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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2005-01 > 1105589101


From: "robert mclaren" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Male Line Specific Y-STR Average Mutation Rates -- theone size shoe/(haplotype mutation rate) fits all approach is not valid,imo -- corrected URL link
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:05:03 -0500


Charles,

Yes, you will get a distribution of different rates for the different
family lines in the surname projects. However, the question is whether the
difference is significant. In order to determine this you must include the
errors with each calculated rate. If, as John Chandler has shown, these
overlap at the two sigma level, then the difference is not significant. If
the errors are not included, then you haven't demonstrated anything.

And I'll take you up on the first wee dram. :-)

Bob


> [Original Message]
> From: Charles <>
> To: <>
> Date: 1/12/2005 4:54:42 PM
> Subject: Re: [DNA] Male Line Specific Y-STR Average Mutation Rates --
theone size shoe/(haplotype mutation rate) fits all approach is not
valid,imo -- corrected URL link
>
> John,
>
> The tyranny of the average and statistics. ;-)
>
> Increase my simple example which yields a bi-modal plot ... to about 100
> male line surname projects and plot a histogram of the various mutation
> rates for 100 surname projects and you will get a better idea of what I
> am suggesting. I am not predicting bi-modality. It will be a "normal"
> distribution histogram plot, imo. We may get to the same average rate
> for the overall male population but it will show that the surname
> project average rate varies dramatically from one surname project to
> another. Most of the mutation rate studies done up until now were
> studies of a few thousand male father-son pairs or other methods or
> analysis of sperm cells, etc. This new method I am proposing will
> calculate rates within a male family line (a Y chromosome line) and then
> plot those on a histogram chart. We should come out with the same
> overall average. But still each family lines can be significantly
> different from one another.
>

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