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What Happens After Surprising DNA Test Results? (bloombergquint.com)
schwit1 shared an interesting article from Bloomberg:
Though genetic tests are frequently marketed as family-friendly entertainment, they sometimes wind up surfacing life-altering surprises. And when those surprises show up in someone's test results, the first move is often a call to customer service.... At 23andMe, those types of calls are so frequent that preparing for them is integrated into the company's months-long training program.... "We always try to steer the conversation toward the data, tell them that this is science," said Kent Hillyer, head of customer care for the genetic-testing firm 23andMe...
Lindsay Grove, a customer-care representative at 23andMe, still remembers one call in particular years later, a dad who took the test only to find out that his child was not, in fact, his child. At first, like most, he was just trying to figure out whether the results were accurate. So Grove explained the science behind the data. The customer then became somber and quiet. He questioned whether he should talk to his wife, and, if he did, how.... "That process of figuring out what to do next is very difficult for customers...."
Such emotional calls can take a toll on employees, too. That's perhaps inevitable when technology interfaces with such sensitive, personal information.... At 23andMe, Hillyer often encourages representatives to go for a walk after an intense call, or cracks open a bottle of wine to help them decompress. "We kind of do these internal therapy sessions,'' he said. "Here, maybe more so than most places, you have to be really supportive of each other."
Lindsay Grove, a customer-care representative at 23andMe, still remembers one call in particular years later, a dad who took the test only to find out that his child was not, in fact, his child. At first, like most, he was just trying to figure out whether the results were accurate. So Grove explained the science behind the data. The customer then became somber and quiet. He questioned whether he should talk to his wife, and, if he did, how.... "That process of figuring out what to do next is very difficult for customers...."
Such emotional calls can take a toll on employees, too. That's perhaps inevitable when technology interfaces with such sensitive, personal information.... At 23andMe, Hillyer often encourages representatives to go for a walk after an intense call, or cracks open a bottle of wine to help them decompress. "We kind of do these internal therapy sessions,'' he said. "Here, maybe more so than most places, you have to be really supportive of each other."
Do they deal with law enforcement?
Some white supremacists discover they are not quite _that_ white.
Basically nothing happens, you still get to be a highly paid politician.
are all the white supremacists finding out they're made up of 30-40% some kind of dark skinned folks they've decided to hate. It's been a bit of a problem in their community since a sizable chunk of their leadership's been forced out by it. Gotta love the way science chips away at all the old crap our species has put up with.
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I have no objections against exposing cheating wives, but if your business relies on encouraging your own employees to become alcoholics, that sounds like a rather questionable practice.
In case you have forgotten, last year there was a big scandal about 23andme employees adding african ancestry to test results to "screw with the racists": http://www.cracked.com/persona...
1/3 of us are Bastards.
This sample shows 30%, near 1/3 of children&men are victimized by Parental Fraud.
https://medium.com/@jimpreston...
Motherhood is sampling of all women's morals. 1/3 women will actively live life-destroying (to 'loved' husbands/lovers & their children) lies,the rest lie to cover for them.
Enjoy considering the #BelieveWomen !
Even after admitting to putting some small random percentage of a random minority in nearly everyone's results to help steer politics the way they want?
It's Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley is never about science, it's about the cult of science used to control people.
Just looking at the size of my dick - how small it is - I KNEW they were bullshitting me!
I bought another AR-15 and I felt better afterwards.
Trump 2020!!!!
Ironically the test confirmed exactly what she had said all along, whoops? It was the fact that she fed the troll (Donald Drumpfth) rather than just ignored him. Personally, she should have traded it for his taxes.
Then we'd see who gets to continue being a politician or not, lol. #Prison
If a dad took the test only to find out whether his child was his or not, then it means that he was suspicious to begin with, so why is the DNA test result surprising?
Turns out I am 95% English.
Quite a surprise to my parents.
Still trying to figure it out and why I have a first cousin in Texas.
And where did you here that?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
My sister had my dad tested since although we're stereotypically Asian, our family's eyes are slightly rounder. She thought we might have a European ancestor somewhere in our genealogy. The test results came back 50% Hungarian, 40% Scandinavian. The biggest Asian component was 0.6% Japanese. Our best guess is the sample was contaminated, or they accidentally swapped with someone else's sample. But the company insisted they were accurate and that they never made mistakes.
I feel really sorry for people whose lives might be turned upside down by an erroneous test result, because they believe a company which is trying to preserve the marketability of their product by insisting they can't make mistakes. Given that 23andMe claims 5 million users, even a 99.99% accuracy rate means 500 customers were given erroneous results.
lol good convo for a quiet evening. What grounds exactly?
In a college class, the professor mentioned at one time, professors would do DNA tests on the students (with their consent). That ended when a professor had to testify at a divorce hearing though. This was over 20 years ago when I heard the story.
Cracked.com LUL
You can tell with 100% accuracy where they came from by just looking at them.
Seriously... why would you analyze your kid's DNA in this manner? Even if you're not the father, it's not the kid's fault - but the child is the one most likely to suffer for it.
#DeleteChrome
I said, "white supremacist". OTOH it says something about the alt-right that when you mention white supremacists folks think of the two together...
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What if your kid comes to you as a teenager and just really wants to know the their ancestry. Dad says sure. Results come back and gee, looks like mom cheated and got pregnant. If dad doesn't already know about this, that's a HUGE big deal. I mean, if the wife lied about that, who knows WHAT she is capable of.
Has nothing to do with the daughter really and dad doesn't love daughter any less. Obviously the child is innocent. BBC literally just did a long write up on this topic. Was a decent read but don't be surprised if skeletons come out of the closet. People like to mess around.
If experience has taught me anything it's that to decompress something you usually need pkunzip.
#DeleteFacebook
I have significant work experience in this area. Consumer-focused services like 23andMe gloss over the ambiguities involved in this type of testing. It's completely wrong to dump a bunch of results in a layperson's lap and say "this is science, herp-derp!"
Yes, it's true that certain genetic variations have well-established clinical significance and would influence a course of treatment, or reliably signal a high risk of developing some condition. But that list is much shorter than you might think. On the other hand there's a very long list of variants with conflicting evidence of association with disease, or that wouldn't be actionable or significant even if they were real. There are many published findings based solely on randomly discovered correlations and little else.
Putting aside the extreme outlier cases, these tests probably do more harm than good, causing people to freak out over scary-sounding results that they have no possible basis for interpreting correctly.
On the other hand, if you simply want to learn that 30% of your genome might be from five different countries in Europe, go for it!
Mon test d'ADN confirme que je suis 97% Français et 3% Amérindien. Et pourtant, je ne parle pas un seul mot de la langue française.
Quelles foutaises, ces tests d'ADN!
#DeleteFacebook
Fraud. Exactly the grounds on which he should also be suing her for damages to cover for any legally mandated monetary award against him to pay for the child, plus whatever damages he feels are appropriate.
We're programmed to enjoy feeling that those we hate, like white supremacists, are miserable. In truth, I seriously doubt they care about this. And to the degree that they do, it just drives their hatred.
If you revel in their misery, you're ultimately no better than they are.
She claimed to be native American, and specifically Cherokee.
The test results show that over 99% of her DNA is European. In other words, she's about as white as they come. Very close to the average UK citizen.
The results further indicate that most likely, she had a single great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent from South America, Central America, or North America.
So 6-10 generations back, one Mexican or whatever. That hardly supports her long-held claim "I'm Cherokee". Notably, after the results, the tribe made it a point to come out and say that as far as they are concerned, she's definitely not Cherokee.
Apparently, more relevantly, she is NOT capable of using a condom.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Maybe people don't like being lied to. It's not necessarily about the child. Having a child is a big step, and a responsibility that most men take seriously. Is it too much to ask that one doesn't lie to a man about the paternity of their child?
If you really think an error, submit another sample, under a false name if you have to. I saw a journalist submit 2 doggy DAN samples to the same company, along with the (required) photo of the animal. The results for second sample he submitted (with the false photo) came back totally different, and matching the photo, not the original DNA "results." $180 bucks for the two samples gave him a notable news story.
The article you linked to says that in two instances, when those people stated they wanted to make sure they didn't have any "n*gger* blood", 23andme truthfully told them that their level of African ancestory was âless than 1%".
They said they did it to those two racists, and their statement was true.
That hardly supports her long-held claim "I'm Cherokee". Notably, after the results, the tribe made it a point to come out and say that as far as they are concerned, she's definitely not Cherokee.
They have been mostly quiet after the results came out and when forced to make a statement it falls in line with what they said before the results came out: that they reject the concept of using a DNA test to test for heritage whole cloth. They didn't reject her statement based on the small amount the test showed, or because of the test results at all really.
The results further indicate that most likely, she had a single great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent from South America, Central America, or North America
The results quite explicitly refer to an unadmixed native american group, so not Mexican.
I don't like her handling of the situation and think she pushed things way too far, even if she had a full blooded first nations person 6-10 generations back in her family tree. Disagreeing with her about that doesn't require obscuring or stretching the truth about the test results.
Marriage vows are null and void after someone commits adultery. Why would you willingly pay for someone elses child under false pretense?
"She claimed to be native American, and specifically Cherokee." - You're a liar and Nazi propagandist. She said she was told by family that she had some Cherokee blood. That was a fact that was proven.
When you find out you have a hereditary disease, either full fledged or as a carrier, and want to know if your kids now have it...
Women aren't capable of much more than cheating if in fact all they did was cheat and lie to cover it up. Face it, women thrive in circumstances where they have the opportunity to reproduce themselves from a wider range of the gene pool. It doesn't do them much good if they have to lock themselves in to one mating partner in order to achieve socioeconomic stability. A woman that can successfully birth children by two or three different men has better overall genetic diversity among her offspring as compared to a woman who reproduces herself exclusively by one man. The only real problem is possible unintentional incest if one of her "bastard" children chooses to mate with a close genetic relative in the future that has no family ties. Overall, it provides females a significant advantage to mate freely, so it should surprise exactly no one when they choose to be socially aggressive. It doesn't mean they're going to rob you blind or murder you.
to test another person's DNA without their consent. Even if that other person is your **underage** child. A spoouse (father/mother) shouldn't have the unilateral right to make such a test.
The reference DNA they used for American native is people from Mexico, Peru and Colombia. That's native to the Americas (Western hemisphere), not Native American.
The test shows that most likely, one of her 256 great^8 grandparents were from the Western Hemisphere.
You would be amazed how much cheating goes on out there - I see it all the time. Women in this country are not to be trusted. Also, don't ever get married.
She then said she was Cherokee when applying to things. Do you not see how that is a problem?
After I was on 23andMe for several months, a half sister popped up and messaged me. She mentioned that she was conceived from donor sperm and was looking for information about the donor or any relatives from that part of her family. It turned out that my parents had used a sperm donor to have me due to fertility issues but hadn't told me that (and seemed to not have any plans to tell me anytime soon despite me being in my mid 20s at the time). They would never have considered that I would have found out on my own given how relatively limited technology was at the end of the 80s. I was fine with it all, and another half sister has popped up since, but some people don't handle it well. I actually feel lucky since the first half sister and I get along phenomenally well.
In France paternity tests are illegal, so apparently not.
And the same also applies to men, yet they're largely scorned for cheating while women are apparently just doing what's natural and expected?
I really shouldn't be surprised by this kind of double-standard.
She's capable of anything. She murder the family in their sleep. Or she might be a drug mule for a mexican drug lord and smuggles drug filled condoms inside her front hole. She might even turn up at a local protest even with explosives strapped to her body. Anything I tell you, after an affair like that, she's definitely capable of anything.
On a more interesting note, if she was actually knocked up by a BBC as long as you suggest, then she probably came so hard that she didn't know what hit her, and was likely sore for days afterwards. But, then you'd expect the kid to come out at least half black.
There's a natural drive to continue ones genetic lineage. If the child isn't theirs, then that drive is unfulfilled. The parent probably still holds love for the child, but that doesn't change the genetic reality.
Then there are circumstances where a male is financially support another man's child, in case of divorce. Sometimes divorce is bitter and the man may find himself isolated from a child yet expected to financially supports its development. This would infuriate a lot of men, particularly if the divorce occurs very early in the child's life, such that they are mostly estranged.
Your argument isn't nearly as noble as you imagine it to be.
Maybe people don't like being lied to. It's not necessarily about the child. Having a child is a big step, and a responsibility that most men take seriously.
And in some cases, very begrudgingly. Like if you felt this was a colossal fuck-up, but it's your kid so suck it up and be a dad, completely rewrite your plan for life... only to learn you're not actually the dad. Yeah, I can see how that would send someone in a 11/10 rage. I mean it's different if you were totally okay with starting a family and it's the child you wanted but turned out not to be yours. I'd really like to know if there are some statistics on that, like in what percentage of pregnancies was the man expecting a child. Of course sometimes the woman is surprised too and if she doesn't want an abortion it can happen out of the blue, but usually it's just the man "stuck" with an unexpected child. Just because it's something of a surprise pregnancy is not reason to assume your girlfriend is cheating on you.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Determining your own blood type used to be a standard lab exercise in high school biology classes, 30+ years ago. The biggest reason it isn't any longer is, of course, fear of blood borne infections. A secondary consideration was that a lot of students found out via this exercise that it was impossible for them to have been their parents' biological child. This sometimes caused family drama when the child found out this information and brought it home to his or her parents. The kid was adopted and had never been told, their mother had had an affair, the mother had been pregnant when she got married or gave birth before marriage but the groom wasn't the father, there had been divorce and remarriage before the kid was old enough to remember, etc., etc. All sorts of situations. Years ago I remember casually reading somewhere that the biological father of 1/5 of USAn children was someone other than the person the child called "Dad".
Source, and prisonplanet doesn't count.
If they're faking, damn they're good. Identical results on all markers checked by more than one group.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
To paraphrase President Trump - 'That makes her smart'
My sister had my dad tested since although we're stereotypically Asian, our family's eyes are slightly rounder. She thought we might have a European ancestor somewhere in our genealogy. The test results came back 50% Hungarian, 40% Scandinavian. The biggest Asian component was 0.6% Japanese. Our best guess is the sample was contaminated, or they accidentally swapped with someone else's sample. But the company insisted they were accurate and that they never made mistakes.
You ever heard of Chang and Eng Bunker? They died in 1874. They are where the term "Siamese twins" comes from. Look them up on Wikipedia if you don't know about them. They lived in North Carolina and married a couple of white ladies. Some of their descendants still look Asian almost 150 years later. Most don't. But some do look very Asian. And that's despite years of breeding with white people. I suppose it could really be true what the genetic test said based on that.
Nice ad for 23andme - not sure what else it is.
The only DNA I want to be reading about is Douglas Adams.
Which would give us 42andme - much better.
23andme and friends always seems to think they have some percentage of difference that varies with the company and time. You'd think they would at least notice this case.
Make errors? They flat out make shit up. Inside Edition compared 23andMe vs. Ancestry.com and found a 10% difference between the tests. Testing the same sample multiple times revealed 50% differences. The "analysts" make shit up, to confirm what people are proud of (based on names, or how a client may want to prove if they are 100% X, or their self reported history, etc.)
It's just trying to get people to pay money to get their data added to a giant DNA database. Seems horrible.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
It doesn't mean they're going to rob you blind or murder you.
They save that for the divorce settlement.
I know someone who found out their "sister" was actually their mother. It took some time to work out what was going on, but it turned out her biological father raped his daughter long ago, got her pregnant and made her agree to hide it. The victim admitted to this when confronted by her sister/daughter with the genetic test results.
The family is quite freaked out. The old guy is dead but everyone is kind of wrecked right now. There's worse things than finding out your spouse cheated on you. Much worse things.
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Maybe those places should've hired on merit. They can't lie about their race if you don't ask!
She claimed to be native American, and specifically Cherokee.
Incorrect. Elizabeth Warren said that according to family lore, she has a Cherokee ancestor.
The test results show that over 99% of her DNA is European. In other words, she's about as white as they come.
Actually, no it proved that the family lore was legit and she is part Cherokee. Not a lot but some which was the claim all along.
Notably, after the results, the tribe made it a point to come out and say that as far as they are concerned, she's definitely not Cherokee.
She didn't claim to be part of the tribe. Also, they only seemed to be upset after the results were in, not when Individual-1 was making a big deal about it.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Hey, dumbass, perhaps you could read the summary above and note sometimes "social" paternity doesn't match bio.
How very broad-minded of you, calling out some unknown ancestor for, I dunno, maybe being raped, and blaming Senator Warren for it. Nice.
Very close to the average UK citizen.
Isn't the average UK citizen nowadays 7% Asian or something like that?
You were doing ok up until you said her statements were proven. The dna used was South American. Meaning Hispanic based. She has zero Cherokee or any other Native American in her but had no problem lying about it to advance her career.
No no no no a thousand times no. The test showed she may have some trivial amount of South American. Zero North American. And she put Cherokee down on all her school and job applications which is a flat out lie. She is busted and her presidential hopes are completely dead.
Trump did not make a fool of her. She did it herself. Too stupid to be president and that is saying something!
I've tested with all the major systems (genetic Nerd here) and the results are absolutely compatible ('export' to GEDmatch to compare detail). 23&Me seems to be choosing the 'health' speciality, Ancestry guards its proprietary earnings, FTDNA seems fully professional (and willingly re-tested/confirmed, when I had a query). My surname back to 1700s never matches, and we must accept that 10% of births are 'non-paternity events'. In the old days, that included informal adoption by maternal uncles when genetic parents had both died of the ususal smallpox or TB. Are we so generous now?
Apparently, more relevantly, she is NOT capable of using a condom.
She doesn't have a dick, so yeah.
Give it up already, this is indefensible even the Democratic party is distancing itself from her. And not because there is a large amount of pressure to do so. Because it is OBVIOUS even to her party that she used her "heritage" to her benefit in several points across her career. As far as her being correct I suspect she was lucky that her fake family legend had any truth at all. Were talking 1/1024th Native American in the best case, that individual lived 300 but more likely 500 years ago. I'm bastardizing the concept a little but that is WAY below the level of accepted scientific significance. That's a infinitesimally small amount to have the gall to self identifying as Native American to Harvard (She checked the box next to Native American) . Which they then used that as proof of staff diversity.
If you are still defending her you need to find out why you are having so much trouble accepting something as simple as this. At least climate deniers can dig up "evidence" (yes that's sarcastic) complicated enough to muddy up the water.
Do people here seriously suggest to continue raising other men's child and that dumping cheater wife and avoiding financial support for her bastard at any cost is not ok?
Very close to the average UK citizen.
Isn't the average UK citizen nowadays 7% Asian or something like that?
Isn't more like 30% Pakistani? That's what I've heard from some *white* friends
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
In many places a cheating woman is killed or at least a pariah while a cheating man is celebrated. In many other places a man can have as many wives as he want, including temporary wives for some sex, while a woman walking outside by herself (even if not exposing any skin which of course is a great crime) can be killed. :(
Yes women have it easy and the poor men takes all the blame.
Very close to the average UK citizen.
Genetic inheritance is discrete - more like sampling different colors of marbles than like mixing different colors of paint. So it's not clear what it means to take a genetic "average" of a population. But there are a lot of people in the UK who don't have any Native American ancestry at all - where the last common ancestor between the person in the UK and Native Americans was way back before humans even crossed from Asia into the Americas. Most people in the world don't have any Native American ancestry at all.
So it's actually kind of cool that Elizabeth Warren does have a little bit of Native American ancestry. And, as a nerd, I think it's very cool that it's now possible to use modern genetic testing to prove that she does have that Native American ancestry. The Bustamante lab that did the analysis is one of the best labs in the world for this kind of analysis. Their report is actually a very good read. And Elizabeth's Warren's family background is also kind of interesting.
ANd, in the big picture, I'm just not understanding the hate. As far as I can tell, she's one of the few politicians who genuinely wants to reduce economic inequality - to make things better to ordinary working class Americans. That's not to say she's perfect but she seems, to me at least, to be better than most politicians.
I went through my life believing I was Armenian, but my DNA shows no genes from the Caucuses. My dad told me, so I had no reason to doubt him. Was Warren also the victim of lies our parents tell us?
They told a white skinhead supremacist in England.
From Wikipedia:
white 87.2%, black/African/Caribbean/black British 3%, Asian/Asian British: Indian 2.3%, Asian/Asian British: Pakistani 1.9%, mixed 2%, other 3.7% (2011 est.)
So I wasn't too far off, it's around 8%, unless I'm reading it wrong (10% with mixed population included).
I know expertise isn't particularly held in high regard, but there is a whole profession dedicated to addressing and mitigating these horror stories: Genetic Counseling. These entertainment-genetics firms can't be bothered to offer meaningful pre- or post-test counseling and thus, we have this non-sense. On the plus side, at least the testing is so cheap anyone can afford to get meaningless results which may turn their family's life upside down!
I've talked to women both IRL and online who live dramatically different lives from what their husbands thing they do.
Contrary to popular belief, you are as well off having your spouse working full time as you are keeping them at home without 'exposure' to other people. If they are too busy and tired after work, they are less likely to be fucking someone else. Just make sure your schedules align. If you are on different schedules your sex lives might be as well.
As a final example I know someone from a strict religious background who lived a double life as a BDSM sex slave to a co worker, including siring children with them before it was discovered many years later (the spouse having worked out of town for months to years at a time to support them.) They finally got a divorce after this was discovered by the spouse either accidentally or intentionally on the Dom's part.
People are into fucked up shit.
Most of the people who are easily damaged by these revelations tend to be religious. I have a relative for instance who gets freaked out by discussing the possibility of a long term relationship with multiple partners which doesn't involve marriage.
If this whole family was of a conservative religious background, then going batshit over this is not surprising, since it is one of the most heinous sins possible.
Having said that, it seems like being supportive of the parent and child and helping them adjust to the dynamics of their new relationship should be at least as straightforward as any other birth parents discovery, even if this one is a little closer to home.
I mean the government is here to protect and serve CIVILIAN, now face down on the ground with your hands behind you so we can decide if you're a good enough fit to gain a conviction. If you have your FOP donation card we might try and pin it on someone else instead. FOP: the card that gets you out... of jail.
And while we're on the subject, maybe we should discuss about this whole free speech issue. Some speech is just repugnant and goes against the common decency, morals, and values of our fair and patriotic nation. I mean just ask that Judge lady on fox news :)
Wasn't the controversy that she marked herself as being a minority on college entrance applications? That's a far fling from "according to family lore", that's self identifying as such.
And sorry, but when you're less than 1% something, claiming that you are is more than a bit disingenuous. I'm a quarter jewish but wasn't raised in a jewish household, as such, I don't know a damn thing about the culture and would never identify as such, except to annoy people (white supremacists and jewish people who take themselves way too seriously). Her identifying as such is just....yeah. She's using it to her advantage, which is just wrong because she can't actually relate to it in any way.
How about a totally anonymous test?
No it wasn't. These tests are not completely accurate, so "1/1024th Native American" could mean any number of things. It could just be an error, but it could also mean she really did have a Mexican, Colombian or Peruvian (the comparison pool for the category) ancestor. It absolutely cannot prove she had a Cherokee ancestor though, because the test does not have that level of resolution.