
Genetic testing is an inexact science with real consequences - SirLJ
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/13/20978024/genetic-testing-dna-consequences-23andme-ancestry
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cracker_jacks
The topic of how to deal with genetic information is an important one. There
are many nuances about the technology itself which are distinct from how it
could be used and potentially abused. This article does an awful job for this
topic on so many levels:

> But it was too late to tell my grandma. She’s dead now and I’m a liar.

The personal story is over the top and this is not the definition of a liar.

>“The science across all that is probably total junk,”

\--Jennifer King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center
for Internet and Society.

Why would you run a quote like that?

The writer in this article clearly has an agenda and the alarmist attitude
taken isn't doing this issue justice.

~~~
vanderZwan
> _The personal story is over the top and this is not the definition of a
> liar._

Well, if you take of the programmer's literal-minded hat for a second, this is
probably representative of how the author feels: that she lied to her grandma.
It might be incorrect but to dismiss her feelings of guilt like that is
missing the point.

~~~
cracker_jacks
I don't want to belabor a secondary point too much here. But I will add
there's a big difference between feeling guilty for being wrong and feeling
guilty for lying.

~~~
throwanem
I agree she isn't a liar. She was _lied to_ , by 23andMe, and that's an
important difference.

I don't doubt that the company's fine print attempts to disclaim all
responsibility for whatever errors they make in their calls, no matter how
glaring; I'm quite confident that 23andMe could claim someone's ancestry is
97% derived from thoroughbred horses, and if pressed on the obviously nonsense
result, they'd refer to their legal boilerplate and claim that the fault lay
with whoever was credulous and foolish enough to presume they provide a
product of merchantable quality in exchange for the fee that they charge.

What I don't see is why anyone needs to take them seriously in the attempt.
And, as other commenters have pointed out, when we have companies in the same
industry attempting to market genetic analysis for purposes from skin care to
law enforcement, it's very much worth pausing for a moment, just to make sure
that we aren't at risk of accidentally reinventing the justly discredited
pseudoscience of eugenics, a century down the line.

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zmmmmm
I think this article grossly misapplies the term "testing" here. The 23andMe
site barely contains the word "test" and that's probably because what they do
does not fit with the standards and quality of actual medical testing.

Real genetic testing has very high standards for quality and accuracy and
there are strict guidelines and regulations around how information is conveyed
in reporting information back to requestors.

~~~
Cougher
Your distinction seems to be a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. That 23andMe's
genetic testing doesn't have the same high standards of "real" genetic testing
doesn't mean that they're not using genetic testing. As far as 23andMe's not
using the word "test" meaning anything, there is still an implication that
testing is precisely what they're doing. I just Googled "genetic testing". The
third result is a link to 23andMe that they themselves have titled "23andMe:
DNA Genetic Testing & Analysis". From that page are links to pages like "We're
all about real science, real data and genetic insights that positively impact
people's lives" and "Know your genes, own your health".

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incompatible
I don't see how this kind of DNA test result is useful. It won't help you get
citizenship of another country, or affect any of the cultural attributes you
acquired while growing up (such as language and attitudes to science and
religion). DNA has nothing to do with culture.

Are people supposed to suddenly take an interest in some place that they've
previously ignored, just because they have some DNA that's commonly found in
that location?

~~~
drewbug
"nothing" is probably too strong

~~~
incompatible
People will of course sometimes treat other people differently depending on
physical attributes than can vary in different populations. E.g., skin colour
or height or hair colour. But people already know what visible physical
attributes they have without a DNA test.

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briandilley
I thought it was common knowledge that the ancestry part of the 23andMe
"project" was croud sourced and not an exact science? The "you are related to
XYZ person in our database" stuff was 100% accurate, as that is coded in your
genetics. But their ancestry data is based on who is related to who and what
they think their ancestry is.

~~~
zone411
Directly contradicted here: [https://www.23andme.com/ancestry-composition-
guide/](https://www.23andme.com/ancestry-composition-guide/)

~~~
wahern
That very long and thorough page explains the science, explains why it isn't
exact, and does so in a surprisingly approachable manner. However, people seem
to judge long, technical explanations as prima facie evidence for the
"scientific" soundness of the product, and consider that something which is
"scientific" is by definition accurate and reliable. Unhelpfully, that article
buries the discussion about precision and recall at the very end. But even if
they lead with it, it's perhaps too much to expect them to educate customers
on statistical meaning, such as that even 95% precision means 1 out of 20
classifications will be wrong, and thus that it's entirely unsurprising for
the journalist to have been misclassified as Middle Eastern.[1]

[1] Though, there's also little evidence that they _were_ misclassified, given
the population flows between parts of Italy and other areas around the
Mediterranean. Just because their family members came out as all Italian does
not imply that the journalist's family lacks Middle Eastern ancestry.

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gowld
> Where roughly 25 percent Italian was supposed to be, Middle Eastern stood in
> its place. The results shocked me.

Italy is close to the Middle East on my map.

[http://redd.it/77bj7a](http://redd.it/77bj7a)

> Middle Eastern does not refer to "Arab", but rather, is a catch-all term for
> Eastern Mediterranean, including the Caucasian populations, pre-Arab
> Levantine populations , and other West Asian populations.

> TL;DR- Ancestry that is Italian, Balkan, or Middle Eastern may utlimately
> come from the non-diversified pool of Sicilian/Crete/EastMed populations and
> may only reflect Broadly Mediterranean heritage and not ancestry from any
> one specific location.

> I had made a lot of the Italian portion of my heritage ... majored in Latin
> in college,

I cannot see how 23AndMe was lowering this person's sense of scientific
legitimacy. 23AndMe didn't create this person's bizarre racial proclivities.

~~~
endorphone
More than that, Sicily was a Muslim emirate for hundreds of years! The darker
skin prevalent in Southern Italy is the result of that history, with the Moors
conquering and occupying it for centuries.

When 23andme makes a guess about ancestry it is guessing where a set of people
were at some arbitrary point in the past, otherwise everyone would simply be
"Africa - 100%". This is clearly very inexact and is a novelty more than
anything. And in this case enough of those Moors lived in the Middle East so
it got categorized so. If anything this should be illuminating to her about
notions of race and groupism (e.g. "No, I'm Italian!")

The ads play into this, of course, with the people in the ads suddenly
embracing a different self-identity based upon the results. Which is just sad.

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datashow
I have never heard of "inexact science" or "exact science". Googled exact
science, found all results are related to a company. The term "exact science"
sounds pseudoscience.

~~~
jdale27
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exact_sciences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exact_sciences)

~~~
datashow
Interesting, Google only gives me
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exact_Sciences_%28company%29](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exact_Sciences_%28company%29)

~~~
briandilley
Apparently search isn't an exact science yet ;)

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cia-killer
sicilian is basically arab anyways.

~~~
jokesnotfunny
Some silcilian have North African or Greek as mixture.

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jokesnotfunny
DNA has one interesting thing tho, a lot of people who claim to be 'pure
<insert ethnicity here>' figure out that they've some admixtures of other
ethnic group too

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droithomme
> DNA testing is an inexact science that’s prone to errors throughout almost
> every step of the process

This statement is correct.

