GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2005-08 > 1124771966


From: "Glen Todd" <>
Subject: RE: [DNA] Cruciani's latest research
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 22:39:26 -0600
In-Reply-To: <001001c5a795$417883f0$6401a8c0@sonata>


> I'm no geneticist, but that doesn't sound like he's talking
> about private snp's to me. Why such reluctance to give a
> fellow scientist some credit? Is the field that competitive?
> Are egos that large? Is there something about Fulvio
> Cruciani's background that casts doubt on his claims?
> Perhaps he went to the wrong school, or doesn't devote
> enough of energy toward the major European haplogroups?

I have no idea of the overall demographics of this list, but I think that
there's a natural tendency for people to get more excited about things which
at least potentially directly impact them. For instance, I am very much
involved in the Ix project, and am very interested in determining where it
is in the tree and so forth and so on, as well as biogographical
implications, since it seems to be a fairly small group. The R1b
discussions I find intellectually interesting, but there's a good deal less
emotional involvement. Similarly, I find some aspects of the J2
discussion intriguing, although aspects of some of the statements made on it
annoy me mildly.

The people here who are in this professionally (rather than just being
interested amateurs, as I am) also have their own areas of interest. (I
doubt that anybody does this solely for the money.) It is only reasonable
to expect them to be more interested in their own areas. We are fortunate
in that there are enough different people involved so that everything gets
covered; I think that it's unreasonable to expect everybody to get equally
excited about everything, especially when only parts of it can ever be
applicable to them.

I'm never going to say; "I can't wait!" on a new discovery in, say, E3b,
because it's never going to directly impact me or my interests. I'm
trying very hard to avoid saying anything nastily sarcastic, but I think
that you're looking in the wrong direction for inflated egos.

Glen


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