No Saxon invasion?

[authun]

You do me a disservice, Mr Amphlett, to suggest I haven't read or thought critically about this material and its scientific methodology.

I apologise if you feel that I have done you a disservice but I stand by my claim that Weale does not suggest that he is offering a proof. He simply offers it as a best explanation for the observed data.

I pointed to a couple of the less technical problems with the models and assumptions used: the assumed exponential population growth rate which is wrong; the assumption that this growth rate was uniform throughout the country, there is no good reason to assume that and quoted Weale's own caveat about the assumption on the microsatelitte evolutionary rate. To people who don't understand the genetic models, the latter may sound insignificant but getting it right is critical. STR mutations are random and whilst it may be possible to estimate a mean over a considerable period of time, no one knows if a mean can be calculated over a short period of time such as 50 generations. Furthermore, the distribution of MRCA nodes for any two sets of STRs over time is, like a geographic distribution, memoryless. Past observations and data derived from them cannot be used to predict the next expected event. A hitchhiker who knows from previous experience that his average wait time is, say, 15 mins, cannot use that to time his next pick up. He would be quite wrong to think that, if he has waited 15 mins, he should get a pick up any time soon. He may still be waiting in one hour. Further to that, the data used to calculate the mutation rates which should really be 'past observations' are not observations at all. They are themselves, estimates based on yet more assumptions.

Weale's paper was published in Molecular Biology and Evolution and was aimed at readers who understand the significance of a statement such as:

"Finally, we accept that our inferences are based on population genetic analyses that assume a particular model of microsatellite evolution under selective neutrality and growth and that departures from these assumptions may influence our results."

If a non specialist reader does not understand the problems associated with MRCA calculations for microsatellite mutation rates, or even if they don't understand what STRs are, what all the stated loci are, the DYS19, DYS390 etc or why each locus has its own mutation rate, for they are all different, the reader's attention ought to be drawn to the words "departures from these assumptions may influence our results."

Mike Weale would lose all professional credibility if he stated that his paper was was proof and claiming he has said that is quite wrong. That is an interpolation which ignores what is clearly written.

And of course we have the whole question about quality of samples which you correctly raise. Modern statistical techniques work very well with extremely small sample sets, a tiny fraction of 1%, but require very high quality sample sets. None of the peer scientists ever claimed that the sample sets were good enough for proof, that's why so much research is being undertaken into better sampling techniques. Mike Weale doesn't even sample any part of Germany and points out to the reader that the choice of Friesland itself was based on assumptions.

He's not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

As others have said, your chromsamomes etc don't tell you what you are. There is no such thing as 'Gothic' DNA; there can't be. Simple as. DNA doesn't have an ethnicity.

When someone like Weale publishes in Molecular Evolution and Biology, he doesn't need to state that because readership already know it and because the paper only deals with the Y chromosome, a useful tracker for male lineages, it doesn't even concern itself with things like skin pigmentaion, eye colour, lactase persistence, skeletal height, crainial features etc. let alone give any indication of how they viewed themselves. Anyone who interprets the Y chromosome as an indicator of ethnicity is wrong to do so. The way I usually explain is by way of example. If a Jute, with a uniquely distinctive Jutish yDNA marker, settled in England and fathered a son with a British woman, who had a uniquely identifiable British mtDNA marker and if that son then took a similar British woman and fathered another son who in turn did the same and so on, by the 30th generation or so, all the autosomal DNA of the original couple has likely been flushed out. Yet the yDNA of the male of the 30th generation still shows his yDNA to be Jutish whilst paradoxically, his mtDNA shows him to be British. 98% of his nuclear DNA will show him to be a product of the last 30 generations. That is the biological situation and, as far as I know, none of the researchers referred to have suggested that biology has anything to do with cultural identity.

Jim Wilson's claims to be able to detect 'Pictish', 'Scottish' etc. DNA are equally ridiculous. But he makes a lot of money from Americans who want to prove their Pictish origins...

Agreed. It's a puzzle to many of us too. Oppenheimer is the worst culprit making up his own clades, refusing to explain his methodology which would allow his clans to be tested, writing a history of these clades and inviting readers to test to see which one of his clans they belong to at $489 a time. Genetic researchers who have strayed into the field of genetic genealogy have done the science a disservice in my opinion.

What I feel more strongly about is the suggestion of an 'apartheid-like structure' (which is itself self-contradictory, since they then go on to talk about inter-marriage) because it assumes an ethnic difference on the basis of a genetic difference.

Yes, a puzzling title especially given that the model set U = D which models an equal opportunity for A to marry B in the male population and the model runs for different values of S, which is the female selective choice. On what basis the female chooses is not stated as there are many possible reasons under the general description of 'elevated status'.

I would also say that Haerke's input into that piece contains more holes than a swiss cheese.
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If you know your way around this material you will know that Thomas and Haerke are in cahoots with Peter Heather, who thinks barbarians brought down the Roman Empire, so the migration is the explanation. Not only that but this material and the ideas it is being used to support are then wheeled out to support a right-wing view of the present. Cp. Heather: : “the connection between immigrant violence and the collapse of the western Empire could not be more direct.” (Empires and Barbarians, p.339). To write in those terms is either stupid, irresponsible or wicked, or some combination thereof. To me it's not surprising that he might espouse a view that brings back the 'nation state' via primordialist ethnicity. The fact that Haerke et al accuse the likes of myself of simple 'political correctness' rather backs up the point.

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Weale et al, following Haerke, simply assume that the cause must be migration from Germany.

Yes, I am a great believer in the maxim, if you want to understand the story, understand the storyteller. That necessiates reading views from both ends of the spectrum in addition to more considered views.

By all means, use the study of DNA regionally to help medical research, but stay out of history.

That opinion came across in your article. If you think genetics should stay out of history, state it and provide your reasons why rather than try to discredit a paper by inflating its claims and then attacking those inflated claims.


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