Contra "Admixture" Testing Redux

Food for thought.

More evidence in support of Sallis’ critiques of “admixture” testing.

Hellenthal et al, 2014 estimated from data of 94 modern populations a couple of analyses on Bulgarians inferred from an admixture event in 1000-1600 YBP between a Slavic and a Cypriot donor group: to a Polish donor group Bulgarians are of an estimated 59% Polish-like and 41% Cypriot-like admixture; to a Belarusian, Bulgarians are of 46% Belorussian-like and 54% Cypriot-like admixture.

It should be clear to the triple digit IQ crowd that Bulgarians are not literally a mix of 59% Polish and 41% Cypriot or 46% Belorussian and 54% Cypriot. The weasel word “like” gives a clue here (e.g., “Polish-like” instead of “Polish”). These data merely suggest that Bulgarian genomes could in theory be modeled as such mixtures given those specific options as parental reference populations; if other reference populations were chosen, the results would of course be different (note here how the levels of the “Cypriot-like” component changes dependent upon whether “Polish-like” or “Belorussian-like” is chosen as the other component). This is merely modeling (what current "admixture testing" is for the most part); it is not meant as a literal reading of ethnic history. And if the authors of the paper did in fact have the intention of it being literal in the sense quoted above, then they are being absurd.

Also note how different studies give significantly varied results and interpretations – about the same studied genomes. This also clearly demonstrates that study methodology (foremost among which is the choice of reference populations), and bias with respect to interpretation, color the reported findings

Extend this to commercially available “testing.” If a Bulgarian reference population was used, then ethnic Bulgarians would test as, say, 95-100% “Bulgarian” (dependent upon how closely their genomes match that of their co-ethnics chosen as the parentals). If, however, Poles, Belorussians, and Cypriots were chosen as the parentals, then results would likely mirror the modeling of Hellental et al. Companies also interpret these data differently. 23andMe, for some bizarre reason, would place Cypriots as “West Asian” while at the same time labelling Ashkenazi Jews as “European;” in contrast Living DNA is labelling Cypriots as (Southern) European.

We can see the problems here. Unfortunately, semi-retarded simpletons who spontaneously ejaculate over “testing” results do not see the (quite obvious) problems.

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