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Thread: Test to check origins, scam or some truth to it?

  1. #1 Test to check origins, scam or some truth to it? 
    Forum Ph.D. Raziell's Avatar
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    Today there are offers to check your genetic history and origins. I was just wondering if this can be pretty accurate or if these are simply scams, because Im certainly interested in taking one :P

    What pros/cons does such tests have when it comes to the information they can give?


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  3. #2  
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    Quote Originally Posted by Raziell View Post
    Today there are offers to check your genetic history and origins. I was just wondering if this can be pretty accurate or if these are simply scams, because Im certainly interested in taking one :P

    What pros/cons does such tests have when it comes to the information they can give?
    In my opinion I think there should be many ways of comparing different methods and ac-curacies of any phenomenon before definitively making the results conclusive. Finger printing, DNA, gene type, and other means of verification should be used.


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  4. #3  
    Anti-Crank AlexG's Avatar
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    DNA testing is a pretty well established and accurate procedure.
    Its the way nature is!
    If you dont like it, go somewhere else....
    To another universe, where the rules are simpler
    Philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy
    Prof Richard Feynman (1979) .....

    Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!"
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    Moderator Moderator Cogito Ergo Sum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Raziell View Post
    Today there are offers to check your genetic history and origins. I was just wondering if this can be pretty accurate or if these are simply scams, because Im certainly interested in taking one :P

    What pros/cons does such tests have when it comes to the information they can give?

    Researchers can track your genetic history and pinpoint the region where you live and where your ancestors lived, so it is not a scam.
    If they do not use SPA (SPatial Ancestry analysis) nor GPS (Geographic Population Structure), then you should not take them.

    GPS, which was described and tested a few weeks ago in Nature Communications (Elhaik, E. et al., 2014), will not yet be used.
    The paper is technical and quite large, so this news article from the University of Sheffield gives a simplified explanation about that new tool.
    Last edited by Cogito Ergo Sum; June 16th, 2014 at 07:42 AM.
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    ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument (1831), Stratagem XXXVIII.
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  6. #5  
    Forum Ph.D. Raziell's Avatar
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    Thanks for the replies. I'll try it out when I can afford it then
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    Forum Freshman EvolvedAtheist's Avatar
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    My assumption is that it is quite accurate as your genetic material is compared with that of other nationalities that have spread around the world. This is why in every human's DNA, we will see at least minor genes that are similar to that of African's being that we have all descended from families in Africa (whether it is immediate or millennia)
    “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” Charles Darwin
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