J. Ketch
11-01-2018, 07:07 PM
Genetic closeness or historical admixture? Leaving aside cultural considerations.
This is a recurring argument that I think is not clear cut. On the one hand it is logical that you trace a particular component to a distinct historical population, but at the same time it's projecting culture onto genes as though it defines them.
It's a difference between thinking of ethno-genetic groups as relative, or absolute and trapped in one time. It cannot be unimportant if you are genetically closer to a member of another ethno-cultural group than to someone of your own. For example I would consider myself as more French, despite having no recent French/Gallic ancestry, than a half French half African/Asian, and the fact that I would phenotypically pass better as French than such a person is unconscious recognition that it's the truth. The French are essentially Western European as am I, while that person is essentially not. You can't in reality split someone's makeup like in Gedmatch, they are what they are holistically and in the present.
This is a recurring argument that I think is not clear cut. On the one hand it is logical that you trace a particular component to a distinct historical population, but at the same time it's projecting culture onto genes as though it defines them.
It's a difference between thinking of ethno-genetic groups as relative, or absolute and trapped in one time. It cannot be unimportant if you are genetically closer to a member of another ethno-cultural group than to someone of your own. For example I would consider myself as more French, despite having no recent French/Gallic ancestry, than a half French half African/Asian, and the fact that I would phenotypically pass better as French than such a person is unconscious recognition that it's the truth. The French are essentially Western European as am I, while that person is essentially not. You can't in reality split someone's makeup like in Gedmatch, they are what they are holistically and in the present.