As for those DNA tests, I do think that some people need to be talked down off the proverbial ledge.
It's one thing to have a relatively benign
FAD, but unpleasant stuff starts to hit the fan when it ramps up to a
MANIA.
A couple weeks ago, I heard an interview with a woman who did the "spit in a tube" test -- really, they don't even use a proper cheek swab anymore??
-- as did her sister, sent in to the same company, & they were surprised when they received distinctively different genetic profiles. As their looks are very similar, & clearly from BOTH sides, they didn't assume that Mom had ben sleeping around.
The company replied, pointing out that there ARE variants in the genetic data each child receives... but, really, this struck me as not ony a bit mealy-mouthed but differing radically with the TONE (if not objective content) of the marketing pitch.
People are getting the end result of a string of "surmises" & they're gullible enough -- please read the article in my tagline FFI
-- to not even wonder HOW those "facts" were achieved.
Generally, such a surmise works something like
- the subject has marker W
- marker W is associated with people from Flanders
Looks simple enough. That's called "marketing."
See all the surmises there? First line, rather than "has," should more properly be like "
appears to present, as far as we can determine with such a quick-&-dirty lab test, & based on prior statistics that are maybe a little questionable around the edges."
Similarly, the second line deserves caveats like "people who
maybe have marker W (see previous) &
say that their heritage is
largely from Flanders according to unresearched family lore."
Even the causality breaks down. Linking a given subject's W to Flanders (even with a credible database for comparison) is more something like "
almost always -- or maybe
mostly, or at least
more often than the other hundred options."
THis is nothing new:
23andme.com got into trouble with the FDA four years ago, & are apparently feeling brave enough to go back there.
The "DNA tests" are amusing enough, & ought to be treated
as an amusement, &
maybe a basis for further actual research, rather than taken at superficial face value like so much other lazy-ass Facebookish quackery. "There's a sucker born every minute" seems to radically understate the situation.
But lately I'm seeing the purveyors push these kits as
health-related. I'm concerned that we're about to see a wave of people use these highly tenuous results to go off "doctor shopping" for medical treatment they DO NOT NEED, & in fact might kill them.
(But, well, maybe that's the point: some modern
eugenicists can use social-media techniques to stampede people who're "too stupid to live" into death via medical misadventure. It's "
The Marching Morons" brought to realization.
)
