Elizabeth Warren refuses to take DNA test

[Belz...]

But each chromosome only has a 50/50 chance of being passed down, and there is a limited number of chromosomes. If it was more than a handful of generations ago, and the rest of her ancestry is European, there is a good chance she would not have inherited any of those chromosomes. What is distinctive about those Native American chromosomes would be irrelevant.

Which raises an interesting, if technical, question. If no native American DNA remains, can she still claim to have NA ancestry anymore? Is what determined ancestry your forefathers, or your DNA?

 

[crescent]

How would it be detectable if she didn't inherit any chromosomes from her Native American ancestor?

You don't have any full chromosomes from any of your grandparents, you have chromosomes made by mixing and matching the grandparents chromosomes. Chromosome pairs get mushed together and then separated out again during sexual reproduction, during the production of eggs and sperm, if I remember correctly. So you don't have a complete copy of your paternal grandfather's 21st chromosome, for example. You have a 21st chromosome made from 1/2 of your grandfather's and 1/2 of your grandmother's 21st chromosome, passed to you through the sperm. When you produce sperm or eggs, each one will contain one copy of each chromosome, but each of those chromosomes will contain DNA from all four of your grandparents, all eight of your great-grandparents, and so on.

I think I got that right, although I have not yet had my second cup of coffee and it has been more than 20 years since I took genetics. I am happy to accept correction if I got it wrong.

ETA: At any rate, genetic testing is a funny thing that does not always mean what it appears to mean. They make ancestry claims based on the presence of markers and such, but those tend to be an imperfect match with any precise genetic history. It may be possible for Warren to have some genes that are strongly associated with Native American ancestry, even if she does not actually have Native American ancestry.

 

[Matthew Best]

Which raises an interesting, if technical, question. If no native American DNA remains, can she still claim to have NA ancestry anymore? Is what determined ancestry your forefathers, or your DNA?

I don't see how your ancestry could be based on anything other than who your ancestors were. Whether you inherited DNA from them is another matter entirely.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

Chromosome pairs get mushed together and then separated out again during sexual reproduction, durung the production of eggs and sperm, if I remember correctly. You don't have any full chromosomes from any of your grandparents, you have chromosomes made by mixing and matching the grandparents chromosomes.

(Disclaimer, my biology education is limited to AP Bio in high school plus some required college level classes that I don't remember anything about)

Yeah, you don't get a full chromosome from your parents. You get half of one. Which is the point being made - if i have half of a chromosome with markerA and the other half has markerB, and I only pass on the half with markerA, markerB is lost.

So that was the question - if by luck, all the halves of the chromosomes your great-great grandfather don't get passed to you how would you be able tie a lineage to him with your DNA?

That's a serious question BTW.

 

[Pterodactyl]

(Disclaimer, my biology education is limited to AP Bio in high school plus some required college level classes that I don't remember anything about)

Yeah, you don't get a full chromosome from your parents. You get half of one. Which is the point being made - if i have half of a chromosome with markerA and the other half has markerB, and I only pass on the half with markerA, markerB is lost.

So that was the question - if by luck, all the halves of the chromosomes your great-great grandfather don't get passed to you how would you be able tie a lineage to him with your DNA?

That's a serious question BTW.

If I recall correctly, you dont get half of a chromosome from each parent, you get (roughly) half the genetic material from a chromosome, all recombined with the other parents DNA. So it's all mixed together, not cut in half and stuck to another half.

 

[Belz...]

I don't see how your ancestry could be based on anything other than who your ancestors were. Whether you inherited DNA from them is another matter entirely.

Sounds about right, but sometimes in light of what science can find we can change definitions.

Anyway it was just an academic question.

 

[Upchurch]

I don't see how your ancestry could be based on anything other than who your ancestors were. Whether you inherited DNA from them is another matter entirely.

Chromosomes are passed 50/50 from parents, but they aren't necessarily passed evenly from their parents or their grandparents. It isnt inconceivable that a particular line could disapper from one's DNA entirely by chance after several generations.

 

[Belz...]

If I recall correctly, you dont get half of a chromosome from each parent, you get (roughly) half the genetic material from a chromosome, all recombined with the other parents DNA. So it's all mixed together, not cut in half and stuck to another half.

So humans are, in fact, designed by committee?

 

[ahhell]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elizabeth-warren-wealthy-native-american/

Like I said tiny and:

.....evidence is contradictory over whether she used false claims of Native American heritage to gain an edge over other candidates for a job at Harvard or drew a large salary for teaching only one class.

So, if you are looking for reasons to criticize her, this is a minor something and its funny.

Edit to add, its sort of like the folks that still call trump Drumpf or small fingered. It doesn't matter its just mildly amusing.

 

[crescent]

Chromosomes are passed 50/50 from parents, but they aren't necessarily passed evenly from their parents or their grandparents. It isnt inconceivable that a particular line could disapper from one's DNA entirely by chance after several generations.

Yes - but they tend to look for multiple markers.

There are tens of thousands of genes packed in there, maybe more. You are not going to lose all genes from one particular line within just a few generations. They currently estimate that the human genome encodes about 6.4GB of information.

 

[Upchurch]

Yes - but they tend to look for multiple markers.

There are tens of thousands of genes packed in there, maybe more. You are not going to lose all genes from one particular line within just a few generations. They currently estimate that the human genome encodes about 6.4GB of information.

It isn't likely, but neither is it impossible. A DNA test would be less conclusive than a well documented ancestral tree (which probably doesn't exist).

 

[Random]

Yes - but they tend to look for multiple markers.

There are tens of thousands of genes packed in there, maybe more. You are not going to lose all genes from one particular line within just a few generations. They currently estimate that the human genome encodes about 6.4GB of information.

But the genes don't get all mixed together like that. You have 23 pairs of chromosomes, each with a bunch of genes in them. In each pair, you inherited one chromosome from your mother, and one from your father. There might be some genetic drift between one and the other, but it would be the exception, not the rule.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

Even if the test could conclusively show she has no native american ancestry, it's a pointless thing. She apparently said she had native american ancestry based on what she was told by her family. If a DNA test shows she doesn't has that ancestry, it doesn't mean she did anything wrong - just that her family was wrong.

What would matter (and I use the term loosely for such a trivial thing) would be if she said she had that ancestry but her family never told her she did.

The whole thing is silly.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

If I recall correctly, you dont get half of a chromosome from each parent, you get (roughly) half the genetic material from a chromosome, all recombined with the other parents DNA. So it's all mixed together, not cut in half and stuck to another half.

I don't recall a mechanism that would mix up the DNA like that.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I would refuse to take the test too.

If she takes a test and proves the family story correct, do you think she'll get a full-throated apology from her detractors, incl. Trump? Hell no.

Whereas if she doesn't, at least people whining about it come off like backwards dickheads obsessed with racial purity.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I really don't understand this at all.

For context the entire concept of giving two farts about one's ancestry outside of living relatives you still interact with and/or were influenced by during your formative years makes zero sense to me.

The idea that somebody 4 or 5 generations ago belong to some arbitrary "grouping" of people has any influence on who I am now is just incomprehensible to me.

I don't get why anyone would waste the neurons demanding another human being "prove" they are linked via heredity to some other group, but I also don't understand why anyone would bring up their link to some other group in any context except pure in passing trivia at most.

 

[TJM]

Rather than retracting or apologizing for past assertions of Native American identity that have been refuted by genealogists and historians, the Massachusetts Democrat is doubling down on her story about being a Cherokee or a Delaware.

I have no opinion of Warren one way or the other other but she’d gain more respect (well, from me at least) if she would just tell her detractors to **** themselves. Starting with The Orange One and down the line from there.

Does anybody care?

Nope.

In a similar note, Kathy Griffin is going back on tour.

Beheading trump was a good career move - before that, I had no idea who she is or what she does. I still don’t but now I know her name.

 

[Border Reiver]

So humans are, in fact, designed by committee?

A committee of two. Each of whom were also designed by a committee of two, who were also designed by a committee of two...well, you get the idea.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

But the genes don't get all mixed together like that. You have 23 pairs of chromosomes, each with a bunch of genes in them. In each pair, you inherited one chromosome from your mother, and one from your father. There might be some genetic drift between one and the other, but it would be the exception, not the rule.

Again, for purposes of heritage, the genes are not being examined, but the non-coding areas of base sequences between genes. The reason being that genes cannot differ too much from human to human before they no longer function.

 

[ddt]

But the genes don't get all mixed together like that. You have 23 pairs of chromosomes, each with a bunch of genes in them. In each pair, you inherited one chromosome from your mother, and one from your father. There might be some genetic drift between one and the other, but it would be the exception, not the rule.

However, that's not the end of the story. When you get conceived, as a fertilized egg, you indeed have 23 pairs of chromosomes, one from each parent, so, say, a chromosome 2F from your father and a chromosome 2M from your mother (if you have more than two chromosomes #2, one of your parents probably was a chimpanzee). During mitosis, normal cell division, in principle this is faithfully copied.

However, the production of gamets (eggs and sperm) involves another kind of cell division, meiosis, where one cell copies its chromosomes and divides into four. During that, genetic recombination may take place: two sister chromosomes get entangled and exchange a piece of their genetic material. So each of your gametes can have a different makeup of chromosome #2: either truthfully a copy of 2F or of 2M, or a strand of 2F followed by a bit of 2M followed again by the rest of 2F (as in the picture on the wiki page on genetic recombination), or most of 2M with a top of 2F (as in the picture on the wiki page on meiosis).

So you don't necessarily pass a whole chromosome to your children that's identical to one of those you got from a parent.