Human Genetic Variation not Ethnically related

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel


Wow your response seems more like a moral lecture motivated by emotion rather then a counter-position supported by scientific evidence

I plead not guilty. This is, in fact, not a particularly emotional issue for me, nor is it a political one. Maybe we can agree that no one (Zhivotovsky, Rosenberg, and Feldman included) is pushing any political agenda (PC or otherwise) and simply discuss the science?

your's is an opinion and nothing more.

Of course. If I said something that made you feel I was suggesting it could be anything more, please point it out, so I can avoid that sort of mistake in the future.

You mention cultural preconceptions. I said nothing about culture

Preconcieved ideas, by their very nature, are rarely stated explicitly. When I consider the phrase: "Norwegian viking", or: "Japaneese businessman", the images that pop into my head are about eighty percent dependent on cultural accoutrements, and maybe another ten percent on certain mannerisms, also culturally derived. (I think it's mostly the viking and the businessman parts that do it). But maybe that's just me.

A further quote

"Probably due to the fact that the term 'gene' is hopelessly ambiguous and tautological.

Really? Def :The fundamental physical and functional unit of heredity. It is an agreed upon standard for geneticists much the same as light or photon is to a physicists.

I'm sorry, but that's just wrong. It is nowhere near as concise a term as 'photon' is in physics. True, the convenience of the term insures that it will be used a lot, even by geneticists. But a particular trait is the collective result of a large number of DNA sequences, any one of which might be as well deserving of the 'gene' distinction as the whole grouped together (which is most often what is meant by that term). In addition, the same sequences (or portions thereof) can, through multiple superimposed functionality, code for entirely different traits. It is tautological, because what is observed first is the trait -- a process which is itself extremely prone to ambiguity -- speaking of 'the gene' that codes for that trait is a shorthand way of referring to the underlying complexity.

All the sites I have visited to educate myself have the same quotes and tracts and cute picture of a little black boy and a little white girl in an idyllic setting

That explains a lot. Surf harder. I haven't seen any cutsy pictures here, for instance:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Biology/index.htm

anytime one seeks to observe or quantify the differences they ( Now ) come under attack as sexist or racist..

That also helps to explain your reaction. I'd like to assure you that I am not in league with those who have evidently attacked you. I consider the PC agenda to be a political agenda, and therefore an obstacle to understanding in science (within the current political environment, it is probably as great a potential obstacle as Christianity ever was). While I hold no idealistic notions about science being 'an immaculate, pristine arena of objective study', it seems to me that to lead with the assumption that such agendas are the prime motivation for everything presented smacks of conspiracy theory.

 

[bug_girl]

sickle cell anemia is a good example, actually. Not all people with dark skin, or of african descent, have an equal chance of carrying sickle cell. Only populations in some parts of africa (mostly western) have the trait. and only african americans descended from immigrants from those parts of africa will carry the trait. It's not a color thing.
This is an example of what i was talking about earlier in the thread about cryptic variation at an enzymatic level. the old way of thinking about variation, based on a visual, typological model, needs to give way to the new.

 

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel:
There is also this from the same article........:"Like previous analyses, Rosenberg's team identified big differences between very isolated populations such as pygmy tribes in Africa. They also highlighted new ones: the Kalash people of northern Pakistan, previously thought to be of East Asian origin, are genetically more similar to those from Europe or the Middle East, they found."

It's important to distinguish between genetic markers and genes. Y-chromosome analysis is used to distinguish between populations (or rather their ancestry) on the basis of differences in the DNA sequence of Y-chromosomes of males. The thing to remember is that these differences occur in regions of DNA with no discernable function, and as such cannot influence physical differences between individuals. Yes there are genetic differences between races and ethnic groups, but that's not to say that these differences contribute in any way to the physical and cultural differenciation that distinguishes races and ethnic groups.

Originally posted by bug_girl:
sickle cell anemia is a good example, actually. Not all people with dark skin, or of african descent, have an equal chance of carrying sickle cell. Only populations in some parts of africa (mostly western) have the trait. and only african americans descended from immigrants from those parts of africa will carry the trait. It's not a color thing.

Sickle cell anaemia is an ecellent example of how a genetic bottleneck can influence the genotype a population group. The allele for sickle cell anaemia confers resistance to malaria, which was a much more immediate threat to the health of people in the part of Africa where it arose. Those we see how a "favourable" mutation can gain a competitive edge in a particular environment.

Ashkenazi Jews have been mentioned. In this case a higher incidence of Tays-Sachs syndrome was noticed in this ethnic group. This reflected the fact that Ashkenazi Jews were traditionally compelled to live in crowded ghettoes, and were more susceptible to TB as a result. However the mutation causing TS also conferred resistance to TB, and was advantageous in this environment. Thus we see how certain genetic disorders effect certain ethnic groups, not due to their ethnicity per se but rather due to the interaction between genotype and environment. If you stuck Vikings or Japanese in to similar environments then the result would probably have been similar.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Dynamic quotes :
"I plead not guilty. This is, in fact, not a particularly emotional issue for me, nor is it a political one. Maybe we can "agree that no one (Zhivotovsky, Rosenberg, and Feldman included) is pushing any political agenda (PC or otherwise) and simply discuss the science?"

No we cannot , as neither of us has the background to either embrace or rebut the correctness of the process and evidence that the paper deleaniate. This is why I asked You if You were a Genetic scientist, I wasn't being a smartass I mearly sought informed clarification of the abstract. As for Your demeanor I am not thin skinned, you were terse and chiding and as You appear not to be an expert , You must have some investment in Your point of view other then idle curiosity.

"Of course. If I said something that made you feel I was suggesting it could be anything more, please point it out, so I can avoid that sort of mistake in the future."

Just review the general tenor of your post.


"Preconcieved ideas, by their very nature, are rarely stated explicitly. When I consider the phrase: "Norwegian Viking", or: "Japaneese businessman", the images that pop into my head are about eighty percent dependent on cultural accoutrements, and maybe another ten percent on certain mannerisms, also culturally derived. (I think it's mostly the viking and the businessman parts that do it). But maybe that's just me."

The quote was "that an aborigine and a New York Jewish person or a Norwegian Viking stereotype or a typical Japaneese businessman hold no genetic difference is prima facia stupid."
I stressed the stereotypical "racial " construct to be an average of the genetic pool of identifiable groups , I must confess that I used the stereotypical image to the advantage of my point , that the observational differences do hold a greater genetic separation then some feel comfortable with. That was editorialasation but not unduly applied.



"I'm sorry, but that's just wrong. It is nowhere near as concise a term as 'photon' is in physics. True, the convenience of the term insures that it will be used a lot, even by geneticists. But a particular trait is the collective result of a large number of DNA sequences, any one of which might be as well deserving of the 'gene' distinction as the whole grouped together (which is most often what is meant by that term). In addition, the same sequences (or portions thereof) can, through multiple superimposed functionality, code for entirely different traits. It is tautological, because what is observed first is the trait -- a process which is itself extremely prone to ambiguity -- speaking of 'the gene' that codes for that trait is a shorthand way of referring to the underlying complexity."

Photon is not concise, it appears that You know as much about Physics as you do about Genetics. If You know anything about Physics , You know that one of the most omnipresent yet least able to be quantified constructs is the Photon, altho we do understand its more expressive behaviors. My use of the word gene was to embrace it's ambiguity whereas You attempt at the same time to reject its inclusivity and scope while championing it's relevance re the Paper in discussion. Choose one sir.



"That also helps to explain your reaction. I'd like to assure you that I am not in league with those who have evidently attacked you."

I have not been attacked, this is again some sort of ...Inertia on Your part . This is the first time I have posted on any board in regards to this subject. I am hesitant to engage in conversations that are based on perception and are only provable dependent on the way one applies ( or crafts) information like political tracts. I do not believe in conspiracies either so the phrase "in league" is questionable at best


" I consider the PC agenda to be a political agenda, and therefore an obstacle to understanding in science (within the current political environment, it is probably as great a potential obstacle as Christianity ever was). While I hold no idealistic notions about science being 'an immaculate, pristine arena of objective study', it seems to me that to lead with the assumption that such agendas are the prime motivation for everything presented smacks of conspiracy theory. "

I have mentioned no agendas or Prime motivations. I have no comment on this as it appears to be an internally devised accommodation of Your world view. I do not believe in conspiracy theories.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Shane : " The thing to remember is that these differences occur in regions of DNA with no discernable function, and as such cannot influence physical differences between individuals. "

That's interesting as we seem to be finding the expression or supression of certain genes are actuated by adjacent" garbage" DNA.

Do You have a grasp of the "markers" that Rosenberg ET. AL. used and why?

 

[bug_girl]

neither of us has the background to either embrace or rebut the correctness of the process and evidence that the paper deleaniate. [snip].......
When I consider the phrase: "Norwegian Viking", or: "Japaneese businessman", the images that pop into my head are about eighty percent dependent on cultural accoutrements, and maybe another ten percent on certain mannerisms, also culturally derived. (I think it's mostly the viking and the businessman parts that do it). But maybe that's just me."

Well, I do have the background to evaluate (most) of the paper. it is a continuation of work that has been ongoing for several years. i will repeat what i said earlier.
we are visual animals, and we have to accept that our old way of classifying organisms is outdated. you are confusing phenotype with genotype.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel

I wasn't being a smartass I mearly sought informed clarification of the abstract

You said:

"...the assessment that genetic variations between individuals ( even of the same racial background) is demonstrable larger then the obvious stereotypical characteristics of differences between "racial " groups seems an attempt to carry PC as a sword that cuts out cancerous ideas that offend, not a statistaclly, or scientifically valid and provable idea."

Reading that, and some of the statements that followed, it seemed to me as though you had pretty much made up your mind. If I was wrong about that. I'm glad. I'd rather be wrong about that.

As for Your demeanor I am not thin skinned

Are too.

you were terse and chiding

I guess I can tend to come off as chiding. I'm working on it. But after all, I was disagreeing with you. Are you sure that isn't what bothered you, rather than the way I did it? One thing I've noticed about this place is that people often disagree with one another, and usually without wasting a lot of bandwidth tiptoeing around and trying to pretty it up. When in Rome and all. (As far as terse, terse is good, isn't it? Verbose is what gets really annoying).

and as You appear not to be an expert

That seems awfully important to you, yet your first contribution to the thread was to dismiss the expertise of the paper's authors, first by painting them as pursuing a PC agenda, then with some rather off the mark comments about the number of genes in humans being in dispute.

You must have some investment in Your point of view other then idle curiosity.

That's true enough, without a doubt.

...the observational differences do hold a greater genetic separation then some feel comfortable with

You continue to insist on interpreting this as a matter of being comfortable (i.e., politically correct). It is a matter of what is accurate.

My use of the word gene was to embrace it's ambiguity

Yes, for the purpose of making this challenge:

"That's a 10% error rate at the start of analysis. Transpose [] that to the DNA pairs and tell me how solid a model is represented by this paper"

whereas You attempt at the same time to reject its inclusivity and scope while championing it's relevance re the Paper in discussion.

It isn't particularly relevant to the paper in discussion, which is precisely the point I was making.

I have mentioned no agendas or Prime motivations. I have no comment on this as it appears to be an internally devised accommodation of Your world view

I have no comment on that.

 

[bug_girl]

sigh. goes for a walk.

"i talk to the treeeeees,
but they don't listen to meeeeee......"

--I Talk To The Trees
From "Paint Your Wagon"

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Well, I do have the background to evaluate (most) of the paper. it is a continuation of work that has been ongoing for several years. i will repeat what i said earlier.
we are visual animals, and we have to accept that our old way of classifying organisms is outdated. you are confusing phenotype with genotype.

The second half of the quote that you address was authored by Dynamic not me.

I agree that the old ways of classification are outdated, I am mearly stating <sigh once again> That there are certain underlying real genetic differences between certain racial groups because of migration and genetic drift in those groups ( altho the isolation that once existed is almost not a factor anymore since one can fly virtually anywhere in the world in hours ).

I am not asserting any groups lack or excess of intelligence or disposition for violence of engineering skills, that is the realm for bigoted morons. Nor do I say that skin color,eye color height or any other topical characteristics indicate profound differences.
The fact that there are not many truly genetically isolated populations anymore, the phenomenon can still be studies in certain groups.

http://arginine.umdnj.edu/science/humvar.html
http://www.chg.ecu.edu.au/research/population_genetics.html

The more homogeneous nature of current human populations means that this will surely survive only as an artifact of our distant past.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Dynamic : "Are too."

Am NOT! (_8-(o)

 

[Dymanic]

AreTooAreTooAreToo

No...wait. Maybe if we both promise to be good, bug girl will come back.

My best understanding of how the microsatellite marker thing works is that they look for repeating sequences of base pairs, (like "CACACACACA") and count the lengths of those sequences.

But the sequences are from intronic (non-coding) segments of the DNA. This is important (and it is why I jumped on you about the 'gene' distinction -- a non-coding segment of DNA is not a 'gene', by just about anybody's definition). Because such sections are not expressed in the phenotype, they are invisible to selection. Therefore, any changes are solely the result of mutation. Drift. Since this drift occurs with a reliable degree of regularity, comparing the similarities in lengths of these sequences in different genotypes is a reliable indicator of degree of relatedness.

 

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel:
That's interesting as we seem to be finding the expression or supression of certain genes are actuated by adjacent" garbage" DNA.

The term used is "junk" DNA, and this is falling out of favour as it is indeed found that non-coding regions of DNA doe effect gene expression.

Do You have a grasp of the "markers" that Rosenberg ET. AL. used and why?

Yes, being a graduate student in molecular genetics, working on association studies between cattle genotypes (or specific genetic markers) and quality traits in meat. In the case of Rosenberg the markers used would either be on the Y-chromosome or in mitochondrial DNA (AFAIK). The aim of the study would be to identify ancestry, rather than the genetic influence on overall phenotype. Similar studies are used to differenciate between Caucasians of Celtic and Nordic ancestry, for instance.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Shane Costello


In the case of Rosenberg the markers used would either be on the Y-chromosome or in mitochondrial DNA (AFAIK).

No, they were looking at autosomal markers. That's their whole deal.

From the linked article:

"Although recombination introduces additional uncertainty regarding the history of any individual autosomal locus, consideration of a large collection of polymorphic loci spread across the genome enables more general inference about demographic history and population relationships than does study of the Y chromosome and mtDNA..."

 

[Soapy Sam]

Just to stir the **** a little further, I feel I should point out, in fairness to racial bigots everywhere, that it's OK to be bigoted If you're right .

But you gotta PROVE IT first!

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

O YA ! the voice of a skirt wareing ( sexually confused) golf playing , stingy Sots-forgodasake-man. Go eat Haggis ya dolt ! =)

 

[Shane Costello]

Originally psoted by Dynamic:
No, they were looking at autosomal markers. That's their whole deal.

I see. Thanks.

 

[hammegk]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12175081&dopt=Abstract

Note the 72% 74% matches. To me all that is implied is some insignificant fraction of human dna results in mappable ethnicities. The % of the genome involved is meaningless.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by hammegk

To me all that is implied is some insignificant fraction of human dna results in mappable ethnicities. The % of the genome involved is meaningless

I agree. Nonlinear anyway.

There are a lot of places on the genome where changes in long sequences of nucleotide bases would result in no change whatsoever in phenotype, and a lot of places where a single insertion or deletion would result in significant changes at the level of the phenotype (such as where the sequences involved have regulatory functions that affect the expression of other genes).

Much of the basis for classifying humans by racial type is concerned with the amount and kind of melanin in the skin. These differences apparently have more to do with the regulatory genes that determine activation or non-activation of melanin producing genes than with large differences in those genes themselves.

Let's say you went through a large document, and made changes to letters in a few thousand places. If the changes were like changing 'race' to 'raace', or 'rase', the meaningful content of the document would be less compromised than if you made changes like 'race' to 'base', or 'rack' in even a few hundred places. Since it isn't necessarily how much is different, but what is different, genetic distance is easier to quantify than genetic difference.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You know what I find interesting about this sort of conversation? Let's imagine that there are racial genetic differences. Let's even imagine that the Smolzoids from Tasmania are stupider than everyone else. There is an odd sort of implication (not that anyone here is racist) that a bit of bigotry against Smolzoids would not be out of the question. This is why we try so hard to deny the differences between peoples.

Why don't we just decide that everyone is okay even if they have a genetic variation that puts them at a disadvantage? Then we can forget about the moral issues of ethnicity and get on to the job of using any ethnic differences to their maximum advantage, and on to the job of repairing any problems that the differences might cause (to whatever extent there really are differences).

Why can't we all just get along?

~~ Paul

 

[hammegk]

.... Let's imagine that there are racial genetic differences. Let's even imagine that the Smolzoids from Tasmania are stupider than everyone else. There is an odd sort of implication (not that anyone here is racist) that a bit of bigotry against Smolzoids would not be out of the question. This is why we try so hard to deny the differences between peoples.

Sure. It's much easier to pretend differences do not exist.

Why don't we just decide that everyone is okay even if they have a genetic variation that puts them at a disadvantage?

Who has decided otherwise? Yeah, I'm p*ssed I'm not 6' 11" with a 44" vertical leap.

Then we can forget about the moral issues of ethnicity and get on to the job of using any ethnic differences to their maximum advantage, and on to the job of repairing any problems that the differences might cause (to whatever extent there really are differences).

What "moral issues"? And, if no issues actually exist why would you, or anyone, worry about "repairing any problems that the differences might cause (to whatever extent there really are differences)".

Why can't we all just get along?

I.E. We hope your warm heart compensates for your soft head.



You believe any of that pc'lib crappola you just regurgitated?