they fucked their way across two continents.

It's not exactly surprising, though. A staple of tribal warfare, and it even lasted well into Iron Age in Greece for example, was raiding for another tribe's women, not just their food.

Life expectancy for women was rather disproportionately lower than for men in primitive societieties, and for men it wasn't as high as to reach andropause first. So eventually a lot of still able men were left with the prospect of either finding another woman somehow, or playing with Miss Rosy Palm for the next 5 to 10 years. Meanwhile the next tribe had plenty of women. Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?

Of course then the next tribe had an acute shortage of women, so the cycle of violence continued.

So I'm saying that interbreeding would have been inevitable. When the newly arrived East Asians won a raid, they got some women from the previous populations, when they lost one, the opposite would happen.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

uh oh. I hear the chinese are in need of some 100 million women

Re:

[m.ducharme]

Mods, this isn't funny, and could end up being a determining factor in global geopolitics for the foreseeable future. What happens to all those lonely men who can't get women for themselves? Why, they join the Army of course. And what do you do with an army? Why, go get yourself some women of course.

Re:

[urcreepyneighbor]

Well, primitive tribes _were_ extremely aggressive, and did fight all the time.

<sarcasm>Oh bullshit. We all know the "primitive man" was a Noble Savage that lived in peace and harmony will other Native Peoples and Nature, you white oppressor!</sarcasm>

Re:

[mrbooze]

This was true of most of Africa as well. Africa used to have a much more diverse tribal population, but most of them were over time replaced by a few more aggressive groups, long before the white people arrived and began dabbling in free labor sources.

Re:So "Native Americans" were invaders?

[kripkenstein]

So what does this mean for Native Americans? They were aggressive immigrants who displaced the original population?

Essentially all human populations are/were aggressive invaders at some point. See Jared Diamond's writings, for example, about how the Bantu came to occupy most of Africa, how the Han Chinese did the same for China, etc., etc.

We see things as they are right now, and just presume that the clock was frozen before the last few centuries. So, we see black people in Africa and Chinese people in China and assume they were always there. They weren't, they displaced someone to get there. It's just been forgotten.

Not that this makes any of it 'right' or 'justified', nor does it make it 'wrong' or 'unjustified'. These are the facts. Make of them what you will.

Re:

[maxume]

Here's a good article by Jared Diamond, for anybody that wants to see what they would be getting into:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_diamond?currentPage=all [newyorker.com]

The article is about the vengeance culture that exists (and is being curtailed) in New Guinea, and the tension between personal satisfaction and state mediation.

Re:

[12357bd]

A beautiful example of how spread and mixed the human cultures are, is:

Unexpected faces in Ancient America [amazon.com]

Re:

[will_die]

So what does this mean for Native Americans? They were aggressive immigrants who displaced the original population?
Yep and that is not a surprise. If you read the oral histories of the various current North American Tribes they tell of thier ancesors replacing the people who lived there before.
Many times it was done in war but you also have things like tribes forming together to form a new distinct group, or outsiders coming in and over time they replace the people formerly there and the old group melti

But other studies have shown different results.

[Jane Q. Public]

Extensive studies of mitochondrial DNA have pretty much confirmed migrations from east Asia to northwest America, then down south. There were, of course, more than one wave of such migrations. I doubt very much that the natives of north and south america "have different origins", because that would contradict well-established evidence that this is not so. However, they could certainly have a different mix of dna mutations showing various mixes from different areas.

Re:But other studies have shown different results.

[aibob]

Remember that there is a difference between using mitochondrial DNA (the studies you cited) and autosomal DNA (this study). With mitochondrial DNA, the only information that you get is along the maternal line, so you're missing a lot of the data. Looking back 20 generations, for example, you're only looking at one ancestor out of about a million. It would be possible for two groups to come over but only one be reflected in the maternal line.

BUT...

[Jane Q. Public]

Mitocodrial DNA is very effective at tracking migration patterns of populations. Even if the Y-side or autosomal data shows some mixing in of other genes, that still negates the possibility of "different origins".

Re:

[CAIMLAS]

The thing that gets me is that there's usually a lot of emphasis on "China" when in reality, there were likely just as many, if not more, migrations to the Americas from the area which is now (and was then) India. India was a nation long before China was even populated.

First born child

[syousef]

Yakut people of northern Siberia were found to have received a significant genetic contribution from the population of the Orkney Islands, which lie off the coast of Scotland.

My wife's pregnant with her first. We had a girl's name picked but were having hell trying to find a boy's name. She was having trouble so we had another ultrasound. We now KNOW it's a boy. I think this story has settled it. I'll be naming my first born Vladamir McHaggis. Being beaten up will build the boy's character.

Re:First born child

[hcdejong]

I'll be naming my first born ... Being beaten up will build the boy's character.

Ah, the Johnny Cash school of child rearing.

Baby's Named a Bad Bad Thing

[jefu]

You have triggered a mandatory reference to Baby's Named a Bad Bad Thing [notwithoutmyhandbag.com]. No other penalties accrue at this time.

Re:

[elrous0]

Twill' serve the proletariat fine, aye!

People in the Altai-Baikal Region

[G3ckoG33k]

The articles "mtDNA Variation of Aboriginal Siberians Reveals Distinct Genetic Affinities with Native Americans" and "Mitochondrial DNA Variation in the Aboriginal Populations of the Altai-Baikal Region Implications for the Genetic History of North Asia and America" from 2004 indicate that ALL native Americans have a single origin. I guess the controversy of single or dual origins lives on and if I understood it correctly the field is still open for reinterpretations.

Re:Open For Reinterpretation

[FurtiveGlancer]

If it's science, it should ALWAYS be open for reinterpretation as more data is collected and as analysis techniques improve or are replaced with better procedures.

IMHO, an open mind should be, well, open.

Re:

[dreamchaser]

If it's science, it should ALWAYS be open for reinterpretation as more data is collected and as analysis techniques improve or are replaced with better procedures.

Unless you're a proponent of anthropogenic climate change. In that case it's ALL settled science and there is a grand consensus with nothing left to discover or analyze.

(that was sarcasm btw)

No science is ever settled. Even models like newtonian physics, which still 'works' for most calculations we need, get superceded by newer models (i.e. rela

Re:

[FurtiveGlancer]

Actually, I've observed that many (including not a few scientists) defending evolutionary theory tend to be more dogmatic and less open to discussion than the ACC crowd. Not that the ACC or other environmental activists are shrinking violets.

In math and physics, no matter how good it looks or works or fits with experimental data, a model is a representation, not exactly the real thing. As discovered when Newtownian physics were determined to be a special case of relativity where v << c. Models ex

Re:

[Free the Cowards]

There's an enormous difference between the proper skeptical view required for good science and the "This is too complicated for me to personally understand so it must be wrong, let's go shopping!" attitude displayed by the global warming denier and anti-evolution crowds.

Re:

[FurtiveGlancer]

Most Anthropomorphic Climate Change (ACC) deniers I've heard don't argue the observations of average temperature increases, but argue the root causes and/or significance of these observations. They also argue the projections offered by ACC promoters as scientifically unsound or overly dire (read: hand picked data).

The "anti-evolution" crowd is very diverse and hard to characterize. I'm part of the "anti-evolution as unassailable fact" crowd. For some, like myself, we simply prefer to allow the theory

Re:

[kevin42]

I think you are confusing a theory and a hypothesis (or a hypothetical theory). A theory isn't really proven by experiments, but a hypothesis is. A theory changes as evidence changes.

Re:

[Abcd1234]

IMHO, an open mind should be, well, open.

That's right... just not so open that your brain falls out. Hence why I happily close my mind to, for example, the ramblings of ID proponents.

Re:

[FurtiveGlancer]

You might want to look around at your feet for something gray and roughly hemispherical. ;-)

If you don't listen to others, despite their differing views, you'll never know if they have (or have stumbled) upon a substantive and salient point that deserves your attention. If you don't respect the "opposition" enough to listen, why should they respect you enough to listen to you? People are, in my experience, much more likely to listen to you if you are attentive, respectful and not dismissive while arguing

Re:

[Abcd1234]

People are, in my experience, much more likely to listen to you if you are attentive, respectful and not dismissive while arguing your point of view.

You're convolving an open mind (one willing to accept new ideas and facts) with a civil one. My mind is not open to Intelligent Design because it's a dressed up version of creationism, and as such has no explanatory or predictive power and is not a valid scientific theory. Will I be respectful in a debate with someone on the topic? Certainly. But I will hap

Nations of Europe

[eggspurt]

The movies they attach are not very good.

I have some Python source code for doing similar things with the case of European nations on http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2007/06/animated_mds_co.html [columbia.edu] (there is an animated GIF there).

A bit more discussion about my methodology is at http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2007/06/nations_of_euro.html [columbia.edu]

Re:

[IHawkMike]

Ever seen Gattaca? [imdb.com]

Re:

[mrbluze]

Ever seen Gattaca? [imdb.com]

Ever seen Morons from Outer Space? [imdb.com]

Re:

[Vectronic]

(I know im gonna get modded to hell, but...)

Ever seen Gayniggers From Outer Space [imdb.com]

Ever watched it? http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/gayniggers_from_outer_space.php [moviesfoundonline.com]

P.S. I'm not racists, or homophobic, nor is the movie... but its also not really that ammusing either...

its just the first thought that crossed my mind... hmm...

Re:

[mrbluze]

I haven't seen that, but have you seen Killer Klowns from Outer Space [imdb.com].. or what about The Chicken From Outer Space [imdb.com]. Of course there are others but..

P.S. I have nothing against chickens but.. what were we talking about again?

Re:

[Vectronic]

Ive seen Killer Klowns, and I think ive seen Chickens too... from what i found from it, looks familliar...

And we were talking about the genetic categorization of movies... Six Degrees of Outer Space...or something...

Re:

[Gilmoure]

Kevin Spacey is from outer space?!!!

Re:

[mrbluze]

What if at some point it became obvious that certain populations were (objectively) superior to others, in terms of predisposition toward diseases, etc.

The end of WWII supposedly brought an end to eugenics in Germany, but it was, even then, thriving in the English speaking world and continues to do so.

The weakness of our civilization has become a lack of any moral vigor. Pretty much every time there is protest on moral grounds it is trivialized by the media and the whole thing is treated like a sport between nay-sayers and scientists.

It's a weakness because it breeds distrust and fear in the community. if we don't come up with/maintain some kind of mor

Re:

[rrohbeck]

Yes, Eugenics has a bad rap because of the way it used to be done forcibly in Nazi Germany, the US and other places.
But what's wrong with it if it's done in an ethically responsible way? [Prospective] parents have access to genetic testing/counseling if there's known risks like hereditary diseases, and embryos can be tested and aborted if they have severe [genetic] defects. If a couple has significant genetic defects they can choose to adopt. That's eugenics, pure and simple. What's wrong with that?
And don'

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Where is this going?

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Once you let a governmental organization have anything to do with it though, it becomes evil and must be stopped at all costs.

What would you class as interfereing? Discouraging people from having defective children? Or subsidising healthcare for preventable, avoidable defects - thus encouraging them to do so?

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Where is this going?

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Nice soundbite, but impractical.

Take one common cause of genetic problems - inbreeding.

Either you use force (making incest illegal) or you use force (tax money) to look after the resulting crop of web-footed 'tards.

Re:

[CowTipperGore]

Take one common cause of genetic problems - inbreeding.

Either you use force (making incest illegal) or you use force (tax money) to look after the resulting crop of web-footed 'tards.

Inbreeding does not cause genetic problems - it simply increases the odds of inheriting a deleterious recessive allele. Studies have shown inbreeding increases infant mortality rates but had no impact on school performance, indicating that most genetic problems associated with inbreeding are selected out quickly.

On the other hand, drinking alcohol during pregnancy has been shown to cause a host of birth defects and genetic problems in the offspring, yet no one suggests banning mothers-to-be from drinking

Re:

[SwordsmanLuke]

Take one common cause of genetic problems - inbreeding.

I get your point, but this is, in fact, false. Genetic traits are inherited from one's parents. Being inbred simply increases the likelihood of receiving the same bad recessive gene from both parents. It also increases the likelihood of receiving the same beneficial gene from both parents. The odds are roughly the same, but because harmful genetic traits are typically more obvious than beneficial ones, they get all the press.

Pro tip: Even though this post implies you're just as likely to get superma

There is sort of a mine buried in that...

[patio11]

Hint: its what happens right after "tested and".

OK, so you don't agree with me about abortion. And you probably don't think that in 50 years people will think aborting one in three black children is 1920s eugenics, except with scaleability added.

But lets talk about legislation. See, I don't think saying "If there is a problem, fix it with a law" is an adequate response to "Law consistently fails to solve some problems, for structural reasons". Take the abortion regime in the United States, for example. Ignore the moral dimension for the rest of this post -- you don't have to agree that abortion is bad, you just have to make objective judgements of when it is legally available and when it is not. As a statement of fact, the United States has one of the most permissive abortion regimes in the Western world. Yeah, really.

Has the legal system in the United States hithertofore successfully discriminated between good reasons for abortions and bad reasons? No. Its set up so that it is essentially impossible to force that distinction into law. As a result, despite having a massive political movement dedicated to opposing abortion, and extraordinarily conservative attitudes about sex and abortion relative to peer nations such as many in Europe, the United States in actual practice prohibits far fewer abortions that peer nations in Europe do. (Really: take a look at the gestational limits in Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6235557.stm [bbc.co.uk] That is 12 weeks in Belgium, Denmark, etc -- that limit would be and has been stricken as unconstitutionally restrictive in that noted liberal hotspot, Kansas.)

There's a bunch of reasons for that. One is the particularized development of the US abortion regime through the courts. Another is that the current American political consensus is somewhere between "I really do not want to hear about this, ever" and "Well, certainly SOME fraction of abortions are justified, for terrible circumstances which I would never, ever inquire about in polite company". A third is that the primary providers of abortion, who theoretically would end up as expert decisionmakers for legal compliance, are a political movement dedicated to keeping abortion restriction free. As a result, the questions which could theoretically ferret out "good" abortions from "bad" abortions, if one believed that such distinctions existed, can't be legislated and don't get asked.

The same will be true of eugenics.

Would America be socially willing to ask prospective eugenics parents "Excuse me, heard about your problem, so sorry. By the way, was that problem 'Your child is 78% likely to be missing a limb' or 'Your child is 83% likely to be left-handed'"? (Presumably that would be "bad" eugenics, right?) No, we won't be -- egads, that would be a ghastly thing to ask someone, particularly someone who just lost a child because he was headless. So nobody will be asked anything, just like nobody is required to substantiate why they want an abortion.

Would America be willing to impose a coercive state apparatus on eugenicists to ensure that some crazy 1920s-reject racist doesn't recommend 1/3 of black kids for termination? No. Heck, no need for a hypothetical here: we actually do terminate 1/3 of black kids, in the status quo. There is no national coercive apparatus monitoring abortion.

Eugenics will be worth billions upon billions of dollars, with a well-funded lobby, like reproductive medicine is and like abortion is. Children with birth defects, and children with "birth defects" like being left-handed or not predisposed to being athletic or possibly being gay, do not typically have much campaign cash to spend. Which group do you think is going to win in the US political system?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

A third is that the primary providers of abortion, who theoretically would end up as expert decisionmakers for legal compliance, are a political movement dedicated to keeping abortion restriction free.

Isn't it basically the case that privatized health care is the problem? If the people performing abortions have nothing to gain or lose if more or less abortions are carried out then they can be better trusted to act as moderators and provide useful input into legislation.

Re:

[kabocox]

Eugenics will be worth billions upon billions of dollars, with a well-funded lobby, like reproductive medicine is and like abortion is. Children with birth defects, and children with "birth defects" like being left-handed or not predisposed to being athletic or possibly being gay, do not typically have much campaign cash to spend. Which group do you think is going to win in the US political system?

I still think we are 10 generations too immature to do any playing around with eugenics or human natural select

Re:Where is this going?

[evilviper]

Yes, Eugenics has a bad rap because of the way it used to be done forcibly in Nazi Germany, the US and other places.

Eugenics has a bad rap because it's been throughly disproven as complete pseudoscience.

[Prospective] parents have access to genetic testing/counseling if there's known risks like hereditary diseases, and embryos can be tested and aborted if they have severe [genetic] defects.

That's not eugenics... That's just genetic screening.

Eugenics is the process of sterilizing "lesser" peoples, such as the poor, and non-white, because of the (false) theory that their offspring were doomed to be similarly intellectually handicapped, regardless of the amount of education they received. This is basically the same (racist) argument long used to suppress negros, being applied instead to poor "white trash" classes of people.

On the (entirely separate) question of genetic screening, I would certainly discourage it. People's desires for their children, and culturally-influenced impression of what traits are "good" and "bad" are not necessarily correct. Some of the smartest people to ever have lived suffer from physical and mental defects, and it's currently impossible to know if their intelligence was in spite of, or perhaps because of that very handicap. If anything, I think modern history has proven that genetic diversity is a GOOD thing. Yet, people have proven to be irrational beings, by and large, and need to be protected from their own desire to establish a monoculture in selecting their offspring.

What happens when everyone on the planet is selecting their unborn children for intelligence, only to find out that our current established theory of what genetic traits lead to intelligence turn out to be wrong, and the world is filled with a generation of mentally handicapped children?

Re:

[Hognoxious]

If eugenics is pseudoscience then so are evolution and agriculture; they all depend on the heritabilty of characteristics.

No matter how evil some applications of it have been, that's an entirely separate issue from the science itself.

Re:Where is this going?

[Bastard of Subhumani]

What happens when everyone on the planet is selecting their unborn children for intelligence, only to find out that our current established theory of what genetic traits lead to intelligence turn out to be wrong, and the world is filled with a generation of mentally handicapped children?

I'm looking at it right now.

Re:What's wrong with that?

[FurtiveGlancer]

What's wrong with that is the premature death of a potentially viable human. Our second daughter had an unusual protein count AFP [wikipedia.org] in her amniotic fluid and the medical staff told us that she was very likely to have Down's syndrome. They asked us if we wanted to abort. We decided not to. Good thing too, because that medical advice has since been found to be invalid. She did not develop Down's and she's in college now.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

Actually, what's wrong in the example you gave was making a decision on incorrect information.

Now it was your child and your decision, but you're judging an a priori decision in the light of a posteriori data. What if the test had been right? How would your marriage and/or other kids have coped?

Of course no test in 100% accurate and life often involves making descisions on imperfect data. Still, I'm glad you were lucky.

Re:

[Muad'Dave]

Good Lord! With as many false positives as this [wikipedia.org] Wikipedia article claims, I'd question the use of that test, and the sanity of your doctor.

"normal elevation. 75% of AF AFP test results in the range 2.0 to 4.9 MoM are false positives: the baby is normal."

Emphasis added.

Re:

[FurtiveGlancer]

That's my point. How often is medical advice given without a clear understanding of the statistical significance of the data behind it?

Genetic Distinction

[FurtiveGlancer]

I don't get this attachment to a specific unborn fetus. Ok, so maybe you have to abort one or two here or there. Where's the problem? Just have sex again. A woman has the potential to create 12 new fetus every year. No one should be having more than two kids anyway. In fact, plenty of people should be self-limiting to one or none.

It's clear from your cavalier approach that I value potential life differently than you. IMO, the fetus is not part of the woman's body once the egg is fertilized. It is internal to the woman's body and dependent upon it to be sure, but the fetus is, at that point, genetically distinct and will generally, barring adverse action, come to be a unique human being.

As my story above illustrates, medical advice is often provided as unassailable fact with woefully inadequate understanding of the studies and

Re:

[Hognoxious]

That's not news. If he'd gotten some action without paying for it, well that would be different...