Can DNA reveal race?

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by Watching You, Mar 31, 2004.

  1. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    There seems to be an abundance of ignorance on this issue, even though this question has been answered zillions of times on the forums. Since the misinformation continues on another forum, I thought I'd point out again to the geniuses at the swamp that at this time, DNA testing cannot determine race.

    http://www.hhmi.org/cgi-bin/askascientist/highlight.pl?kw=&file=answers/genetics/ans_011.html

    Currently, it isn't possible to determine race from DNA. Although many phenotypic traits have been identified and seem to be linked to certain families or populations with common ancestors, the genes for most of these traits have yet to be identified or mapped at the DNA level.

    Traits can be determined from DNA to a certain degree, with the highest level of confidence between children and their parents. When people are tracing back further, though, they must look at multiple traits/genes in combination because we only inherit one chromosome from each (maternal and paternal) side of the family. A further complication in determining ancestry from DNA is that there are usually more differences within population groups (or races) than between groups (or races) at the phenotypic and genotypic levels.

    The large amount of variation within populations comes from continuous mutation and reassortment of genes, which makes it very hard to say with confidence that a particular allele in any two people, for example, came from the same common ancestor or that it arose independently in two different populations. Also, most of the information collected in the Human Genome Project and in mapping disease genes has, unfortunately, underrepresented minorities.

    It may be a long time before enough genetic information is available to compare individuals' DNA with DNA from different races and determine which race the individual may have descended from. Sometime in the future (after the Human Genome Project has progressed further), this may be possible and may allow people to know more about their heritage from their DNA composition, but it also raises other concerns. For example, there's growing concern that the genetic discoveries made possible through the Human Genome Project will lead to racism supported by differences in the genes between different "races."





    http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/5846064.htm

    DNA evidence shows race doesn't exist

    BY TINA HESMAN

    St. Louis Post-Dispatch


    ST. LOUIS — The recently completed Human Genome Sequencing Project has confirmed what many scientists knew all along — that humans don't fit the biological criteria that defines race.

    The revelation strikes at the heart of some of the most deeply entrenched social, cultural and political divisions among Americans. But some experts say our conception of race is not likely to be swayed by the DNA evidence.

    Breaking down racial barriers could have implications for medicine. Public health officials are keen to remind people of certain ethnic or racial backgrounds of increased risks of certain diseases. But those risks may be due more to geography than genetics. And classifying people into arbitrary racial groups could impair individualized care, experts fear.

    "Race is real in a political, social sense, but it's not biological," said Alan Templeton, a population biologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

    Other species, including chimpanzees and wolves, divide into subspecies — known in human circles as races — but people are too good at mingling to create a subspecies.

    A subspecies arises when geographical boundaries cut off a group of organisms from the rest of the species. The isolated group begins to breed and adapt to the environment, causing changes in DNA over time. The longer a group is isolated, the more changes it accumulates in its collective DNA. If the split from the rest of the species lasts long enough, the separation becomes genetically, and sometimes physically, apparent.

    Eventually the isolated group may form a different species. That would mean that the new species could not reproduce when mating with the original species. Members of different subspecies can breed, but don't.

    Geographical constraints are the key to creating races. For example, collared lizards living on Ozark mountaintops can form subspecies, while human inhabitants of the same mountains don't. Templeton can hike the distance between Taum Sauk Mountain and Bell Mountain in less than a day, but the blue-green collared lizards he studies are mostly confined to their respective peaks.

    While the lizards are members of the same subspecies, they look slightly different. Some turn yellow or sport splashes of orange on their noses and toes instead of their throats. Those are cosmetic changes obvious only to biologists and other lizards. But the lizards also have specific changes in their DNA that clearly distinguish a Bell Mountain lizard from his cousin from Taum Sauk.

    HOMOGENOUS HUMANITY

    Humans have proved that there ain't no mountain high enough, no ocean wide enough and no environment harsh enough to keep them confined. Roving feet also carry genes to different parts of the globe, ensuring that people never display sharp distinctions in their DNA. In fact, humans are one of the most homogenous species on the planet, Templeton said. His Ozark mountain collared lizards are three times more variable than humans.

    Biologists use a measurement called Wright's F statistic, or Fst, to quantify the amount of genetic difference, or heterozygosity, between two groups. The scale runs from zero — no difference — to a theoretical maximum of one — distinct populations.

    A heterozygote is an individual who inherits one version of a gene, called an allele, from the mother and a different variant of the gene from the father. Homozygotes inherit the same mom and pop alleles. Alleles arise naturally. Sometimes one allele causes disease, but most of the time the variations are harmless, just different.

    Some scientists who study insect races say that in order to be considered different races or subspecies, two groups must have an Fst score of at least 0.25 to 0.30. That means that at least 25 percent of their genes must be heterozygous. But those cutoff points are arbitrary, and many scientists refuse to pinpoint a number that would signify when a group qualifies as a subspecies. Many don't even recognize subspecies, saying that the distinction has no real meaning beyond qualifying groups of organisms for protection under endangered species laws.

    Regardless of where scientists draw the subspecies line, they agree on one thing — humans don't come close to crossing the racial divide.

    Gray wolves split into subspecies, scoring 0.7 on Wright's scale. Even Ozark mountain lizards living on ridges less than a mile apart differ from each other by an Fst score of 0.4. But human groups score only about 0.15 on the statistical scale. That's a worldwide total measuring all human variation. When scientists try to measure differences between only two groups of people, they usually find a lower score, on average about 0.08 — only 8 percent of the genes examined have more than one allele. The most disparate human groups barely make the 0.25 mark, far below the diversity seen in lizards. And even though they make the arbitrary cutoff, those human groups are not geographically isolated and do not qualify as races.

    Any way you measure it, the amount of divergence between people is essentially zero, said Joseph L. Graves, Jr., an evolutionary biologist and author of books on biology and race. It's certainly not enough to qualify human groups as different races.

    "The scientific case for the nonexistence of human race is overwhelming," Graves said.

    Humans traditionally divide people into races according to skin color. But the association really is only skin-deep and reveals nothing about genetic relationships.

    For instance, the Pygmy people living in Zaire and the Central African Republic, and people from Melanesia, such as people from the island of Fiji, are among the darkest-skinned populations in the world. A racial classification based on skin color would likely group them as members of the same race quite distinct from fair-skinned Europeans.

    But genetic analysis reveals that both African Pygmies and people from Fiji are more closely related to Europeans than to each other.

    NATURE AND NURTURE

    What the differences in skin tone really reveal are geographic origins of a person's ancestors, Graves said. People from Fiji may look like African Pygmies because the two groups live in places where UV radiation from the sun is intense.

    "All traits are genetically determined. All traits are environmentally determined," Graves said. "Nature-nurture is a red herring. It's always nature and nurture."

    Nowhere is that more apparent than in medicine. Public health officials warn that diseases such as diabetes and heart disease are more prevalent in African-Americans than in white Americans. But the discrepancy is more likely due to diet, exercise and other social and environmental factors than to race, Graves said. Western Africans don't suffer from heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, but African-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans do, he said. If race determined disease risk, those groups would fall ill at the same rate.

    Other diseases appear at first glance to be linked to race. Sickle-cell anemia is often branded as a disease that primarily strikes blacks. That's true to some extent, but again the racial link crumbles under further scrutiny. People from Saudi Arabia, Greece and India also have high rates of the disease and other related blood disorders. Up to 50 percent of Saudi Arabians carry a gene for alpha thalassemia, and 35 percent of Indians from certain tribes carry sickle-cell alleles.

    Sickle-cell anemia is caused by a defect in one of the protein chains that compose hemoglobin molecules in red blood cells. In people who have two copies of the sickle cell gene, the hemoglobin molecules don't function properly, and red blood cells collapse into a half-moon shape. The disease can cause spleen damage, strokes and severe joint pain.

    People with only one copy of the sickle cell allele don't get sickle cell anemia. They are also protected from contracting a particularly deadly form of malaria caused by the mosquito-borne parasite Plasmodium falciparum. When researchers laid a map of areas affected by malaria over a map showing the distribution of sickle cell disease, they saw that the two diseases often occur together. Researchers concluded that the sickle cell anemia allele must be an adaptation against malaria and is found in populations with high rates of malaria infection, regardless of race.

    Still, some people try to use the prevalence of diseases or certain behaviors in different groups to justify racial classifications, said Robert Sussman, an anthropologist at Washington University.

    "We want to put this biological stamp on it to make it sound scientific, but it's really social and prejudice," Sussman said.

    Getting past the pseudo-scientific distinctions of race and ethnicity is likely to lead to more individualized medicine, many experts predict.

    People want to be treated for their own diseases, not those of their ethnic group, Templeton said.

    EVOLUTION OF RACE

    But race as a social, political and cultural entity is unlikely to disappear as long as it is still useful for categorizing people, said Sheilah Clarke-Ekong, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.

    "Race is about what we look like. Race is about how the tone of our voice settles on the ear," said Clarke-Ekong. "Race is how we understand the world, which is representative of culture, among other things."

    As societies evolve and cultures merge, ideas about race also change, Clarke-Ekong said. So do racial labels.

    Clarke-Ekong counted off six terms that have labeled African-Americans in her 50-year lifetime. She said she remembers when the term in polite company was Negro, then colored, then black, Afro-American, African-American and people of color.

    Even in places where race is not an issue, people strive to pinpoint where a person fits in the social fabric, Clarke-Ekong said. Race is one convenient tool people think they can use to determine who someone is, how they will behave or where they came from. But those assumptions are very often wrong, and people don't fit into prescribed roles.

    WHAT IT MEANS:

    Any way you measure it, the amount of divergence between people is essentially zero, said Joseph L. Graves, Jr., an evolutionary biologist and author of books on race. "The scientific case for the nonexistence of human race is overwhelming," he said.
     
  2. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-experts-01.htm

    You say there's not a single gene or trait that divides people into races. But are there sets of traits or groups of characteristics attributable to genetic differences among modern racial groupings? Isn't scientific differentiation more about frequencies and probabilities than it is about absolute differences? Can't you look at overall genetic patterns and come up with a pretty accurate estimate of what somebody's race is?

    Alan Goodman
    Basically with enough variables, one can divide almost any sample into subsamples. An example of this is that with a few skull measurements, one can do a pretty good job of separating skulls of 18th-century white Americans from 19th-century white Americans. You can't do it with a single variable, of course, but with a combination of variables, statistically, with more and more variables you'll do better and better and better in dividing individuals into the groups in which they're purported to belong. But that doesn't mean that those groups have any sort of underlying biological integrity, or any sort of underlying real integrity. It's just a matter of statistics. And it doesn't necessarily produce a sorting that we can all agree upon. Variation is always, to some degree, random.

    The question, though, is really about race as a scientific or analytical category. It doesn't work as such, for a number of reasons. For one, definitions of race are always based on social definitions. They are socially defined, and thus entirely fluid and unstable, and they vary from time to time and place to place. Secondly, on the biological side, we've all come to realize the incredible amount of variation within any so-called race. So the greater the amount of variation within, the greater the number of variables that you're going to need to define a race. But why even begin to go down that road when there really is no underlying analytical or biological reality in the idea of race in the first place. On a grand scale, I really can't find a reason to think that races would have any sort of reality to them, in terms of selection and evolution.

    Pilar Ossorio
    The concept of race involves not only differences between different races, but similarities within any one race. Although we can use characteristics, genetic or otherwise, to make statistical distinctions between groups of people, such distinctions can be misleading because they do not capture what people generally mean when they talk about "race." This is because within any group defined by those statistics, there is more genetic difference than similarity; we cannot use race defined statistically as a guide to genetic similarity or relatedness.

    Traits are inherited independently unless the genes that code for those traits are very close together on the DNA. Most observable physical characteristics that are influenced by genes - such as skin color, hair texture, nose shape and height - are inherited independently of each other. Among the dark-skinned people of Africa we find populations with the tallest and shortest average heights of any people in the world. Another example: there are very dark-skinned people in Africa, India and Southeast Asia, yet even though people from geographically distant places might have the same skin color they often differ with respect to hair texture, nose shape and other physical characteristics. Furthermore, observable physical traits such as skin color do not correlate with particular internal traits; we can't say that if somebody has genes that would cause darker skin, that that correlates with some other things that she might also have inherited.

    Also, humans are genetically very similar. We're still a very young species, and a lot of the traits that may be inheritable and may have something to do with behaviors or cognitive processes are probably very old in our species. There's no reason to think that whatever genes exist that might contribute to those kinds of traits would be distributed non-randomly; there is no reason to think that gene variants for particular behaviors or personality traits would be enriched in one group of humans, particularly when the groups include millions of people. Those kinds of traits exist in every population.

    Jonathan Marks
    One of the fascinating things that's come out of genetics in the last ten or fifteen years, is the discovery that human beings don't have much genetic variation. As Pilar was saying, we are apparently a young species. And if you compare the genetic diversity in a group of chimpanzees with the genetic diversity among humans all over the world, what you find is that chimpanzees are very much more diverse from one another than humans are, in spite of the fact that chimpanzees all look alike to us. And that's because they're a much older species. They've had a lot more time to differentiate.

    Also, in terms of the way this question is framed, we're eliding different uses of the term race. On the one hand we're talking about this classic, essentialized race where if you have one drop of non-white blood, you're in that non-white category. And now suddenly in this question, we're talking about average differences between mega-populations. And these are actually quite different conceptions.
     
  3. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    No excuse for ignorance

    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00055DC8-3BAA-1FA8-BBAA83414B7F0000


    BIOLOGY






    Does Race Exist?
    If races are defined as genetically discrete groups, no. But researchers can use some genetic information to group individuals into clusters with medical relevance
    By Michael J. Bamshad and Steve E. Olson



    Image: NANCY BURSON
    Overview / Genetics of Race
    Look around on the streets of any major city, and you will see a sampling of the outward variety of humanity: skin tones ranging from milk-white to dark brown; hair textures running the gamut from fine and stick-straight to thick and wiry. People often use physical characteristics such as these--along with area of geographic origin and shared culture--to group themselves and others into "races." But how valid is the concept of race from a biological standpoint? Do physical features reliably say anything informative about a person's genetic makeup beyond indicating that the individual has genes for blue eyes or curly hair?
    The problem is hard in part because the implicit definition of what makes a person a member of a particular race differs from region to region across the globe. Someone classified as "black" in the U.S., for instance, might be considered "white" in Brazil and "colored" (a category distinguished from both "black" and "white") in South Africa.


    Yet common definitions of race do sometimes work well to divide groups according to genetically determined propensities for certain diseases. Sickle cell disease is usually found among people of largely African or Mediterranean descent, for instance, whereas cystic fibrosis is far more common among those of European ancestry. In addition, although the results have been controversial, a handful of studies have suggested that African-Americans are more likely to respond poorly to some drugs for cardiac disease than are members of other groups.
    Over the past few years, scientists have collected data about the genetic constitution of populations around the world in an effort to probe the link between ancestry and patterns of disease. These data are now providing answers to several highly emotional and contentious questions: Can genetic information be used to distinguish human groups having a common heritage and to assign individuals to particular ones? Do such groups correspond well to predefined descriptions now widely used to specify race? And, more practically, does dividing people by familiar racial definitions or by genetic similarities say anything useful about how members of those groups experience disease or respond to drug treatment?



    Image: NANCY BURSON
    INDIVIDUALS from different populations are, on average, just slightly more different from one another than are individuals from the same population.
    In general, we would answer the first question yes, the second no, and offer a qualified yes to the third. Our answers rest on several generalizations about race and genetics. Some groups do differ genetically from others, but how groups are divided depends on which genes are examined; simplistically put, you might fit into one group based on your skin-color genes but another based on a different characteristic. Many studies have demonstrated that roughly 90 percent of human genetic variation occurs within a population living on a given continent, whereas about 10 percent of the variation distinguishes continental populations. In other words, individuals from different populations are, on average, just slightly more different from one another than are individuals from the same population. Human populations are very similar, but they often can be distinguished.

    Classifying Humans
    As a first step to identifying links between social definitions of race and genetic heritage, scientists need a way to divide groups reliably according to their ancestry. Over the past 100,000 years or so, anatomically modern humans have migrated from Africa to other parts of the world, and members of our species have increased dramatically in number. This spread has left a distinct signature in our DNA.

    To determine the degree of relatedness among groups, geneticists rely on tiny variations, or polymorphisms, in the DNA--specifically in the sequence of base pairs, the building blocks of DNA. Most of these polymorphisms do not occur within genes, the stretches of DNA that encode the information for making proteins (the molecules that constitute much of our bodies and carry out the chemical reactions of life). Accordingly, these common variations are neutral, in that they do not directly affect a particular trait. Some polymorphisms do occur in genes, however; these can contribute to individual variation in traits and to genetic diseases.
     
  4. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    It really aggravates me

    when people are presented with the same proof over and over again and they still continue to talk about DNA determining the race of someone. It does not, it cannot at this time. Perhaps at some time in the distant future, there may be a test to give a close determination of race, but as long as humans are made up of many different races, in the same body, it will remain impossible to determine race or skin color from DNA. We are all of one race under the skin when it comes to DNA
     
  5. EasyWriter

    EasyWriter FFJ Senior Member

    Re: It really aggravates me

     
  6. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    It seems Margoo

    has taken issue with my expending great bandwidth here to produce these "old, outdated" googled articles. Oh, hell, here, let her tell you:

    Margoo suggested I should be more diligent in checking for updates in DNA testing. (http://bioforensics.com/conference/Racial Identification). At first I was quite interested in this seemingly good information, ready to admit that something new had occurred that I didn't know about.

    Then, I did a little checking myself and found the following:

    Race gleaned from DNA causes debate
    By MARCUS FRANKLIN, Times Staff Writer
    Published January 11, 2004

    The way Uncle Grayal told it many years later, his father sat him down on the front porch of their Hardee County home and let him in on a well-guarded family secret.

    "He told him, "Your grandmother was a beautiful Creek Indian princess,"' Jean Polk, Grayal's niece, recalled recently.
    But not everyone accepted the revelation as gospel, including Grayal's sister, Fanny. She was more interested in finding proof that ancestors had fought British rule so she could join the Daughters of the American Revolution.

    "Aunt Fanny said, "There's not a bit of truth in that,"' recalled Polk, a retired educator. "For some people in the family, it was beneath them to be Indian or part Indian."

    Now Polk and other relatives think they have evidence that bolsters Uncle Grayal's story. It comes from a controversial DNA test sold by a biotechnology firm housed in a former church meeting hall in downtown Sarasota.

    For $158, DNA Print Genomics will analyze the DNA in the cells from a cheek swab. It says it can tell your ancestral mixture of four major groups: African, European, American Indian and east Asian.

    Polk's test, for example, concluded her ancestry was 86 percent European and 14 percent Indian, prompting both surprise and knowing nods in the family.
    * * *
    The test, Ancestry By DNA, is among the first of its kind, thanks to recent advances in the understanding of human genes.
    The company gained national attention this year when the test was used in the search for a suspected serial killer in Louisiana. Authorities had been looking for a white man, but several weeks after DNA Print Genomics analyzed DNA samples provided by investigators, authorities arrested an African-American.

    Authorities won't say how crucial a role the test played.
    Tony Frudakis, founder and lead scientist of DNA Print Genomics, said the test gives customers greater understanding of their origins. It also dismantles racism by showing race is more complex than the neat boxes on U.S. Census forms.

    But some genetics experts say that the test is a scam, that it couldn't possibly yield the results it claims for the price it costs and that it could be used to try to bolster racist claims.

    "The company will be able to provide you with an estimate, but it won't be much better than looking at the guy," said Stephen J. O'Brien, chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Md. "I'm sure it won't have much use to the recipient."

    O'Brien and others say there are more important medical reasons to use genetic information.

    Frudakis said his company's ultimate goal is to develop tests for more effective drug treatment by matching patients with drugs based on their genetic makeup. He balks at the critics.

    But, isn't this the way of the Rambots? They AWAYS take the unproven, unsubstaniated, and non-peer tested way. In science, there are always tests and peer testing and more peer testing before something is said to be conclusive. The fact that the Frudakis testing is coming under scrutiny by experts and found to be a "scam" is reason enough to not get on the bandwagon just yet. I realize that's all the Rambots have in their arsenal of goodies - trumped up evidence that isn't there, scams created by a has-been detective, and now a scam artist saying race can be determined by DNA.

    Sorry, Margoo, you're going to have to come up with something better than that. I would very much like to have been proven wrong this time, but you didn't do the job. I look forward to the time when scientists have scientifically tested and retested these newest presentations and have reached consensus on a conclusion, at which time I am sure the announcement will make headline news on all the major news networks.

    The fact remains that at this time, race, whatever race is, cannot be determined by DNA and wishful thinking won't make it so.
     
  7. Jayelles

    Jayelles Alert Viewer in Scotland

    LOL

    Poor Margoo.

    I contacted a research student working on the Human Genome project a year or so ago about the issue of race and DNA. It was at the time that jameson was posting that the DNA under JonBenet's fingernails and in her underwear was from a "White, Caucasian male". The response that I got told me that race can be determined in many cases from MtDNA but only because they have a massive database with DNA information from known donors. He said that (at that time) race could not be determined from nuclear DNA.

    I don't pretend to understand the complexities of DNA. However, I do appreciate that breakthroughs are happening all the time. It would be great if a test for race was helpful in the Ramsey case though I'm not sure how it could be since all the potential suspects are white!
     
  8. Elle

    Elle Member

    Jayelles,

    A few weeks ago, I switched on the tale end of one of those BBC biology series Sir David Attenborough is famous for. It looked like they were doing some kind of tests in Africa, and they had discovered the actual man they were looking for. I'm hesitant to state it was a DNA test, with WY's recent post and Margoo's retaliation, because I just switched on as the show was ending, and I'm unsure what it was all about (?).

    Know anything about this, at all? Don't go researching. I have already spent too much time on it myself with no luck. Sir David has made so many of these fabulous shows in the wilderness.

    Was just thinking, it must have had something to do with the following series:

    An estimated 500 million people worldwide watched the 13-part series Life on Earth, written and presented by Sir David. At the time it was the most ambitious series ever produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Its sequel, The Living Planet, came five years later in 1984 and in 1990 the final part of the trilogy, The Trials of Life was broadcast. He also wrote and presented two shorter series, The First Eden, on the long history of mankind's relationship with the natural world in the lands around the Mediterranean, and Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives, about fossils.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 3, 2004
  9. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    As many know

    because I've said it enough times it's probably getting boring, up until last year, I worked for a microbiologist who is also an expert in infectious diseases and RNA/DNA. I specifically asked him last year if there was any way to tell race through DNA. He said no, for obvious reasons - there is no pure race. He said essentially that race is a social issue and we are all the same underneath the skin genetically speaking. That is not to say we don't all have genes that dictate our skin color, eye color, hair color, etc. We do.

    I don't think there is a scientific definition of "race." Obviously, African Americans and Caucasians (whites) are different on the surface and culturally in a lot of cases, but how does that play out in "race," scientifically speaking? If someone is Heintz 57 as I am, then what race am I? I am classified as "Caucasian," but what does that mean? White? Yeh, so? Swedes and Norwegians are white, too, but are they Caucasians?

    I am part English, part French, part Indian, part Dutch, part whever else is in that pile called WY's DNA. What race am I? African-Americans have brown skin, but some have caramel colored skin. Some AAs have both white (Caucasian) and African American parentage - the caramel colored skin for the most part. What "race" are they, genetically? Socially, they are still called "blacks." I have a little girl in my family - a grand niece - who has a Caucasian mother and a "black" father. She is beautiful with her glowing caramel skin. Is she black? Or is she white? Or is she German? Her mother is part German on her mother's side. What are Germans? Are they Caucasians?

    This whole genetic profiling by race thing is way too complicated, simply because there is no pure race. Just considering our ancestors within the past 300 years (not to mention the centuries before then) is mind boggling.

    What if one of our ancestors from years ago was African American? What if one was Mexican? What if the Mexican and the AA had a baby together? What race is the baby? Every single one of our ancestors is implanted in our genetic makeup somehow. How does one sort race from the thousands of contributors to that genetic makeup we now call RNA/DNA?

    It's complicated. Only by continued testing using actual population samples can science possibly sort out certain possible genetic characteristics related to that sample, but there is no XY or Z chromosome that will identify "race," whatever race is, at this time, and until someone identifies the scientific meaning of "race" and how it applies to genetics, there will not be any such qualifier in science.

    I know this is deep, and there are no deep thinkers at the swamp, but they could at least ponder on the extreme difficulties of narrowing down a race in a person when a person is made up of many different races.
     
  10. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    Elle

    All this brings to mind the controversial company that came forward and claimed to have cloned a human baby. Remember that? They would not consent to peer review, which is the quintessential element in scientific work. All new allegedly new experiments have to be duplicated and sometimes triplicated by peers in the scientific field to be accepted as true. That's what science is all about.

    The cloned baby claim was about two years ago if I remember right. To date, no one has seen this cloned baby. There is fierce competition in the scientific world and men and women with outstanding credentials working every day to find cures for diseases and vaccines using genetic research. What they find today could be the seed to finding a way to classify human beings other than the social identification of "race." The world of genetics is fascinating and unless one is involved in genetic research with all the proper qualifications and knowledge, which I'm not, all we understand are the very basics about DNA.

    I started to read a book belonging to the expert I talked about earlier and also saw many exams he gave to his honors students taking his courses in infectious diseases. These were very good students and the course was difficult, but it was still at undergraduate college level microbiology. I got into proteins and sequencing and then I got into terms I had no idea what they were. From undergrad to the Master's then on to the Doctorate, the science gets more involved. We actually know so little compared to the experts, but at least we try to understand as much as we can.
     
  11. Voyager

    Voyager Active Member

    WY....

    I know what you mean by the increasing complexity of the gene reasearch as one advances to the PHD level....

    Mr. V.'s brother is a PHD Biochemist who was involved in genetic research.... Many years ago, he gave us a copy of his Thesis to give us some idea of what his research involved....After an introductory explanation of the basic premise, our understanding of the project became pretty limited, and trying to read his paper became like wading through thick mud! Couldn't really get anywhere with it....

    So those spouting expertise on other forums must be pretty advanced mentally and educationally as well eh?

    Voyager
     
  12. Elle

    Elle Member

    Enjoyed your posts WY

    Enjoyed your terrific posts WY. I love it when I learn something new every day. Sounds like a very interesting job you held with the Microbiologist. This is why I enjoy coming here. I usually leave it a bit wiser.:p

    Yes, I remember the cloned baby story. I was quite stunned with that one, but we have heard nothing as you said. They say one day they will be able to clone the body parts we may need for transplanting. How I wish this was happening right now for a very special person I know.
     
  13. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    Right, Elle

    genetic research is so exciting, and I have no doubt that in years to come, maybe not so far away, they will be able to take cells from a diseased organ, purify those cells and grow a whole new organ to be transplanted into the patient. Research has been going on for years to discover ways to remove or nullify the effects of the genetic defects that cause certain diseases. I'm going to use cystic fibrosis as an example. To my limited knowledge, cystic fibrosis is caused when two parents who carry the gene marry and have children. In our family, we have lost two children to cystic fibrosis. My uncle and his wife lost a little girl - she was just four years old when she died. They lost another baby who was just a few months old when he died. They had one daughter who did not have the disease.

    Thanks to RNA/DNA research, diseases like cystic fibrosis will be a disease of the past. There are other diseases that are genetic that will, in the future, be manipulated genetically to render the bad gene harmless. That is my layman's way of explaining it - it is so much more complicated, but someday all these genetic diseases will no longer be a threat to our kids, and what a day that will be, yes?

    I hope I live long enough to see some of the wondrous things they will do with genetic research. I know what you mean about wishing it could be now. Whatever funding scientists need to further their research they should get. It will someday mean the end of cancer and maybe even AIDS. I find the subject fascinating and read everything I can get my hands on about it. They study the RNA of viruses and bacteria, and they can right now manipulate some of the DNA of both. That's going to mean some day they will probably render many if not all diseases obsolete.

    I know this probably bores a lot of people, but I can see a day ahead where medicine as we know it now will be a thing of the past. It's not so far away.
     
  14. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    To Margoo

    I cannot abide dishonest people, Margoo. If you insist on debating me on your forum, at least be honest enough to post the entire thing, including the part that says many scientists consider your version of how DNA can tell race a scam.

    BTW, saying certain genetic profiles are contigious to a certain part of the world - say European, Africa, etc., is not news to me. Neither is it proof of race by any stretch of the imagination. Your argument will not hold water, Margoo, because there is no race gene. Period. Is it so important to you to be right no matter what the truth is? Freak it, I don't care who is right or wrong. I only care what is scientifically proven. To my knowledge, there is no European "race." There are many "races" that make up Europe, though. Your so-called "deep thinking" is shallow, Margoo.

    I can't debate with a stump and I won't debate someone who deliberately and dishonestly leaves out the qualifier in quoting someone else. That just stinks, IMO.
     
  15. Why_Nut

    Why_Nut FFJ Senior Member

    WY, I see where Margoo fails to notice in her own post this tidbit:

    In recently admixed peoples, the DNA is made of a relatively small number of very large blocks. The MALD method is applied to these populations, using maps of AIMs throughout the genome, allowing pan-genome coverage with as few as 2,000 markers.

    Discussion of general use of DNA analysis to discover race aside, this case has DNA which cannot even manage to find 13 markers for detection of unique identity. Where does Margoo hope that this degraded sample is going to yield up 2,000 markers, minimum, to identify the race of the contributor?
     
  16. Jayelles

    Jayelles Alert Viewer in Scotland

    Elle

    I'm sorry but I don't know the David Attenborough programme that you mention. I should watch these programmes, but I rarely do.

    Rainsong posted about the possibility of DNA information enabling us to see an image of the person in the future. I really do believe this will be possible and I think it's very exciting. However, I think they will have to collect infinite amounts of historical data first.

    WY - Race is indeed a complex thing. Even within Caucasian it's not clear cut. For example, it is possible to distinguish an Irish person from a Scot from a French person from a German - just on appearance. Each of these nationalities has its own distinctive features.
     
  17. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    Absolutely right

    Why_Nut, Margoo left a lot of things out her post that might prove doubtful to her "updated" DNA knowledge and left in the part that she says proves her point without exposing the rest of the story that would tend to discredit the swamp's attempts to prove something - it's called taking text out of context, but Margoo knows this, and she should also know it discredits her own work when she does that.

    Jayelles, I too believe that sometime in the future, DNA will enable us to see an image of a person. I am not a scientist and can't even hope to discuss the complexities of RNA/DNA, but my source for information was well aware of that and he tried to explain things to me in people speak rather than scientist speak. The human bluepriint, so to speak, is now in the hands of scientists. It took years, but the entire sequencing of RNA/DNA was completed a few years ago. That was a giant step toward all the wonders to come.

    Perhaps the misunderstanding comes in the fact that the term "race" is a social issue, not a scientific term. "Race" is a superficial term that was coined, I suppose, as a way of identifying the surface and cultural differences between people. I don't make this stuff up, it was told to me by a scientific expert who is not prone to exaggeration or ego problems. If I can track him down on Monday or Tuesday, I am going to specifically ask him about the latest findings on race and DNA. Then I will come back and write what he tells me here. I suspect that Margoon and the rest of the Rambots, once again, will think they know more than the experts.

    As an addendum, I would just like to point out that using DNA to identify a person is pretty old hat these days. The fact remains, one has to have both an excellent DNA sample to begin with and something to compare that sample with. DNA will never identify anyone in the Ramsey case, because the sample they have is not complete and no non-Rambot jury would ever convict anyone on an incomplete DNA sample. The issue is moot, but no one can tell them that.

    I would also just point out that even more important that identifying a criminal through DNA is the work scientists are doing in identifying myriad killers. While the Rambots continue to mull, with their partial brains, the partially-there DNA in the Ramsey case, real scientific work is going on every day in laboratories around the world - a "race" against time, so to speak, to sequence RNA in viruses and bacteria to benefit all mankind. This excites me much more than the nearly non-existent DNA sample in the Ramsey case. These scientists are going to catch some of the most lethal killers ever known to mankind and they are going to someday render them all harmless. Maybe in ten, twenty years, or maybe even before, scientists will have assured that none of our children will ever have cancer. That is worth shouting about. That is where the real success stories are going to be told.

    Right now, they can match a DNA sample with a person. The RST cannot produce an intruder and there is no one to compare the partially-there DNA sample they claim to have. Even if there were a suspect, there could be no match, because the suspect would have a complete DNA strand, the sample does not. The DNA is, for all intents and purposes, worthless in the JBR case.
     
  18. Jayelles

    Jayelles Alert Viewer in Scotland

    Good Post

    Over at Purgatory, a hat called maddie has posted that Fleet White's DNA test was inconclusive. I asked Maddie to provide a credible source for this, but so far she/he has refrained from doing so.

    However, a tiny niggle is at the back of my mind that I have seen this claim somewhere else. I just don't recall where. Does it sound familiar to anyone else?

    I just cannot believe that if FW's DNA test was inconclusive, that the supposedly new sooperdooper investigative team wouldn't have made it a priority. Especially in the light of the new, apparently better DNA sample they have to work with.
     
  19. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    Where's my UncleBlabby?

    UncleBlabby claims, and I agree, that maddie is none less than mame in a new hat. Does that ring a bell? The maddie/mameslug is prone to gross exaggeration and outright invention. What does that mean, anyway? Inconclusive DNA results using an inconclusive sample? Give me a break. mame is a non-issue and so are her lies.

    BTW, polygraph results are sometimes classified as "inconclusive." DNA results are not. Either there is a match or there isn't.
     
  20. Jayelles

    Jayelles Alert Viewer in Scotland

    Wy

    I am thinking that I may have seen this claim about the inconclusive FW DNA at WS - perhaps last year or in the latter part of the previous year. It will come to me. I have a terribly memory for names, but they usually come to me eventually. I don't believe Mame posted at WS - although it may have been her under a different hat.
     
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