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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2004-03 > 1080428951
From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Some thoughts about the near future
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 18:09:52 -0500 (EST)
References: <20040327210657.59132.qmail@web20023.mail.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <20040327210657.59132.qmail@web20023.mail.yahoo.com>(peterebay@yahoo.com)
Peter wrote:
> I would like to predict that within the next decade we
> will be able to order affordable SNP tests that will
> determine which sub clad of our halpogroup we belong
> to.
I'm wondering whether you have any basis for this
prediction, besides wishful thinking. If so, please
be more specific. You are predicting not just the
affordability, but also the existence of things that
have not yet been discovered. Bear in mind that the
Y chromosome, even now, has not been completed in the
human genome project.
> It is predicted that at about 140 STR markers, a
> y-chromosome test becomes a personal identity test.
You're off by more than a factor of ten, even by the
most relaxed standards for an "identity" test -- in
order to distinguish between a father and son, you
certainly need at least a 99% chance that there will
be one or more mutations between them. That requires
thousands of markers, unless the markers are substantially
faster mutaters than the STRs we have now. Given that
short markers tend to get longer, while long markers
tend to get shorter, the problem of convergence would
be worse for fast mutaters.
John Chandler
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