(10-17-2018, 09:30 PM)JagNGeorgia Wrote:

(10-17-2018, 08:40 PM)mikesez Wrote: Bustamante said the ancestor could have been as recent as six generations ago.  He didn't give an actual fraction of genetic material.  The 0.09% number you see is simple people doing simple math, saying, there are 10 generations, 2^10 = 1024, 1/1024 = 0.09%.  But that's not actually how genes work. Most genetic material is not unique to any particular ethnicity, only certain specific markers are.

And the half-and-half assumption is only true for parent and child.  You are half of each of your parents, but you don't know which half.  Genetically, you could be 23% your maternal grandmother and 27% you maternal grandfather and it wouldn't be abnormal, you're still 50% your mom and she's still 50% of each of her parents.  It's explained in the FAQ of ancestry.com, or look up "chromosone crossover".  Bustamante is just counting up the number of markers detected in Warren's genes, comparing that to the number of markers that unmixed people have, and getting a range of possibilities for how many generations it took for that configuration to form.

There are probably markers that could be identified that are different between Cherokees and Aztecs, but she didn't inherit those specific ones.  She inherited a few that people all over both continents shared but that no Europeans have.  I don't see why the lack of specificity to America north of the Rio Grande matters.  She had a native American ancestor.  Her family story says it was someone from what we now call the United States.  She doesn't have family stories about ancestors from Latin America, so we should accept the simpler explanation for why these markers are in her DNA.

Six generations to ten generations to be more precise. That's, what, 150 years before she was born? That simple math isn't inaccurate. You make a lot of justifications for the potential that she may have higher native American DNA. You assume she could potentially have a higher percentage of DNA from natives, but she could potentially have less, too. Either way, these assumptions you make prove nothing. We can only go off of what we know, and we know that she has a lower-than-average percentage for native American DNA.

In 2012, she specifically said her mother was Cherokee. She changed it to be more broad as she received more criticism. I think you're missing the point, however. People ultimately don't care that she technically has native American DNA. I think everyone assumed she'd have a little bit. People think it's stupid that she's claiming native American heritage over .09%. People speak further about the Cherokee lineage because it supports that she's ultimately wrong about being native American. What would the "simpler explanation" be anyway? That it actually isn't the central or south American markers but instead markers from north American tribes that aren't reflected in the results?

Again, do you consider her native American?

As I said to you already, the 0.09% isn't indicative of how genetics actually works.  The only people using that number haven't read the report and don't fully understand genetics.

And as I replied to someone else, this idea that there is an "average value" of native American DNA is not meaningful.  In this case, if you want to know how unique Warren is compared to other white people you'd want to know percentiles and medians, not averages.

I don't have a category for her.  She's a little native. She's mostly white.  She's American.  That's all she ever claimed.  She doesn't qualify for tribal recognition.  She never claimed to and never asked to.  If Trump didn't decide to insult her about this, most people would have forgotten this whole thing long ago.

---