> That alleles linked to cognition and behaviour are no less likely (unless fatal or impacting reproduction) to be found at observably different frequencies between populations than the ones used to create an ancestry report.
I though ancestry reports were regarded as unreliable to the point of meaninglessness because the genes used were not sufficiently strong indicators of population?
> Presumably because racists would ignore all the mediating environmental factors or vastly misrepresent the proportion of variance explained by a given genotype.
Not discussing something because people can misrepresent it is a bad idea. it is both wrong, and has the opposite effect to that intended because it lends credibility to claims of cover up.
I would posit that whoever is saying they’re unreliable has an agenda. Are they 100% accurate in the sense of being able to determine whether you’re 6.2 vs 6.3% Italian? No, there’s always a small degree of uncertainty as more genomes are sequenced and reference panels are updated, but at this point unless you’re from an isolated tribe in the Amazon or some incredibly niche case they’re very representative.
Most people don’t necessarily understand recombination and that if three of your grandparents are Danish and one of your grandparents is, Italian, then you are going to be on average 25% Italian… but that it’s also a distribution centred around 25%. By luck of the draw you could be 3% or you could be 45% Italian genome-wise. People might base their identity on being 1/4 this or 1/8 that, and be upset when an ancestry report gives the actual %.
You can see this by looking at genes with observable consequences such as lactose tolerance. While there are multiple genes for this AFAIK, the commonest is spread over a huge area.
Something as specific as "Danish" or "Italian" genes looks illusory.
I though ancestry reports were regarded as unreliable to the point of meaninglessness because the genes used were not sufficiently strong indicators of population?
> Presumably because racists would ignore all the mediating environmental factors or vastly misrepresent the proportion of variance explained by a given genotype.
Not discussing something because people can misrepresent it is a bad idea. it is both wrong, and has the opposite effect to that intended because it lends credibility to claims of cover up.