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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2002-11 > 1036534980


From: "John F. Chandler" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Observed mutation rates / Porto Conference
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 17:23 EST
In-Reply-To: guinness@indigo.ie message <a04310100b9ed7ab8c338@[194.125.131.87]> of Tue, 5 Nov 2002 06:48:09 -0700


The authors wrote:
> There was an inter-locus
> heterogeneity in mutation rates ranging from 5.7 x 10
> -4
> to 5.1 x 10
> -3

That's a fancy way of saying that, out of 1767 father-son pairs, they
saw from one to nine mutations for each locus.

> . The overall average mutation
> rate was 2.3 x 10
> -3

That means the average was four mutations per locus, and an uncertainty
of +/- two on the single-locus tallies. Thus, the "heterogeneity" was
NOT statistically significant, but it came close. If they do a study
about ten times as big, they can really nail this thing. Note that the
uncertainty on the overall average is 0.0023 +/- 0.0004, which is
amazingly close to (and consistant with) the nominal value most of us
use.

John Chandler

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