Do you agree that DNA tests cannot determine one’s ethnicity but can only estimate it?

[reboun]

Users Kaspias and Thracian clearly discovered their Turkic component in their autosomal genetics.
Some Hungarian users found proto-Magyar component in their autosomal genetics.
We Balkan Slavs discovered a lot of proto-Slavic genetic heritage.

It is great that modern science has advanced so much.

Well what humans archieved scientifically in the last 100 years, the technology is miles from anything before. Im sure genetic testing will improve even further, when I was a kid it was impossible to even think about that the ordinary people could ask for sequencing their genomes if you werent very wealthy. So comparing a development like dna testing to a very primitive stuff like simple metric system sounds somewhat thoughtless to me.

Determination of ethnicity via DNA is pseudoscience. DNA analysis is of course a real science. What I mean is trying to determine one's ethnicity via DNA would not always give the correct result.

[reboun]

There is also a slipup about GEDmatch and Vahaduo Oracles. They can be easily manipulated by political agendas and the results can easily be cherrypicked. This is why GEDmatch and Oracle results shouldn’t be taken as God’s work.

[Petalpusher]

Determining someone's unique ethnicity is easy and very reliable. What is more complicated, because it should involve IBD on top of it, is determining it with mixed people and even within the same ethnicity, different countries of ancestries.

If you have ancestry from let's say 4 countries in Europe, of course an autosomal calculator can only do guess work with possible equations of proportions. It's still surprisingly accurate in guessing most of the time, yet it still does it even for people who don't have mixed ancestry, but then those just don't try to read anything into it.

It's like asking what that reddish green color you see on a painting was made off, was it a mix of just a special green, green with a bit of red or all the colors in the book mixed up to get that particular tone, all 3 scenarios can achieve that color but it was only achieved one particular way on that paper. Mixed ancestry also dilute the benefits of IBD, shared segments you have in common with particular populations, because DNA tests are based on population references, that are not mixed but indeed especially collected because they are from one country and only one. These references have managed overtime, within borders, to create specific shared segments all the population from a country or even regions have in common.

[reboun]

Determining someone's unique ethnicity is easy and very reliable. What is more complicated, because it should involve IBD on top of it, is determining it with mixed people and even within the same ethnicity, different countries of ancestries.

If you have ancestry from let's say 4 countries in Europe, of course an autosomal calculator can only do guess work with possible equations of proportions. It's still surprisingly accurate in guessing most of the time, yet it still does it even for people who don't have mixed ancestry, but then those just don't try to read anything into it.

It's like asking what that reddish green color you see on a painting was made off, was it a mix of just a special green, green with a bit of red or all the colors in the book mixed up to get that particular tone, all 3 scenarios can achieve that color but it was only achieved one particular way on that paper. Mixed ancestry also dilute the benefits of IBD, shared segments you have in common with particular populations, because DNA tests are based on population references, that are not mixed but indeed especially collected because they are from one country and only one. These references have managed overtime, within borders, to create specific shared segments all the population from a country or even regions have in common.

Thank you for the nice explanation. In my opinion it is an estimation rather than a determination. For example a person’s skull metrics are measured and it is close to Spanish average. Naturally we estimate this person to be ethnically Spanish. However they can also be an ethnic Portuguese, Italian, French, Greek or of another ethnicity. This is how I think about ethnicity estimations via DNA results.

[Grace O'Malley]

The commercial tests worked for me. I'm of only one ethnicity though and it's on a island.

[reboun]

The commercial tests worked for me. I'm on only one ethnicity though and it's on a island.

It usually gives correct estimations for homogenous populations.

[Mr.G]

Do you agree that DNA tests cannot determine one’s ethnicity but can only estimate it? Answer: Yes.

Do I think that this is at the level of pseudoscience? Answer: No.

[Grace O'Malley]

It usually gives correct estimations for homogenous populations.

It doesn't work for bigger countries because they aren't all the same or for populations that don't have barriers i.e. mountains, seas. It only works for relatively homogenous populations. Some countries would need to be split to get a more accurate result. Bretons for example are not like Southern French.

This forum is getting more and more buggy. One of these days it is just going to go kaput and stop working.

[Smitty]

If I were adopted and I had no idea what my ethnic background was, I would not take these tests literally. But I've seen enough results to know they generally get pretty close. They can certainly identify racial divisions and usually even subracial divisions. Some ethnicities are so similar to each other that they are, as yet, indistinguishable, and in that sense, these companies have overextended themselves. But if a test tells you you're 50/50 West Asian and English, you probably are.

[Hektor12]

You are still butthurt because you are not genetic ethnic Turk?

People already told him a lot of times but he continues this bs non-stop. I feel that he has nothing to do with Bosniaks and could rather be a Kurdo-armenoid troll.