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Archiver > GENBRIT > 2001-06 > 0991397634


From: Don Moody <>
Subject: Re: Genealogy - Just a family thing?
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 13:13:54 +0100
References: <vavR6.27$1H4.160053@newsr2.u-net.net>


In article <hOJR6.66964$>, cecilia <>
writes
>I'm confused.
>
>I thought (because of information from you) that we should not feel
>that we can determine even who our male genetic ancestors WERE.
>
>(I would include female ancestors, given incidents I have been told of
>where "covering-up" might well have included false registrations.)
>
>It's all myths and legends to me.
>
You are quite right to point this out. I could have made the previous
posting a lot longer, more convoluted, and therefore very precise. I
elected to make it shorter and include all the conditions and caveats in
the one word: statistical.

For all the differences that there may be in one case between purported
genealogy and actual genetics, the brutal fact is that purported
genealogy is all that is likely to be available. That will be so until
all babies for two or three generations have been DNA profiled. It is
these differences which make research into the genetic basis of some
diseases so difficult. It is why so often ifs and buts and maybes
spatter the conversations of medics and patients. It is why there is
reliance on fuzzy 'weight of evidence' rather than clear deductive
logic. It is also why there are occasional cataclysmic shifts of belief
about a disease when it is finally realised that the received wisdom
about nature and nurture of that disease is plain wrong.

It is also what provides the endless fascination to me. Science
philosophy requires only one example to disprove a theory. So if a
genealogy shows that a disease is *not* inherited in a particular way in
just one case, that would appear to say that the theory that the disease
is inherited is wrong. But it doesn't show that at all if we know the
purported genealogy may not correspond with the genetics. It could be
true that the disease is inherited. Or it could be true that it is not
inherited. So there is the motive for more research. What a wonderful
position for any compulsive researcher to be in.

Don
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