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Hungarian Sequencing Company Vets DNA For 'Gypsy Or Jew' Genes
ananyo writes "Hungary's Medical Research Council (ETT), which advises the government on health policy, has asked public prosecutors to investigate a genetic-diagnostic company that certified that a member of parliament did not have Roma or Jewish heritage. The MP in question is a member of the far-right Jobbik party, which won 17% of the votes in the general election of April 2010. He apparently requested the certificate from the firm Nagy Gén Diagnostic and Research. The company produced the document in September 2010, a few weeks before local elections. Nagy Gén scanned 18 positions in the MP's genome for variants that it says are characteristic of Roma and Jewish ethnic groups; its report concludes that Roma and Jewish ancestry can be ruled out." Adds ananyo: "The test is of-course nonsense, and notions of 'racial purity' have long been discredited." Just when you think the world is too modern for such things, modernity gets hijacked by flim-flam.
But did they scan him for the vampire gene?
I feel like throwing in the towel and getting the hell out of this country.
Why would it even matter? Unless you're some kind of right wing, neo nazi freak - oh, wait... never mind.
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>>Adds anonyo: "The test is of-course nonsense, and notions of 'racial purity' have long been discredited."
These are two different claims. One is that the test is nonsense, the other is that racial purity has long been discredited.
It's quite possible for both the genetic test to be valid, and to not *care* about racial purity.
While notions of race are tied up in all sorts of political correct nonsense and/or racist stereotyping, the simple fact of the matter is that there is a certain nexus of genes that are associated with what we commonly call race, and no amount of politically correct handwaving will make the science go away. Things like sickle cell anemia are associated with people of African descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Genetics), as is Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_genetics_of_Jewish_people), high rates of adult lactase enzymes in people of Northern European descent, low rates of alcohol dehydrogenase in several Asian groups, and so forth.
Long story short, while the concept of race is socially constructed (what is considered "white" has changed significantly over the last 100 years), the labels that we do use for race can be backed up by genetic testing (by looking for clusters of genes associated with a race), and so tests like this *are* scientifically valid, even though ethically suspicious.
Considering the rather complex history of invasions and migrations through Hungary, I can't even imagine what one would qualify as a pure Hungarian. We're not talking about largely homogeneous populations like Iceland or Norway, we're talking about a country that has been the stomping ground from everyone from Central Asians to Germans to Mediterranean types. Read a history of that region. The idea that there is any kind of true full blooded "Hungarian" is daft.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Anyone with even a brief understanding of the history of that region of Europe realizes that notions of racial purity are bunk. Now it is possible that the Roma and Jews are still sufficiently genetically distinct due to lower rates of interbreeding, but the fact is that the Hungarian people are, to put it vulgurally, mongrels. Even the ancient Huns themselves were likely a hodge podge of ethnic/racial groups from all over Eurasia, and Hungary has so many layers of occupation and invasion dating back to Classical times that while we can say the progenitor population probably spoke a Uralic mothertongue, you have a wide array of later groups; early Indo-Europeans, Turkic, Germanic, Latin, Slavic and on and on. If you want to find a population approaching a full blooded Hungarian, I suggest you go to Finland.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I think the larger question would be, why in the world would there be a law in finding out anything you want pertaining to your own genes??? They ARE your genes aren't they?
I suppose this guy could claim he was trying to screen himself for something like Tay-Sachs disease or something else genetically related to being Jewish...
But still....kinda hard to see a law like this in existance...shouldn't you be able to test yourself for whatever reason you wish?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Sorry, but you either descended from Jacob (insert the comparabl\, or you did not. We currently have the technology to measure that with a high degree of confidence.
Jacab was how many years ago? Maybe 5000? With an average childbearing age of 25, that makes 200 generations. Ignoring inbreeding for the moment, the number of ancestors you have doubles every generation. 2 to the power of 200 is....I don't have a calculator but it is pretty darn big, many many times the number of people there were on this planet 5000 years ago or even today.
Even if you go back a mere 2000 years ago, you have 80 generations meaning you have far more ancestors than there were people.
What this implies is that you are almost certainly the descendant of every single person who was alive and had progeny in your ancestors region 2000 years ago. You can argue that that still doesn't make you descended from certain minorities, but think about that exponential growth in ancestors again. All it takes is one foreigner to come in and mix with the gene pool. 1000 years later everyone is that foreigner's descendant. There might not have been a lot of travel back then, but there was enough.
About the only way one could reasonably claim not to have ancestors of a certain race is if that race was almost completely isolated - like the American Indians or Australian aborigines. But anyone with ancestors from Europe, Asia or Africa can be pretty sure they have Jacob as an ancestor.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
There must genetic markers defining any racial group that physically differs.
You'd think so, but it's not actually the case. e.g. Any two black Africans are no more likely to have common DNA than any black African and a white European. Sure, they're both going to have higher levels of enzymes that synthesize melanin, but that doesn't tell you anything you couldn't determine by looking at them. Race is an false concept invented out of ignorance and tribalism.
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Transylvania is only a part of Romania (not "Rumania") after World War I. It was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before. And Hungarian is still the second language there. Nothing is simple in the Balkans :-)
It's part of us. I would be interested to know if white people's blond hair, blue eyes, and large noses have Neanderthal origins. After all, they lived in cold climates far longer than modern humans.
The issues from TFA shed light on a the ethical complexity of genetics. Personally, I want a copy of my genome. I have some specific health related reasons I want it, but it would be cool to do things with it, like find out roughly what percentage Native American I am (I'm at least 1/32nd Cherokee), if that's even possible. Where have my mitochondria evolved most recently? Do I have the cheating gene?
Hungary has it wrong on two counts. First, they outlawed extracting genetic information except for health reasons. That's got to put a real damper on genetic research, and the Libertarian in me is crying foul. It's my genes, and I should be free to do what I want with them. Second, they're going after the genetics lab over this dumb law, rather than going after the MP for racist behavior. Let's hope we have more success in the US in drafting legislation to protect peoples right to genetic privacy, while giving people full access to data about themselves, and promoting genetic research.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
If good gives up, evil prevails.
The DNA of Africans and Europeans/Asians differs a lot.
Very true. The DNA of any two random africans differ a lot as well.
I always find it amusing when people who don't know anything about genetics talk about it as if they do. Especially on slashdot.
Genetics is my job, bitch.
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There was a controversial 2005 paper that did suggest Ashkenazi Jews may have above average math and verbal intelligence, and inferior spatial intelligence
Some 40% of Ashkenazi Jews have mitochondrial DNA descended from just four women. If those four women had DNA that encouraged above average intelligence it would be quite plausible for the same tendency to extend to a large percentage of Ashkenazi Jews.
Physical characteristics of our brains are determined to a significant extent by our genes, along with nutrition and other factors, but it is entirely plausabile that there are genetic factors that would result in above average intelligence, just like there are genetic factors that result in above average strength, stamina or speed.
Its just a matter of time before someone is going to try to genetically engineer superintelligent humans.
P.S.
Last laugh at all the people, especially interkin3tic, who fileted me on the slashdot thread a few weeks about $1000 DNA sequencing when I pointed out how neo nazi's would immediately latch on to it as a way to determine racial purity. Assorted liberals asserted that we had moved beyond Nazi's, eugenics and race and it would never happen again. I pointed out then Hungary already had a neo Nazi government going down this path again, and today here you are.
@de_machina