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From: "A DesCartes" <>
Subject: Re: #7 Re: [DNA] `Ultra-Norse`..who is making up this stuff?
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 20:42:49 -0400
References: <e468a0040608242056h5efd0d3xec59a97404269221@mail.gmail.com> <000601c6c7fd$fc68fcb0$6400a8c0@Ken1> <e468a0040608242200q3e731e75gce3fd247d553c338@mail.gmail.com> <000801c6c84f$7af53660$6400a8c0@Ken1>
In-Reply-To: <000801c6c84f$7af53660$6400a8c0@Ken1>


On 8/25/06, Ken Nordtvedt <> wrote:
>
> If plague and war casualties and other demographic calamities in Iceland
> or
> elsewhere selectively affect one haplotype type more than others these
> kinds
> of things might happen. That's a form of (natural) selection. There is
> no
> evidence it is operating on non-recombining ydna sufficiently to change
> haplotype distributions in a thousand years or so. Until the last few
> centuries almost everybody, everywhere lived in rural areas.
>
> If selection is taking place, there are tests in the haplotype
> distributions
> which can detect it. Ken



You are seemingly offering an explanation that population changes dont
occur on a massive scale. That has not been the way way of the world, and
certainly not the way of continental europe. There is more today we dont
know than that which we do- therefore it is of even greater import to assess
factors we are aware of in population studies, in hope of somewhat ofsetting
that which went unrecorded.

----- Original Message -----
> From: "A DesCartes" <>
> To: <>
> Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 11:00 PM
> Subject: Re: #7 Re: [DNA] `Ultra-Norse`..who is making up this stuff?
>
>
> > On 8/25/06, Ken Nordtvedt <> wrote:
> >>
> >> Calm down. The ultraNorse I1a haplotypes are tabulated and fully
> defined
> >> from the SMGF database of 43 marker haplotypes. The I1a haplotypes
> with
> >> 14,23,14-15, 13 at DYS19,390,385,462 (plus supporting repeat values at
> >> other
> >> markers) number close to one hundred from that database and show a
> >> strong
> >> geographical preference for originating in northern Scandinavia,
> >> especially
> >> Norway. By the time you get down to Germany this type of I1a is hardly
> >> present at all, but another type of I1a haplotype is found there in the
> >> hundreds. Or these observations can be put in terms of ratios of the
> two
> >> types of I1a from the various continental countries, and then a
> >> comparison
> >> can be made to the ratio of the I1a types as found in Iceland ---
> either
> >> YHRD or an academic paper like Helgason. The Icelandic ratio looks
> like
> >> Norway, not like Germany or Denmark or even Sweden.
> >>
> >> The percent of population tested is not the important factor. What is
> >> important is the size of the sampling which determines the statistical
> >> standard deviation which goes with the observed frequency.
> >>
> >> How do you think pollsters get a fairly good idea of which candidates
> are
> >> going to get what percent of the final vote in a land of 100 million
> >> voters
> >> by sampling a few thousand voters?
> >>
> >> Ken
> >
> >
> >
> > That is exactly what you are doing...you are trying to apply polling
> > techniques to something which it is not applicable to. Voter polling is
> > relatively accurate because all it is required to do is to offer a
> > snapshot
> > of prevailing opinion at a given point / place in time.
> > Iceland, a tiny nation, lost half of its population in plague`s, one in
> > 1400, and again in 1491. Germany lost approx. 1/3 to as much as 1/2 its
> > population in the 30 years war, most of that in the Northern regions,
> > which
> > were more likely protestant, and thus were devastated.
> > We have not even bothered with other plagues, Napleonic conflicts,
> > disparate affect upon cities as opposed to congested cities, etc..
> >
> > What you are seeing in current population studies fails to take into
> > account
> > that affected by plague, you ahd literally a couple adults left alive
> > (mortality was 100% in some areas). Thus, in areas of massive conflict
> /
> > mass casualties, you are only getting a snapshot of who is tere
> > NOW. Iceland was a dependency of Norway for a long period and later
> > Denmark
> > till WWII. The notion that no one emigrated there after the original
> > settelment and that it was abandoned to percolate in its own DNA is not
> > true
> > in the least. The black plague would have wiped out Iceland if not for
> > further immigration.
> > When you consider that rural populations would have a disease advantage,
> > and
> > urban populations a military conflict suvival advantage (unless you are
> in
> > Magdeburg or a city that was taken) and that different people are likely
> > to
> > have survived and backfilled those areas, you cant make historical
> > predictions as you are doing unless you exhaust the means by which a
> small
> > pool of individuals would have skewed results in a given
> area/region/city.
> >
> > As the sample size INCREASES, the risk of background noise offering
> fasle
> > patterns DECREASES. Thus, sample size, a wide distribution IS extremely
> > important as pertains to DNA historical studies. Today, Normandy,
> France
> > is
> > estimated to be no more than 11% I1a, in spite of known (legitimate)
> > `viking` settlement. This is most likely far too low from a snapshot of
> > that time. When intervening events through time are factored in you see
> > how
> > what is there in OUR DAY, is not what was once there. That is the trap
> > you
> > are falling into.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "A DesCartes" <>
> > To: <>
> > Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 9:56 PM
> > Subject: Re: #7 Re: [DNA] `Ultra-Norse`..who is making up this stuff?
> >
> >
> >> On 8/24/06, Ken Nordtvedt <> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>> From: "Bev Anderson" <>
> >>>
> >>> . And, of course, Iceland was founded by Vikings and their
> descendants
> >>> still live there today and follow the same patronymic naming system
> and
> >>> still speak a dialect of gammel norsk (old Norwegian).
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> And the new YHRD regional database for Iceland (76 haplotypes) shows 8
> >>> ultra-Norse I1a haplotypes (23,14-15 at 390,385); 3 Norse I1a
> haplotypes
> >>> (23,14-14); 1 transitional I1a haplotype (23,13-14); and 2 AngloSaxon
> >>> I1a
> >>> haplotypes (22,13-14), showing that males with roots from Norway
> (rather
> >>> than Denmark or Sweden) were indeed the main source of Icelandic
> >>> immigrants
> >>> as the sagas suggest.
> >>>
> >>> Ken
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> With the limited scope of current testing- a fraction of a percent of
> any
> >> given population- you are really beyond the limits of credible science
> >> and
> >> into the realm of wishful `eugenics` to label people as `ultra-norse`
> or
> >> `anglo-saxon` etc, based upon a marker of two difference, especially
> from
> >> a
> >> haplogroup ( I ) that anyone will concede is migratory and a long way
> >> from
> >> its original home. This eugenics zeal is troubling but more so is the
> >> seeming willingness of some to adopt this as credible.
> >> There is background `noise` in any dataset that will give the
> appearance
> >> of
> >> order, if you fail to see it for the background noise that it is.
> >> Without
> >> purging the soure data of error or adequately correcting for lack of
> >> source
> >> material to use (limited miniscule testing in this case) you are
> looking
> >> at
> >> ``noise` and seeing order.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
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>
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