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I actually agree with Andrew here. It's a bit much to remove someone's picture just because we don't happen to know if they have been tested. I mean, were the Jewish man and the Libyan Arab boys whose pictures you didn't remove tested?
I didn't leave any Libyans or Jews [ [2]] both are less likely to be E1b1b than Somalians.
Personally I will be very disappointed if I find my photo under R1b or H1 just because of my nationality. I think you have an ethical obligation to ask these people & findout whats their Y-DNA & if they want to be on the article before posting their photos! least we can do is post group photos of Somalian children, Berbers. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 17:47, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Causteau I swear with our MRCA that I didn't see the photos of the Libyan boys or the jewish guy & I thought I removed every photo. The Druze article is an ethnic article (I am not Druze or E1b1b for the record! I already was accused of being a jew -not that its a bad thing!- in the R1a article I don't want to end up being in an ethnic issue here).
The photos just stuck out, I didn't see this in the other article, if you want I will do my share & try to make a good E1b1b map to beautify the article? & I had a group photo posted, but they were lost in an edit conflict :) . Cadenas2008 ( talk) 18:41, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Ethiopian children. [ [3]]. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 19:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Causteau how about this one? A beautiful photo of smiling Somali Children & their phenotype is pretty much that of the average Somalian so it doesn't leave any doubt!
. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 23:02, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
How about this one? Somalian kids celebrating. [4]. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 23:28, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Sir I know how Somalians look! The guy you posted doesn't have a typical Somali phenotype -least to say & we are trying to profile 77.6 % of the V32 Somalians!-.
Compare these guys, [5]. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 00:40, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Are you from Somaliland?
Are you Mr Caddoow himself? (if thats the case you can say so & we end the discussion here!)
I am concerned because you are trying to say that the majority of the Somalians are not Somalians!! (so far you claimed 90% of the Somalian guys I posted are not -real- Somalians! you even ridculed the 3 children & said two of them are girl lookalikes!)
if you are trying to tell me those beautiful Somalians I posted are not the majority of the people of Somalia today. (regardless of who moved in who didn't move E1b1b is the majority today & they don't like Mr Caddow!).
Does this have anything to do with your selection of Mr Cabdullaahi Axmed Caddoow, this is his profile [6].
Cadenas2008 ( talk) 02:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
I posted about 15 Somalians so far all of them didn't add up in your eyes! How about this Somalian boy? [7].
The Somali phenotype is that of the children you see all over Somalia, they happen to be 77.6% M-78 (Sanchez et al. 2005). Cadenas2008 ( talk) 03:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
High frequencies of Y chromosome lineages characterized by E3b1, DYS19-11, DYS392-12 in Somali males SANCHEZ Juan J. (1) ; HALLENBERG Charlotte (1) ; BØRSTING Claus (1) ; HERNANDEZ Alexis (2) ; MORLING Niels (1) ; Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s) (1) Department of Forensic Genetics, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Copenhagen, DANEMARK (2) Departamento de Canarias, Instituto Nacional de Toxicologí]a, La Laguna, Tenerife, ESPAGNE
Abstract N=201 male Somalis, 14 Y chromosome haplogroups were identified including M78 (77.6%) and T (10.4%). Cadenas2008 ( talk) 03:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Hi, this is mentioned in the article I think? Have a look under E1b1b1a1b (E-V32)-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:01, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't the opening line under Undifferentiated Lineages say "E-V32 and M-224?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.94.42.235 ( talk) 20:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I don't quite follow. Perhaps you need to explain a bit more in detail what you think might be wrong. The way I understand you currently, if you would change "or" to "and" this might imply that the E-V12* group is V32 negative but M224 positive?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
It has already been corrected. The old version said "E-V12 or M-224," just a typo.
The section "Famous E1b1b members" is a trivia section. This is an encyclopaedia, this article should be about the haplogroup and not about people who happen to have been a member of it. How does the section improve the article? Do we need it? This article is not a branch of FTDNA or worldfamilies or any other surname project. I fail to see the encyclopaedic relevance of these contributions. Wikipedia has core content policies that demand that information be verifiable from published sources that are reliable. It's even more important in science, see here and here. I think it should be removed as irrelevant. Please read Wikipedia:Relevance of content and Wikipedia:Handling trivia. Alun ( talk) 07:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you think it's only "arguably" trivia. The article is about the haplogroup isn't it? The article is not about people who carry this haplogroup, it's about this specific Y chromosome.
I don't follow your point about ISOGG, that is not an encyclopaedia. I am certain that the Wikipedia project has a completely different set of goals to those of ISOGG. I use ISOGG all the time, they are a reliable source and maintain an excellent resource. But if they want to include trivia then that is their prerogative, they are not an encyclopaedia.
We, on the other hand, are not a genealogical resource. I am sceptical of the reliability of "family" DNA projects. For example the Harvey Y-DNA Genetic Project is cited in the article, how do we deal with this? Normally in science we accept only sources published by reliable scientific publishers. I don't think we can treat family projects any different from say blogs, and we certainly don't cite blogs.
My own opinion is that there is a great deal of unreliable speculation out there, especially when it comes to genetic research, I think we need to stick to reliable sources. I also think we need to stick to the subject at hand. In this case the subject is the haplogroup, and not speculation that people from history might possibly have belonged to this haplogroup.
I also don't think you have answered the question about
encyclopaedic relevance. If you can espouse a good argument for the encyclopaedic relevance of these people being included, then I'd be more than happy. I don't see the connection at all, I think it amounts to attempting to turn what is an encyclopaedia into a resource for genealogists.
I think it would be more relevant to discuss the person who discovered the SNP that defines this haplogroup actually, if we are going to discuss individual people in the article. At least their notability is directly relevant to the subject of the article. Are we trying to say that these people are notable because they belong to haplogroup E1b1b? I don't think so.
Alun (
talk)
13:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
--
The format of the famous people section really needs to be discussed on the main project page not here. I see Andrew has raised the topic there and I've also added a comment. I've discovered that there is a List of haplogroups of historical and famous figures. I suggest that it might be more appropriate to move the famous people content into that list for now, with a link to the list in the "See also" section. Then at least the content is not lost and the integrity of this article can be maintained. Would that be acceptable? If the references can be found then it would be a simple matter to add a short referenced list of famous people. Dahliarose ( talk) 17:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I'm going to change all this to a list as per normal Wikipedia policy, we're getting nowhere here and I see no compelling reason that biographical details are more relevant in haplogroup articles than say in town articles.
Alun (
talk)
12:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
By the way it occurs to me that not everyone will realize there was someone debate on User pages about this... User_talk:Causteau/Archive_3#Forum_link_in_E1b1b_article User_talk:Andrew_Lancaster#Forum_link_in_E1b1b -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 18:21, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Please try the links. You've obviously approached all this carefully and with an open mind.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it's really unfortunate that the Famous E1b1b members section had to be wittled down to just an uniformative list, but I guess that's better than nothing. That said, I've been combing through the discussion above for some kind of agreement regarding the paring down of the section, but I couldn't find any. Can someone please point me to where consensus was reached on this matter? Last I was aware, Andrew, Dahliarose and I had all agreed that the section in question was not trivia and was indeed worth keeping; the difference was over whether to maintain the section as it was or to pare it down to a simple list. Causteau ( talk) 10:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Family_surname_projects. Cheers. Alun ( talk) 10:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Unless a lab has tested viable genetic material from Harvey etc. to determine their Y haplotype, making claims here is original research. Web-based family trees are either self-published or constructed out of self-published material and are not reliable sources. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay, if the material comes directly from the company, it is a reliable source regarding what the company sells (but cannot be used to make any further claim). These testing companies are commercial concerns. This material is promoting their commercial interests. I personally would have no objection to a section on the commercialization of genetic lineages - in fact I think it is a good idea, even for a separate article, and there are books by academic presses and articles in peer-reviewed journals analyzing this phenomenon that would be great sources fo such an article or section of an article. Within this context, I would have (just speaking for myself) no problem with saying that these companies make these claims and specify the context (do they make these claims in promotional material, or in material individuals purchase from the companies). In other words, these are reliable sources for what these companies are selling. And it is fine to use them to illustrate what these companies sell. I think it is a matter of using these sources appropriately. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Compare...
For my analysis of the problems with this section please see here. I outline three major problems.
Alun, the section is deleted and also under discussion on a Noticeboard, but given that you are still apparently pursuing a more general agenda I want to reply to your relevance point here, which however should be discussed on the Wikiproject board. I have tried to go over these points before and gotten nowhere, so I'll use simple language. The whole paragraph is ignorant nonsense. Indeed your terminology is so messy that we need to divide the claim up into several things it might mean:
Please read the two sections, "Trivia Section" and "Removal of Section." The question is whether this deleted section relied on unreliable sources, and was original research. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
To close this discussion:
-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 17:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Is this material even desired? Surely there's going to be a huge number of people in this lineage. Trying to list them all seems rather foolish and counter-productive to me. Black people doesn't have a similar list. RS and SYNTH don't even come into it if the content is deletable in it's own right.– OrangeDog ( talk • edits) 04:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm in favor of omitting this section. I agree with Slrubinstein that only statements that are made in peer-reviewed articles should be credited, and with OrangeDog that the material is not even desirable. The problems with fact-checking that Alun lists in his sandbox appear serious. EdJohnston ( talk) 16:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I have also raised the issue at Wikipedia:No original research/noticeboard. Dahliarose ( talk) 13:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello. E-M78 originated in Northeastern Africa according to Cruciani et al. 2007. However, Northeastern Africa in that study refers specifically to the Egypt/Libya area, not the Horn of Africa. Cruciani and his colleagues refer to the latter instead as "Eastern Africa". Please see to Table 1 of the study for reference. Causteau ( talk) 16:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau ( talk) 16:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)"Prior to Cruciani et al. (2007), Semino et al. (2004) had proposed the Horn of Africa as a possible place of origin of E-M78. This was because of the high frequency and diversity of E-M78 lineages in the region. For example, Sanchez et al. (2005) found that 77.6% of 201 male Somalis tested in Denmark were members of this clade. However, Cruciani et al. (2007) were able to study more data, including populations from North Africa who were not represented in the Semino et al. (2004) study, and found evidence that the E-M78 lineages in the Horn of Africa were relatively recent branches. They note this as evidence for "a corridor for bidirectional migrations" (conceivably the Nile River Valley) between Egypt and Libya on the one hand and the Horn of Africa on the other. The authors believe there were "at least 2 episodes between 23.9–17.3 ky and 18.0–5.9 ky ago".
Don't disagree but this is what Cruciani et
"Locating the Origin of Haplogroup E-M78:
An eastern African origin for this haplogroup was hypothesized on the basis of the exclusive presence in that area of a putative ancestral 12-repeat allele at the DYS392 microsatellite, found in association with E-M78 chromosomes (Semino et al. 2004).
In conclusion, the peripheral geographic distribution of the most derived subhaplogroups with respect to northeastern Africa, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of UEP and microsatellite diversity are strongly suggestive of a northeastern rather than an eastern African origin of E-M78. Northeastern Africa thus seems to be the place from where E-M78 chromosomes started to disperse to other African regions and outside Africa.
Wapondaponda ( talk) 16:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau ( talk) 17:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)"In conclusion, the peripheral geographic distribution of the most derived subhaplogroups with respect to northeastern Africa, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of UEP and microsatellite diversity are strongly suggestive of a northeastern rather than an eastern African origin of E-M78. Northeastern Africa thus seems to be the place from where E-M78 chromosomes started to disperse to other African regions and outside Africa."
Experience has shown that in the field of population genetics, information changes rapidly, just as Cruciani is said to be an update of Semino, who knows what will be next. Cruciani is not definitive but strongly suggestive, he states:
In conclusion, the peripheral geographic distribution of the most derived subhaplogroups with respect to northeastern Africa, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of UEP and microsatellite diversity are strongly suggestive of a northeastern rather than an eastern African origin of E-M78. Northeastern Africa thus seems to be the place from where E-M78 chromosomes started to disperse to other African regions and outside Africa.
In addition the table that you provided a link, shows that the E-M78 is concentrated in the south of Egypt 50%, Somalia 52%, Baharia 41%, and oromo Kenya/Ethiopia 40%. The Libyans had relatively low frequencies at 8% for Libyan Jews and 20% for Libyan Arabs with samples sizes of 25 and 10 respectively. Whatever the case, Cruciani has not adequately defined Northeast Africa, I think it is a stretch to put Libya as being the place of origin. Cruciani mentions the Nile river as being a corridor for migrations, which eliminates Libya as a source of origin. Based on his map, Northeast Africa is Southern Egypt. Wapondaponda ( talk) 20:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Chill bro, Could you draw on a map where Egypt/Libya is. Its quite an ambiguous definition. What is interesting is the huge gaps in the maps between the Somali center of concentration and the Egyptian center of concentration [12]. In time those gaps will be filled, but that is an indicator that the study though rigorous was less than comprehensive. Wapondaponda ( talk) 23:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
It seems a bit odd to have to centers of concentration separated by a large geographic distance, normally there is only one. The gaps is mostly Sudan, northern Ethiopia. Most likely patterns that will emerge will be similar to others in the region. The nomenclature for these haplogroups is always changing, so maybe within a year or so, there will be a new study with new names, new regions of origin. For now Cruciani is the most recent, so it will take precedence, but I see no reason not to include other information from semino et al 2004, which is quoted extensively in the article for purposes of historical context. Wapondaponda ( talk) 00:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
A few remarks, which I hope everyone agrees with?
If these images are okay, I can proceed to add them to the article Wapondaponda ( talk) 12:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Personally I don't see any problem with either, but the Cruciani based one is more complete in several ways. Great!-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 20:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Looks good in my opinion.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 22:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't know whether this has been discussed before, but is ISOGG a reliable source on the origins of haplogroups. Judging by their website, they don't do any research themselves. It seems to me they are no different from wikipedia, in that the compile information. This page is referenced in the article. Wapondaponda ( talk) 05:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
ISOGG's SNP trees are now being used consistently as a reference in peer-reviewed literature, so their SNP trees are I think acceptable. These are effectively just webpages which are carefully maintained to reflect what happens in the literature. They are trusted. I think this is good enough for Wikipedia if it is good enough for the published experts. Concerning other types of information appearing on the ISOGG webpages I think it has to be discussed case by case. This has been debated here before, specifically concerning the E-M215 origins subject. See the archives of this talk page.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 22:07, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
A similar problem arises with the Genographic project as well. What I have noticed is that they have not updated much of their information on the website over the last couple of years. This regards to the same assertion that E-M215 arose in the Near East [14]. They are commercial entity as well, I know Spencer Wells is involved with them. But once again, I see no methodology. In many cases it would not be a problem to use the genographic project, because there is general consensus on the world's genealogy. However on the more contentious issue of the origins of E-M215, a much higher standard of sourcing should be required. Wapondaponda ( talk) 16:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
If your concern is the E-M215 origins question you might be interested to know that the person who looks after the ISOGG page which mentions Near Eastern origins, and his predecessor, are both known to me and have both been contacted by me about this, and neither feel strongly about the information appearing there. It seems to have been passed down, and the main aims of those SNP pages is to record the latest updates in phylogeny. On the other hand I have been able to ascertain that people like Prof. Mike Hammer do still feel that there might be something to the idea of Near Eastern origins - however (I would argue) they obviously don't think enough about it quite enough, or have strong enough arguments about it, which would lead them to publish anything? I tell myself on this basis (but this basis is all information of a type that I can't use as a source on Wikipedia!) that this remains in the article while the scientific community finally decides whether or not it has discarded this idea. It seems inevitable that they will unless new surprising data appears soon. No one has argued the case for a long time.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 22:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
"The Genographic Project is a global research partnership of National Geographic and IBM. With support for field research from the Waitt Family Foundation, Dr. Spencer Wells and a group of the world's leading scientists will attempt to collect and analyze more than 100,000 DNA samples from indigenous people all over the world. The goal of the Genographic Project is to learn about the migratory paths our ancestors took and how humankind populated the planet."
"The general public can actually take an active part in this remarkable effort by purchasing a Genographic Project Public Participation Kit and by submitting an anonymous sample of their DNA using an easy and painless cheek swab. By participating, you will not only contribute to this great endeavor, but you may discover something fascinating about your own genetic past as well. Furthermore, the proceeds from the sales of the Kits will be channeled back into the Project to support additional research and to fund education, cultural conservation, and language revitalization efforts for indigenous and traditional communities around the world."
"Unsourced material obtained from a Wikipedian's personal experience, such as an unpublished eyewitness account, should not be added to articles. It would violate both this policy and Verifiability, and would cause Wikipedia to become a primary source for that material."
"Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."
"Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases (in other words, all editors and all sources have a point of view) — what matters is how we combine them to create a neutral article. One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate, including the mutual perspectives and the published evidence. When editorial bias toward one particular point of view can be detected, the article needs to be fixed."
"Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each."
"The sub-haplogroup DE*, presumably the most ancient lineage of the D/E haplogroup was only found in Africans from Nigeria [2], supporting the "Out of Africa" hypothesis about modern human origin."
"In surprise, we observed two DE* in the Tibetan samples, which was previously only observed in Africa (Nigerians) [five Nigerians in total, Wap] but not in other world populations."
Although I agree with Wapondaponda in terms of my judgment of the facts themselves, I think that concerning sourcing guidelines I have to agree with Causteau. There is no rule that Wikipedia can only use peer reviewed secondary sources, and if there were we'd have to start deleting nearly all of it. It is not therefore a reasonable standard. Also I agree that the National Genographic Project is not a for-profit project. Wapondaponda made a reasonable case already, that there is no evidence of on-going debate, and that the websites mentioning Near Origins are just out-of-date. Maybe it is just my opinion, but I think all Wikipedians should try very hard to avoid the temptation to come up with artificial arguments in order to try to force a consensus on a technicality, rather than based upon what is truly convincing to this community. Wikipedia always has problems when people start doing that. I think that we must try to convince Causteau, and the other thing we can do is write to the National Genographic people responsible for the website to ask for their sourcing. (I tried a while back, but maybe someone else can try again.) I know Victor Villareal is reviewing the ISOGG webpage involved. These steps might not be fast, but we should all remember "there is no WP:DEADLINE".-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree DE* deserves to be treated as mysterious, because it is mysterious so far (but probably of African origin). Concerning E1b1b, I tend to agree that if someone really believes it originated in the Near East then they should publish their argument, because it would be a big call. It would be really exciting information in fact. But goodness knows that I've had much better referenced things deleted from Wikipedia! Causteau, is it really a compromise to keep this in, which is I guess how you see it? Isn't it obvious that the webpage references come from ideas that developed before Semino, Luis, Cruciani and all the rest circa 2004? Isn't it normal on Wikipedia to say that if the only sources are webpages, then the case has to be made for them? -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau ( talk) 13:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)"The hypothesis of a back migration from Asia to Africa is strongly supported by the current phylogeography of the Y-chromosome variation, because haplogroup K2 and paragroup R1b*, both belonging to the otherwise Asiatic macro haplogroup K, have only been observed at high frequencies in Africa (Cruciani et al. 2002; Luis et al. 2004). Thus the major sub-sets of Y lineages that arose from the M168 lineage do not trace to an African origin. Likewise the M, N and R haplogroups of mtDNA have no indication of an African origin. In the light of recent findings by Olivieri et al. (2006) the scenario of a back migration into Africa is supported by two features of mtDNA: M1 (with an estimated coalescence time of 38.6 Æ 7.1 ky) and U6 (with an estimated coalescence time of 45.1 Æ 6.9 ky), which are predominantly north African clades arose in southwestern Asia and differentiated into their major sub-clades while they were in the Mediterranean area and only later some sub-sets of M1a (with an estimated coalescence time of 28.8 Æ 4.9 ky), U6a2 (with an estimated coalescence time of 24.0 Æ 7.3 ky) and U6d (with an estimated coalescence time of 20.6 Æ 7.3 ky) diffused to East and North Africa through the Levant." [1]
Contributors truly interested in this field might want to consider looking at the E-M35 Phylogeny Project's own wiki. This might sometimes contain references or leads to material not yet on Wikipedia, or good ways of explaining things, although as another Wiki I do not believe it constitutes an independent reliable source for raw data etc. For those considering contributing keep in mind that it is the wiki of an organization and it is also a specialist wiki. This means you'll be kicked out quickly if you do not work constructively, but also that rulings about "synthesis" might be a little more lenient than Wikipedia itself (because what is "obvious" on that Wiki will be different).-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 20:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi Andrew. Why are you and Causteau repeatedly undoing my picture edit? What was wrong with it? We all know the phrase, a picture paints a thousand words.
You and Causteau appear to think that your 'typical' 'Somali man' is more appropriate than mine. So, I have included both pictures in this talk edit, so that everybody can 'see for themselves' what it is you are trying to achieve with your 'white fez' image.
My edit was a positive, valuable and relevant contribution that actually helps to add clarity to the article. So why does it offend you and Causteau so much? Perhaps we should ask a leading geneticist to arbitrate? (I hear James Watson has a lot of time on his hands nowadays). Anyway, I can see that you've already been feverishly at work today, (perhaps in your 'living room'). I have no intention of getting into an edit war, as I'm supposed to be concentrating on my Masters studies. An edit war would only lead to a 'lock-down' - and I'm totally against keeping knowledge kaptive. Have you seen this - http://www.wikirage.com/editor/Causteau/ ? Tut tut. Ackees ( talk) 10:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Greetings, Andrew. There was an edit conflict, so this paragraph is in reply to your comment of 11:48. First, I have only put my image in twice - and it has been reverted once each by you and Causteau. Secondly, yes I am disputing the 'typicalness' of your and Causteau's Somali picture (although I am not disputing that your man is Somali). But, my picture does look like a 'typical' Somali man, whereas your and Causteau's favoured version looks like an 'atypical' Somali man: that is, somebody who would stand out in a crowd of typical Somali men. As we are dealing with a gene that is present in the majority of the Somali population, it would seem sensible to use a picture of somebody who phenotypically represents the majority. Surely that isn't too much to ask in an article about genetics! What is your and Causteau's actual problem with my picture?
With regard to your 11:57 suggestions about the pirates, soldiers or the boy - all three have their phenotypical advantages over Causteau's picture. And I do not doubt that Somalia is a diverse country. But I carefully chose my picture because it was close to the previous one in age, gender composition and dispostion - the primary difference was that mine looked much more like a typical Somali man. If you agree that it's time for a positive change - why not just use my picture? Plus, I very strongly object to you altering my talk entry by changing my picture captions. That is not acceptable. My question remains, what exactly is your and Causteau's actual problem with my picture and it's rationale? Ackees ( talk) 12:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I am not at all surprised that history and genetics are controversial! One only has to think of disgraced geneticist James Watson and politicians like Mussolini and Hitler - and remember that they have their contemporary adherents and opponents. I do not think that your man is 'not African', or even 'not African enough'. I am happy that he is Somalian. But, my image is more typically Somali than the atypical one you reverted to - who could perhaps also have been a typical Greek, Italian or Mexican. I am not an official of some Apartheid, Edwardian or American 'Board of Racial Classification' - quite the contrary. Of course, I accept that you and Causteau might have simply made an innocent mistake. This is a worldwide publication and, should you choose, you are quite free to defend your choice of image in front of all - whenever you're ready. Until then, I do agree that the boy seems more typically Somali than the image you reverted to. Ackees ( talk) 18:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I'll leave it to you and Causteau I think. I have no idea how to say one of these is more Somali than the other.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 18:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau, what do you think of the boy with prayer tablet? It might be a good idea to use a more attractive photo, and one which is not of a politician or soldier? This photo seems to draw controversy for various reasons.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau, you claim that Somalis 'in many respects' more 'closely resemble' 'Middle Easterners' than 'typical Africans'. To back your claim, you quoted the document "Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease" 2, 3. This paper categorically divides the world into five 'races' 'African' 'Caucasian', 'Pacific' 'East Asian' and 'Native American', stating definitely, "the various racial groups were easily distinguishable".
If we use the OED definitions of "racial" (of or concerning difference in race)", than this is clearly a "racial" paper. They present various biological and genetic arguments to back up their racial views and specifically criticise scientists who disagree with the categorisation of humans into so-called 'races'.
Having quoted an argument about 'races', from a 'racial' document, we can therefore agree, that your P.O.V. on genetics and Somalia is a 'racial' one. We can agree that your agenda in using the image you have used is to illustrate your argument that Somalis 'closely resemble' 'Middle Easterners' as opposed to 'typical Africans'. To do this you have selected a picture of somebody who in your opinion 'more closely resembles' a 'Middle Eastern' than a 'typical African'. You support writers who believe in 'racial categorization' you wish to use this articale to pursue that agenda. And, to be fair, you have now come out and openly admitted your racial agenda.
Of course it would be totally wrong to assume that you and Neil Risch (author of the 'Categorization' paper) share the opinions of Ian Jobling, author the 'White America' blog, just because Ian is a fan of Neil [15]. However, it is clear that there are strands of thought in the world who believe that the concept of 'race' has a scientific basis - you, Risch, Jobling, Watson, Hitler, Rhodes, Southern Segregationists, Mussolini et al.
On the other hand there are many thinkers who reject the concept of race as a scientific, biological fact. For example, Dr J Montoya states that racial theories "correspond best to the imaginations of the scientists and not the presumably defining and stable features being measured [16]". Dr A.H. Goodman says that, "race is an inadequate and even harmful way to think about human biological differences" [17]. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, despite all his efforts, eventually admitted that "Classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise for reasons that were already clear to Darwin [18]".
It is clear is that racial classification is one of the most controversial areas of all human inquiry. ' Race' is not a scientifically established 'fact'. It is a historical strand of opinion. And, people who support racial points of view should be aware that racial opinions will forever be linked with fascism, segregation and apartheid.
So, how do we judge the scientific validity of the three phrases you use to justify your theory of race?
Let us take the phrase 'in many respects'. That is vague. 'In many respects' everything resembles everything else. A teacup, 'in many respects' resembles a mobile phone. Both are less than 0.5 litres in volume, both are made of atoms, both are made by people, etc etc. 'In many respects' is an utterly useless phrase. You can use the phrase 'in many respects' to justify anything. And what about your phrase 'more closely resemble'? Well, this too is useless -scientifically speaking - as anything can 'more closely resemble' one thing than another, depending on what category you use. If we use the category 'things that burn oxygen' then an elephant 'more closely resembles' a a motor car than it resembles an eraser. Brilliant! One simply picks an arbitrary set of categories to determine resemblance! As to the category 'Middle Easterners' - what on Earth are you talking about? What does 'Middle Easterert' mean? Does it mean 'Moroccan?', Spanish? Iranian? Turish? Sudanese? Nubian? Darfurian? Kuwaiti? Do all the people in these countries belong to one of your so-called 'races'. Does it include New York Jews? Russian Jews? Tanzanian Jews? I submit that 'Middle Easterner' is not a scientific category at all. It is simply a phrase which people use to mean whatever they want it to mean.
And so we come to your piece d' resistance the lovely, wonderful, phrase "typical Africans". I would so love for you to give me a water-tight, scientific definition of the phrase "typical African". Does it mean of 'African ancestry?' In which case, that would be everybody on earth. How helpful! I support the non-racial view, that there is no such thing as a "typical African" - except in the minds of those people who have already predisposed to create arbitrary boundaries dividing people into various arbitrary 'racial' categories. '
To sum up. I do not dispute that your photograph is a Somali man. Nor do I dispute that he is an African. Africa and Somalia are phenotypically diverse - as is the entire human population. However, your picture is based on your clearly admitted desire to assert that Somalis 'in many respects' more 'closely resemble' 'Middle Easterners' than 'typical Africans' - despite the fact that non of those phrases have any scientific meaning whatsoever. What is more, everybody who looks at the page, reads your references, and reads this talk will now clearly understand your 'racial' agenda.
My picture is not based on your 'racial' P.O.V. or the 'race' theorists you quote. I, like the other image selectors you have opposed, am not trying to prove that Somalis 'more closely resemble' so-called 'Middle Easterners' than so-called 'typical Africans'. You are. But, accepting that your image is valid image of a Somali person, I am going reinstate my, equally valid image of a Somali person in addition. So, there will be two, in recognition of the visual diversity of the Somali population - thus refuting any suggestion of racial bias or exclusivity based on dubious theories of 'race'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ackees ( talk • contribs) 13:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
"Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks do not help make a point; they only hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping to create a good encyclopedia. Derogatory comments about another contributor may be removed by any editor. Repeated or egregious personal attacks may lead to blocks."
"Keep on topic: Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects). Keep discussions on the topic of how to improve the associated article. Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal."
"Edit warring is the confrontational use of edits to win a content dispute."
Ackees, I think you are speculating about Causteau's thinking far more than is necessary for this discussion. The practical point at hand is about a point of racial identification, if you want to call it that, which you clearly share an interest in with Causteau - i.e. what a typical Somali looks like. How do we handle that practical question? None of what you have written above shows us any way forward. At least Causteau has taken the risky step of explaining something about his opinions. Perhaps you want to avoid doing the same because you expect something like the response he got from you? I tend to agree with Causteau that it is not a valid compromise to have two photos. My proposal is that you guys accept the spirit of compromise and go looking for other photos to propose. Please also remember to sign your posts on talkpages.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 16:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau, I refer again to the title of the Neil Risch paper that you cited above: "Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, RACE and disease 2, 3".
I also refer you to your previous citation (above) of Carleton S. Coon's 1939 book " The Races of Europe" [19], [20] in which the very first sentence of the chapter "The Mediterranean Race in East Africa' contains the utterly fatuous claim that Somalis are 'white racial stock'.
Until your mention of these documents, the controversial concept of ' race' was not openly referred to on this talk page. Although you (perhaps understandably) 'neglected' to cite the titles of these papers, it is clear that, by quoting Risch and Coon, two of the world's most prominent advocates of 'race' theories, it was you that first referred to the concept of 'race' , not me. I merely expose the fact Risch and Coon are advocates of 'racial' categorization theories and that you quoted them in order to justify your use of the Cadow image man in fez.gif instead of the Hadraawi image [21] and others. It is not my fault that Risch and Coon use the word 'race' in the titles of their works, or that their works are about 'race', or that you openly quoted them.
And as to your statement about me, "LOL you're not interested in race" - I did not say that I wasn't interested in the subject. What I said is that the concept of 'race' is not scientific. You can quote "Caucasian" this or "sub-Saharan African" that until you are blue (or whatever) in the face. I, like Montoya, Greenwood, Cavalli et al [22], [23], [24] (quoted above) utterly reject the scientific/biological validity of all and any racial categories.
Therefore, your justification of an image based on any theory of so-called 'race' or 'white racial stock' introduces an erroneous racial P.O.V.. I, like the thinkers I quoted, accept that 'race' is just a 'social/political' concept, not a scientific/biological category. Furthermore, I note that so-called 'scientific' theories of 'race' 'closely resemble' the basic tenets of fascism, apartheid, racism and segregation. According to Prof. John P Jackon Jr, Coon (the 'expert' you cited), "actively aided the segregationist cause in violation of his own standards for scientific objectivity [25]". In plain English, Coon was a racist (I know, I know). I note that his work is also lovingly quoted on this neo-nazi website [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=554149&page=23], where a strangely familiar set of 'racial' arguments about Somalis are regurgitated ad nauseum.
I am merely reminding readers of the close proximity of psuedo-scientific 'racial' thinking to evil ideologies, and warning contributors of the dangers of introducing so-called 'scientific' theories of 'race' into this article about genetics - which, as is about inherited molecules, not pseudo-scientific nonsense about'race'.
I note that you have reverted my image. I shall again re-introduce my image of a Somali person, on the basis that it is an image of a Somali person (in addition to the image of a Somali person that is already there). However, even though you justify your use of an image on the controversial, unscientific social/political, P.O.V. basis of 'race' 2, 3, I shall not delete it. I hope, that as my image is not based on any discredited 'white racial stock' theory, but is simply a picture of a Somali person, nobody will repeat the mistake of removing it.
ANDREW LANCASTER There is no 'speculation' on my part about Causteau's racial theories. And, if you take the time to read his references, you will realise that there is no need to go forever 'hunting' for 'compromise' images. Causteau's citations unequivocally reveal that his P.O.V. is 'purely' 'racial' and, as such he will probably never accept any image that does not fall into his/her utterly unscientific category about 'white racial stock' that 'more closely resembles a middle-eastern than a typical African'. I know that you have worked on this article intensively. But, to defend Causteau's picture edits looks sadly akin to defending his/her openly stated racial P.O.V. As long as such racialized P.O.V.s continue to goose-step around this article, it will remain 'of low importance' 'starter class', and might even be seen as nothing other than mere propaganda for a long-discredited (but sadly still breathing) creed - ' Scientific Racism'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ackees ( talk • contribs) 19:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Yes Bot, this was me Ackees ( talk) 19:48, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau, Andrew Lancaster and Wapondaponda, all three of you have now stated that the one clear solution to the controversy produced by attempts to represent so-called 'race' or 'ethnicity' is to remove from the article all images apart from maps and graphs. In fact, this is the norm as most Haplogroup pages do not have other imagery. I agree that it is wrong to 'racialize' these pages. I strongly oppose the use of politically controversial 'racial' or 'ethnic' theorists such as Hiernaux [ p156, p43 or Coon to justify the use of any 'ethnic' or 'racial' text or imagery in this article (on the page cited, Coon uses the word 'racial' 15 times, but never once refers to 'genes', 'molecules' or 'haplogroups'). The only legitimately scientific subject at hand is the locational dispersal of specific genetic material and hypotheses about its possible chronology. Therefore, in the interests of consensus, I concur with you three, all images that are not graphs or maps should be removed from this article. I will do this at once. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ackees ( talk • contribs) 23:46, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
As you can see, the page is now purged of all images except maps and graphs. I am sure that editors will join me in continuing to purge the text itself of any pseudo-scientific 'racial' theorizing based on the gross distortions of segregationists like Coon and his contemporary ideological descendants.
Ackees (
talk)
00:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Guys I agree with Ackees, although I think phenotypes still apply just just not in the Y-DNA articles! Cadenas2008 ( talk) 03:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Ackees clearly also has strong opinions about race. He just does not want to explain them. His one-sided "cry wolf" approach has not been helpful. It is a shame that the discussion went straight to extremes on both sides. I think it is worth reflecting upon the fact that his and Causteau's way of presenting (or in fact not presenting) a rational case for their photo preferences is the only place where silly and irrelevant references to Segregationists and Hitler occur, and this irrelevant material has led to the bigger idea of including photos also being questioned. I guess trying to include a little colour in this article is doomed to failure. First all the references to genealogy and well-known people were removed, and now all the pretty pictures. Oh well. For those who don't know, it has also been proposed by others that many contour maps should be removed from haplogroup articles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Human_Genetic_History#Are_contour_maps_WP:OR_or_WP:SYN.3F . What will be left? -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:32, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I thought I should register the discussion going on concerning
this map. The map
initially claimed to be based upon Peričic; et al. (2005),
"High-resolution phylogenetic analysis of southeastern Europe traces major episodes of paternal gene flow among Slavic populations", Mol. Biol. Evol., vol. 22, no. 10, pp. 1964–75,
doi:
10.1093/molbev/msi185,
PMID
15944443 {{
citation}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |author=
(
help) but when it was
pointed out that it was not the same as the map in that article the reference
was changed to Cruciani; et al. (2007),
"Tracing Past Human Male Movements in Northern/Eastern Africa and Western Eurasia: New Clues from Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups E-M78 and J-M12" (PDF), Molecular Biology and Evolution, 24: 1300–1311 {{
citation}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |last=
(
help). It has
then been pointed out this is also clearly not the same map. I personally hope this can be resolved neatly. I think contour maps, though they raise questions, are helpful to many readers trying to grapple with these subjects. If we don't find a good solution then we can expect to eventually have a "no win" situation. See discussions like these ones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wobble#Maps and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Human_Genetic_History#Are_contour_maps_WP:OR_or_WP:SYN.3F.--
Andrew Lancaster (
talk)
07:18, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Sure, I can revise the map at some point soon, if we reach a concesnsus as to which source is preferable Hxseek ( talk) 22:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I created a new contour map based on Cruciani Hxseek ( talk) 02:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
You are right Wapondaponda. Andrew asked me a philosophical question on my talk page and I erroneously moved the discussion here. Andrew, if you don't object I will progressively delete this talk section, as it is now irrelevant. Ackees ( talk) 01:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I stumbled across this abstract Genetics and Tradition as Competing Sources of Knowledge of Human History
Recent genetic studies aiming to reconstruct the history of human migrations made a claim to be able to contribute to the writing of history. However, because such projects are closely linked to sociocultural ideas about the categorization of identity, race and ethnicity, they have raised a number of controversial cultural and political issues and are likely to have important potential socio-political consequences. Though some such studies played a positive role helping the researched communities to reaffirm their identity, other projects yielded results that contradicted local narratives of origin
Since the discovery of these haplogroups many people have attached significant importance to these haplogroups. It seems that these haplogroups have become badges of honor and symbols of ethnic identity and pride. So as the above study mentioned, it becomes a problem when the results of these studies have contradicted local narratives of origin. Some have even suggested that some scientists have been biased and have skewed results of their studies to align with local narratives.
I have mentioned earlier that I think it is possible that people attach maybe a little too much importance to these haplogroups. Firstly, the mitochondria started out as a primitive bacteria that hitched a ride on one of our ancestral single celled organisms. They had a symbiotic relationship and the primitive bacteria later became fully incorporated into our ancestral single celled organization. Technically, the Mitochondrial DNA is not "our DNA". The D-Loop section used for haplogroup identification is in the non-coding or junk DNA section of the mitochondrion DNA. Because the mitochondria is a "foreign body", its DNA does not recombine during sexual reproduction. Likewise the Y-chromosome also does not recombine. Apart from determining sex, the y-chromosome seems to be relatively insignificant relative to other chromosomes. The Y only has 78 genes whereas the X chromosome has over 1500 genes. Much of the Y is junk DNA. In fact the Y started out as an X chromosome, but due to loss of function has lost one of its legs due to shrinkage. Women can do fine without a Y chromosome, but males cannot survive without an X chromosome.
The D-loop of the mitochondria and NRY of the Y-chromosome are the most useless parts of the human genome with regard to phenotype. Yet they are the most useful parts of the genome in determining ancestry. Mutations in junk DNA do not influence phenotype and accumulate at much faster rates than in coding regions. A mutation in an actual coding region of gene will likely influence phenotype. Mutations on average are more likely to be bad than good, since our DNA has already been tried and tested by millions of years of evolution. Consequently, coding genes vary less across human populations and are less useful at determining phenotype. The mitochondria and the NRY are thus not good candidates for determining the so called ethnic superiority or inferiority of a population. They are just junk DNA.
The reason for all this is I think it may be a good idea in the future to create an article that deals with some of the social consequences of the human genome. Already the above article deals with the topic. Another article Genetic ancestry and the search for personalized genetic histories also addresses the conflict between social identity and genetic history. E1b1b appears to have important social consequences at least based on the popularity of this article. Wapondaponda ( talk) 20:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Andrew, the "social consequences" of these haplogroups are in my opinion, the main reason why we are having a lot of difficulty regarding these articles. In the past few weeks since I started looking into these articles, I have witnesses numerous and unnecessary attempts to somewhat distort information contained in these articles. If we don't address this issue, there will be prolonged and unnecessary edit conflicts on several of these articles. Instead of reporting all relevant information, some editors are selectively cherry picking information that favors one view over another. As you point out, some scientists are actually stoking the flames, by injecting politics into their studies. Even though peer reviewed studies are the most reliable sources, scientists have ego's and issues regarding their own identity and unfortunately, these sometimes end up in their studies. If a particular scientist publishes a study that would seem to promote an ethnocentric view of the scientist's own ethnicity, wouldn't there be a conflict of interest. Wapondaponda ( talk) 08:38, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
I have made this a new section at the above mentioned WikiProject page.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I actually agree with Andrew here. It's a bit much to remove someone's picture just because we don't happen to know if they have been tested. I mean, were the Jewish man and the Libyan Arab boys whose pictures you didn't remove tested?
I didn't leave any Libyans or Jews [ [2]] both are less likely to be E1b1b than Somalians.
Personally I will be very disappointed if I find my photo under R1b or H1 just because of my nationality. I think you have an ethical obligation to ask these people & findout whats their Y-DNA & if they want to be on the article before posting their photos! least we can do is post group photos of Somalian children, Berbers. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 17:47, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Causteau I swear with our MRCA that I didn't see the photos of the Libyan boys or the jewish guy & I thought I removed every photo. The Druze article is an ethnic article (I am not Druze or E1b1b for the record! I already was accused of being a jew -not that its a bad thing!- in the R1a article I don't want to end up being in an ethnic issue here).
The photos just stuck out, I didn't see this in the other article, if you want I will do my share & try to make a good E1b1b map to beautify the article? & I had a group photo posted, but they were lost in an edit conflict :) . Cadenas2008 ( talk) 18:41, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Ethiopian children. [ [3]]. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 19:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Causteau how about this one? A beautiful photo of smiling Somali Children & their phenotype is pretty much that of the average Somalian so it doesn't leave any doubt!
. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 23:02, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
How about this one? Somalian kids celebrating. [4]. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 23:28, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Sir I know how Somalians look! The guy you posted doesn't have a typical Somali phenotype -least to say & we are trying to profile 77.6 % of the V32 Somalians!-.
Compare these guys, [5]. Cadenas2008 ( talk) 00:40, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Are you from Somaliland?
Are you Mr Caddoow himself? (if thats the case you can say so & we end the discussion here!)
I am concerned because you are trying to say that the majority of the Somalians are not Somalians!! (so far you claimed 90% of the Somalian guys I posted are not -real- Somalians! you even ridculed the 3 children & said two of them are girl lookalikes!)
if you are trying to tell me those beautiful Somalians I posted are not the majority of the people of Somalia today. (regardless of who moved in who didn't move E1b1b is the majority today & they don't like Mr Caddow!).
Does this have anything to do with your selection of Mr Cabdullaahi Axmed Caddoow, this is his profile [6].
Cadenas2008 ( talk) 02:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
I posted about 15 Somalians so far all of them didn't add up in your eyes! How about this Somalian boy? [7].
The Somali phenotype is that of the children you see all over Somalia, they happen to be 77.6% M-78 (Sanchez et al. 2005). Cadenas2008 ( talk) 03:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
High frequencies of Y chromosome lineages characterized by E3b1, DYS19-11, DYS392-12 in Somali males SANCHEZ Juan J. (1) ; HALLENBERG Charlotte (1) ; BØRSTING Claus (1) ; HERNANDEZ Alexis (2) ; MORLING Niels (1) ; Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s) (1) Department of Forensic Genetics, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Copenhagen, DANEMARK (2) Departamento de Canarias, Instituto Nacional de Toxicologí]a, La Laguna, Tenerife, ESPAGNE
Abstract N=201 male Somalis, 14 Y chromosome haplogroups were identified including M78 (77.6%) and T (10.4%). Cadenas2008 ( talk) 03:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Hi, this is mentioned in the article I think? Have a look under E1b1b1a1b (E-V32)-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:01, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't the opening line under Undifferentiated Lineages say "E-V32 and M-224?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.94.42.235 ( talk) 20:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I don't quite follow. Perhaps you need to explain a bit more in detail what you think might be wrong. The way I understand you currently, if you would change "or" to "and" this might imply that the E-V12* group is V32 negative but M224 positive?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
It has already been corrected. The old version said "E-V12 or M-224," just a typo.
The section "Famous E1b1b members" is a trivia section. This is an encyclopaedia, this article should be about the haplogroup and not about people who happen to have been a member of it. How does the section improve the article? Do we need it? This article is not a branch of FTDNA or worldfamilies or any other surname project. I fail to see the encyclopaedic relevance of these contributions. Wikipedia has core content policies that demand that information be verifiable from published sources that are reliable. It's even more important in science, see here and here. I think it should be removed as irrelevant. Please read Wikipedia:Relevance of content and Wikipedia:Handling trivia. Alun ( talk) 07:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you think it's only "arguably" trivia. The article is about the haplogroup isn't it? The article is not about people who carry this haplogroup, it's about this specific Y chromosome.
I don't follow your point about ISOGG, that is not an encyclopaedia. I am certain that the Wikipedia project has a completely different set of goals to those of ISOGG. I use ISOGG all the time, they are a reliable source and maintain an excellent resource. But if they want to include trivia then that is their prerogative, they are not an encyclopaedia.
We, on the other hand, are not a genealogical resource. I am sceptical of the reliability of "family" DNA projects. For example the Harvey Y-DNA Genetic Project is cited in the article, how do we deal with this? Normally in science we accept only sources published by reliable scientific publishers. I don't think we can treat family projects any different from say blogs, and we certainly don't cite blogs.
My own opinion is that there is a great deal of unreliable speculation out there, especially when it comes to genetic research, I think we need to stick to reliable sources. I also think we need to stick to the subject at hand. In this case the subject is the haplogroup, and not speculation that people from history might possibly have belonged to this haplogroup.
I also don't think you have answered the question about
encyclopaedic relevance. If you can espouse a good argument for the encyclopaedic relevance of these people being included, then I'd be more than happy. I don't see the connection at all, I think it amounts to attempting to turn what is an encyclopaedia into a resource for genealogists.
I think it would be more relevant to discuss the person who discovered the SNP that defines this haplogroup actually, if we are going to discuss individual people in the article. At least their notability is directly relevant to the subject of the article. Are we trying to say that these people are notable because they belong to haplogroup E1b1b? I don't think so.
Alun (
talk)
13:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
--
The format of the famous people section really needs to be discussed on the main project page not here. I see Andrew has raised the topic there and I've also added a comment. I've discovered that there is a List of haplogroups of historical and famous figures. I suggest that it might be more appropriate to move the famous people content into that list for now, with a link to the list in the "See also" section. Then at least the content is not lost and the integrity of this article can be maintained. Would that be acceptable? If the references can be found then it would be a simple matter to add a short referenced list of famous people. Dahliarose ( talk) 17:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I'm going to change all this to a list as per normal Wikipedia policy, we're getting nowhere here and I see no compelling reason that biographical details are more relevant in haplogroup articles than say in town articles.
Alun (
talk)
12:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
By the way it occurs to me that not everyone will realize there was someone debate on User pages about this... User_talk:Causteau/Archive_3#Forum_link_in_E1b1b_article User_talk:Andrew_Lancaster#Forum_link_in_E1b1b -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 18:21, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Please try the links. You've obviously approached all this carefully and with an open mind.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it's really unfortunate that the Famous E1b1b members section had to be wittled down to just an uniformative list, but I guess that's better than nothing. That said, I've been combing through the discussion above for some kind of agreement regarding the paring down of the section, but I couldn't find any. Can someone please point me to where consensus was reached on this matter? Last I was aware, Andrew, Dahliarose and I had all agreed that the section in question was not trivia and was indeed worth keeping; the difference was over whether to maintain the section as it was or to pare it down to a simple list. Causteau ( talk) 10:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Family_surname_projects. Cheers. Alun ( talk) 10:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Unless a lab has tested viable genetic material from Harvey etc. to determine their Y haplotype, making claims here is original research. Web-based family trees are either self-published or constructed out of self-published material and are not reliable sources. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay, if the material comes directly from the company, it is a reliable source regarding what the company sells (but cannot be used to make any further claim). These testing companies are commercial concerns. This material is promoting their commercial interests. I personally would have no objection to a section on the commercialization of genetic lineages - in fact I think it is a good idea, even for a separate article, and there are books by academic presses and articles in peer-reviewed journals analyzing this phenomenon that would be great sources fo such an article or section of an article. Within this context, I would have (just speaking for myself) no problem with saying that these companies make these claims and specify the context (do they make these claims in promotional material, or in material individuals purchase from the companies). In other words, these are reliable sources for what these companies are selling. And it is fine to use them to illustrate what these companies sell. I think it is a matter of using these sources appropriately. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Compare...
For my analysis of the problems with this section please see here. I outline three major problems.
Alun, the section is deleted and also under discussion on a Noticeboard, but given that you are still apparently pursuing a more general agenda I want to reply to your relevance point here, which however should be discussed on the Wikiproject board. I have tried to go over these points before and gotten nowhere, so I'll use simple language. The whole paragraph is ignorant nonsense. Indeed your terminology is so messy that we need to divide the claim up into several things it might mean:
Please read the two sections, "Trivia Section" and "Removal of Section." The question is whether this deleted section relied on unreliable sources, and was original research. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
To close this discussion:
-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 17:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Is this material even desired? Surely there's going to be a huge number of people in this lineage. Trying to list them all seems rather foolish and counter-productive to me. Black people doesn't have a similar list. RS and SYNTH don't even come into it if the content is deletable in it's own right.– OrangeDog ( talk • edits) 04:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm in favor of omitting this section. I agree with Slrubinstein that only statements that are made in peer-reviewed articles should be credited, and with OrangeDog that the material is not even desirable. The problems with fact-checking that Alun lists in his sandbox appear serious. EdJohnston ( talk) 16:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I have also raised the issue at Wikipedia:No original research/noticeboard. Dahliarose ( talk) 13:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello. E-M78 originated in Northeastern Africa according to Cruciani et al. 2007. However, Northeastern Africa in that study refers specifically to the Egypt/Libya area, not the Horn of Africa. Cruciani and his colleagues refer to the latter instead as "Eastern Africa". Please see to Table 1 of the study for reference. Causteau ( talk) 16:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau ( talk) 16:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)"Prior to Cruciani et al. (2007), Semino et al. (2004) had proposed the Horn of Africa as a possible place of origin of E-M78. This was because of the high frequency and diversity of E-M78 lineages in the region. For example, Sanchez et al. (2005) found that 77.6% of 201 male Somalis tested in Denmark were members of this clade. However, Cruciani et al. (2007) were able to study more data, including populations from North Africa who were not represented in the Semino et al. (2004) study, and found evidence that the E-M78 lineages in the Horn of Africa were relatively recent branches. They note this as evidence for "a corridor for bidirectional migrations" (conceivably the Nile River Valley) between Egypt and Libya on the one hand and the Horn of Africa on the other. The authors believe there were "at least 2 episodes between 23.9–17.3 ky and 18.0–5.9 ky ago".
Don't disagree but this is what Cruciani et
"Locating the Origin of Haplogroup E-M78:
An eastern African origin for this haplogroup was hypothesized on the basis of the exclusive presence in that area of a putative ancestral 12-repeat allele at the DYS392 microsatellite, found in association with E-M78 chromosomes (Semino et al. 2004).
In conclusion, the peripheral geographic distribution of the most derived subhaplogroups with respect to northeastern Africa, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of UEP and microsatellite diversity are strongly suggestive of a northeastern rather than an eastern African origin of E-M78. Northeastern Africa thus seems to be the place from where E-M78 chromosomes started to disperse to other African regions and outside Africa.
Wapondaponda ( talk) 16:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau ( talk) 17:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)"In conclusion, the peripheral geographic distribution of the most derived subhaplogroups with respect to northeastern Africa, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of UEP and microsatellite diversity are strongly suggestive of a northeastern rather than an eastern African origin of E-M78. Northeastern Africa thus seems to be the place from where E-M78 chromosomes started to disperse to other African regions and outside Africa."
Experience has shown that in the field of population genetics, information changes rapidly, just as Cruciani is said to be an update of Semino, who knows what will be next. Cruciani is not definitive but strongly suggestive, he states:
In conclusion, the peripheral geographic distribution of the most derived subhaplogroups with respect to northeastern Africa, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of UEP and microsatellite diversity are strongly suggestive of a northeastern rather than an eastern African origin of E-M78. Northeastern Africa thus seems to be the place from where E-M78 chromosomes started to disperse to other African regions and outside Africa.
In addition the table that you provided a link, shows that the E-M78 is concentrated in the south of Egypt 50%, Somalia 52%, Baharia 41%, and oromo Kenya/Ethiopia 40%. The Libyans had relatively low frequencies at 8% for Libyan Jews and 20% for Libyan Arabs with samples sizes of 25 and 10 respectively. Whatever the case, Cruciani has not adequately defined Northeast Africa, I think it is a stretch to put Libya as being the place of origin. Cruciani mentions the Nile river as being a corridor for migrations, which eliminates Libya as a source of origin. Based on his map, Northeast Africa is Southern Egypt. Wapondaponda ( talk) 20:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Chill bro, Could you draw on a map where Egypt/Libya is. Its quite an ambiguous definition. What is interesting is the huge gaps in the maps between the Somali center of concentration and the Egyptian center of concentration [12]. In time those gaps will be filled, but that is an indicator that the study though rigorous was less than comprehensive. Wapondaponda ( talk) 23:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
It seems a bit odd to have to centers of concentration separated by a large geographic distance, normally there is only one. The gaps is mostly Sudan, northern Ethiopia. Most likely patterns that will emerge will be similar to others in the region. The nomenclature for these haplogroups is always changing, so maybe within a year or so, there will be a new study with new names, new regions of origin. For now Cruciani is the most recent, so it will take precedence, but I see no reason not to include other information from semino et al 2004, which is quoted extensively in the article for purposes of historical context. Wapondaponda ( talk) 00:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
A few remarks, which I hope everyone agrees with?
If these images are okay, I can proceed to add them to the article Wapondaponda ( talk) 12:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Personally I don't see any problem with either, but the Cruciani based one is more complete in several ways. Great!-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 20:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Looks good in my opinion.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 22:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't know whether this has been discussed before, but is ISOGG a reliable source on the origins of haplogroups. Judging by their website, they don't do any research themselves. It seems to me they are no different from wikipedia, in that the compile information. This page is referenced in the article. Wapondaponda ( talk) 05:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
ISOGG's SNP trees are now being used consistently as a reference in peer-reviewed literature, so their SNP trees are I think acceptable. These are effectively just webpages which are carefully maintained to reflect what happens in the literature. They are trusted. I think this is good enough for Wikipedia if it is good enough for the published experts. Concerning other types of information appearing on the ISOGG webpages I think it has to be discussed case by case. This has been debated here before, specifically concerning the E-M215 origins subject. See the archives of this talk page.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 22:07, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
A similar problem arises with the Genographic project as well. What I have noticed is that they have not updated much of their information on the website over the last couple of years. This regards to the same assertion that E-M215 arose in the Near East [14]. They are commercial entity as well, I know Spencer Wells is involved with them. But once again, I see no methodology. In many cases it would not be a problem to use the genographic project, because there is general consensus on the world's genealogy. However on the more contentious issue of the origins of E-M215, a much higher standard of sourcing should be required. Wapondaponda ( talk) 16:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
If your concern is the E-M215 origins question you might be interested to know that the person who looks after the ISOGG page which mentions Near Eastern origins, and his predecessor, are both known to me and have both been contacted by me about this, and neither feel strongly about the information appearing there. It seems to have been passed down, and the main aims of those SNP pages is to record the latest updates in phylogeny. On the other hand I have been able to ascertain that people like Prof. Mike Hammer do still feel that there might be something to the idea of Near Eastern origins - however (I would argue) they obviously don't think enough about it quite enough, or have strong enough arguments about it, which would lead them to publish anything? I tell myself on this basis (but this basis is all information of a type that I can't use as a source on Wikipedia!) that this remains in the article while the scientific community finally decides whether or not it has discarded this idea. It seems inevitable that they will unless new surprising data appears soon. No one has argued the case for a long time.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 22:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
"The Genographic Project is a global research partnership of National Geographic and IBM. With support for field research from the Waitt Family Foundation, Dr. Spencer Wells and a group of the world's leading scientists will attempt to collect and analyze more than 100,000 DNA samples from indigenous people all over the world. The goal of the Genographic Project is to learn about the migratory paths our ancestors took and how humankind populated the planet."
"The general public can actually take an active part in this remarkable effort by purchasing a Genographic Project Public Participation Kit and by submitting an anonymous sample of their DNA using an easy and painless cheek swab. By participating, you will not only contribute to this great endeavor, but you may discover something fascinating about your own genetic past as well. Furthermore, the proceeds from the sales of the Kits will be channeled back into the Project to support additional research and to fund education, cultural conservation, and language revitalization efforts for indigenous and traditional communities around the world."
"Unsourced material obtained from a Wikipedian's personal experience, such as an unpublished eyewitness account, should not be added to articles. It would violate both this policy and Verifiability, and would cause Wikipedia to become a primary source for that material."
"Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."
"Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases (in other words, all editors and all sources have a point of view) — what matters is how we combine them to create a neutral article. One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate, including the mutual perspectives and the published evidence. When editorial bias toward one particular point of view can be detected, the article needs to be fixed."
"Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each."
"The sub-haplogroup DE*, presumably the most ancient lineage of the D/E haplogroup was only found in Africans from Nigeria [2], supporting the "Out of Africa" hypothesis about modern human origin."
"In surprise, we observed two DE* in the Tibetan samples, which was previously only observed in Africa (Nigerians) [five Nigerians in total, Wap] but not in other world populations."
Although I agree with Wapondaponda in terms of my judgment of the facts themselves, I think that concerning sourcing guidelines I have to agree with Causteau. There is no rule that Wikipedia can only use peer reviewed secondary sources, and if there were we'd have to start deleting nearly all of it. It is not therefore a reasonable standard. Also I agree that the National Genographic Project is not a for-profit project. Wapondaponda made a reasonable case already, that there is no evidence of on-going debate, and that the websites mentioning Near Origins are just out-of-date. Maybe it is just my opinion, but I think all Wikipedians should try very hard to avoid the temptation to come up with artificial arguments in order to try to force a consensus on a technicality, rather than based upon what is truly convincing to this community. Wikipedia always has problems when people start doing that. I think that we must try to convince Causteau, and the other thing we can do is write to the National Genographic people responsible for the website to ask for their sourcing. (I tried a while back, but maybe someone else can try again.) I know Victor Villareal is reviewing the ISOGG webpage involved. These steps might not be fast, but we should all remember "there is no WP:DEADLINE".-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree DE* deserves to be treated as mysterious, because it is mysterious so far (but probably of African origin). Concerning E1b1b, I tend to agree that if someone really believes it originated in the Near East then they should publish their argument, because it would be a big call. It would be really exciting information in fact. But goodness knows that I've had much better referenced things deleted from Wikipedia! Causteau, is it really a compromise to keep this in, which is I guess how you see it? Isn't it obvious that the webpage references come from ideas that developed before Semino, Luis, Cruciani and all the rest circa 2004? Isn't it normal on Wikipedia to say that if the only sources are webpages, then the case has to be made for them? -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau ( talk) 13:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)"The hypothesis of a back migration from Asia to Africa is strongly supported by the current phylogeography of the Y-chromosome variation, because haplogroup K2 and paragroup R1b*, both belonging to the otherwise Asiatic macro haplogroup K, have only been observed at high frequencies in Africa (Cruciani et al. 2002; Luis et al. 2004). Thus the major sub-sets of Y lineages that arose from the M168 lineage do not trace to an African origin. Likewise the M, N and R haplogroups of mtDNA have no indication of an African origin. In the light of recent findings by Olivieri et al. (2006) the scenario of a back migration into Africa is supported by two features of mtDNA: M1 (with an estimated coalescence time of 38.6 Æ 7.1 ky) and U6 (with an estimated coalescence time of 45.1 Æ 6.9 ky), which are predominantly north African clades arose in southwestern Asia and differentiated into their major sub-clades while they were in the Mediterranean area and only later some sub-sets of M1a (with an estimated coalescence time of 28.8 Æ 4.9 ky), U6a2 (with an estimated coalescence time of 24.0 Æ 7.3 ky) and U6d (with an estimated coalescence time of 20.6 Æ 7.3 ky) diffused to East and North Africa through the Levant." [1]
Contributors truly interested in this field might want to consider looking at the E-M35 Phylogeny Project's own wiki. This might sometimes contain references or leads to material not yet on Wikipedia, or good ways of explaining things, although as another Wiki I do not believe it constitutes an independent reliable source for raw data etc. For those considering contributing keep in mind that it is the wiki of an organization and it is also a specialist wiki. This means you'll be kicked out quickly if you do not work constructively, but also that rulings about "synthesis" might be a little more lenient than Wikipedia itself (because what is "obvious" on that Wiki will be different).-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 20:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi Andrew. Why are you and Causteau repeatedly undoing my picture edit? What was wrong with it? We all know the phrase, a picture paints a thousand words.
You and Causteau appear to think that your 'typical' 'Somali man' is more appropriate than mine. So, I have included both pictures in this talk edit, so that everybody can 'see for themselves' what it is you are trying to achieve with your 'white fez' image.
My edit was a positive, valuable and relevant contribution that actually helps to add clarity to the article. So why does it offend you and Causteau so much? Perhaps we should ask a leading geneticist to arbitrate? (I hear James Watson has a lot of time on his hands nowadays). Anyway, I can see that you've already been feverishly at work today, (perhaps in your 'living room'). I have no intention of getting into an edit war, as I'm supposed to be concentrating on my Masters studies. An edit war would only lead to a 'lock-down' - and I'm totally against keeping knowledge kaptive. Have you seen this - http://www.wikirage.com/editor/Causteau/ ? Tut tut. Ackees ( talk) 10:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Greetings, Andrew. There was an edit conflict, so this paragraph is in reply to your comment of 11:48. First, I have only put my image in twice - and it has been reverted once each by you and Causteau. Secondly, yes I am disputing the 'typicalness' of your and Causteau's Somali picture (although I am not disputing that your man is Somali). But, my picture does look like a 'typical' Somali man, whereas your and Causteau's favoured version looks like an 'atypical' Somali man: that is, somebody who would stand out in a crowd of typical Somali men. As we are dealing with a gene that is present in the majority of the Somali population, it would seem sensible to use a picture of somebody who phenotypically represents the majority. Surely that isn't too much to ask in an article about genetics! What is your and Causteau's actual problem with my picture?
With regard to your 11:57 suggestions about the pirates, soldiers or the boy - all three have their phenotypical advantages over Causteau's picture. And I do not doubt that Somalia is a diverse country. But I carefully chose my picture because it was close to the previous one in age, gender composition and dispostion - the primary difference was that mine looked much more like a typical Somali man. If you agree that it's time for a positive change - why not just use my picture? Plus, I very strongly object to you altering my talk entry by changing my picture captions. That is not acceptable. My question remains, what exactly is your and Causteau's actual problem with my picture and it's rationale? Ackees ( talk) 12:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I am not at all surprised that history and genetics are controversial! One only has to think of disgraced geneticist James Watson and politicians like Mussolini and Hitler - and remember that they have their contemporary adherents and opponents. I do not think that your man is 'not African', or even 'not African enough'. I am happy that he is Somalian. But, my image is more typically Somali than the atypical one you reverted to - who could perhaps also have been a typical Greek, Italian or Mexican. I am not an official of some Apartheid, Edwardian or American 'Board of Racial Classification' - quite the contrary. Of course, I accept that you and Causteau might have simply made an innocent mistake. This is a worldwide publication and, should you choose, you are quite free to defend your choice of image in front of all - whenever you're ready. Until then, I do agree that the boy seems more typically Somali than the image you reverted to. Ackees ( talk) 18:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I'll leave it to you and Causteau I think. I have no idea how to say one of these is more Somali than the other.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 18:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau, what do you think of the boy with prayer tablet? It might be a good idea to use a more attractive photo, and one which is not of a politician or soldier? This photo seems to draw controversy for various reasons.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau, you claim that Somalis 'in many respects' more 'closely resemble' 'Middle Easterners' than 'typical Africans'. To back your claim, you quoted the document "Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease" 2, 3. This paper categorically divides the world into five 'races' 'African' 'Caucasian', 'Pacific' 'East Asian' and 'Native American', stating definitely, "the various racial groups were easily distinguishable".
If we use the OED definitions of "racial" (of or concerning difference in race)", than this is clearly a "racial" paper. They present various biological and genetic arguments to back up their racial views and specifically criticise scientists who disagree with the categorisation of humans into so-called 'races'.
Having quoted an argument about 'races', from a 'racial' document, we can therefore agree, that your P.O.V. on genetics and Somalia is a 'racial' one. We can agree that your agenda in using the image you have used is to illustrate your argument that Somalis 'closely resemble' 'Middle Easterners' as opposed to 'typical Africans'. To do this you have selected a picture of somebody who in your opinion 'more closely resembles' a 'Middle Eastern' than a 'typical African'. You support writers who believe in 'racial categorization' you wish to use this articale to pursue that agenda. And, to be fair, you have now come out and openly admitted your racial agenda.
Of course it would be totally wrong to assume that you and Neil Risch (author of the 'Categorization' paper) share the opinions of Ian Jobling, author the 'White America' blog, just because Ian is a fan of Neil [15]. However, it is clear that there are strands of thought in the world who believe that the concept of 'race' has a scientific basis - you, Risch, Jobling, Watson, Hitler, Rhodes, Southern Segregationists, Mussolini et al.
On the other hand there are many thinkers who reject the concept of race as a scientific, biological fact. For example, Dr J Montoya states that racial theories "correspond best to the imaginations of the scientists and not the presumably defining and stable features being measured [16]". Dr A.H. Goodman says that, "race is an inadequate and even harmful way to think about human biological differences" [17]. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, despite all his efforts, eventually admitted that "Classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise for reasons that were already clear to Darwin [18]".
It is clear is that racial classification is one of the most controversial areas of all human inquiry. ' Race' is not a scientifically established 'fact'. It is a historical strand of opinion. And, people who support racial points of view should be aware that racial opinions will forever be linked with fascism, segregation and apartheid.
So, how do we judge the scientific validity of the three phrases you use to justify your theory of race?
Let us take the phrase 'in many respects'. That is vague. 'In many respects' everything resembles everything else. A teacup, 'in many respects' resembles a mobile phone. Both are less than 0.5 litres in volume, both are made of atoms, both are made by people, etc etc. 'In many respects' is an utterly useless phrase. You can use the phrase 'in many respects' to justify anything. And what about your phrase 'more closely resemble'? Well, this too is useless -scientifically speaking - as anything can 'more closely resemble' one thing than another, depending on what category you use. If we use the category 'things that burn oxygen' then an elephant 'more closely resembles' a a motor car than it resembles an eraser. Brilliant! One simply picks an arbitrary set of categories to determine resemblance! As to the category 'Middle Easterners' - what on Earth are you talking about? What does 'Middle Easterert' mean? Does it mean 'Moroccan?', Spanish? Iranian? Turish? Sudanese? Nubian? Darfurian? Kuwaiti? Do all the people in these countries belong to one of your so-called 'races'. Does it include New York Jews? Russian Jews? Tanzanian Jews? I submit that 'Middle Easterner' is not a scientific category at all. It is simply a phrase which people use to mean whatever they want it to mean.
And so we come to your piece d' resistance the lovely, wonderful, phrase "typical Africans". I would so love for you to give me a water-tight, scientific definition of the phrase "typical African". Does it mean of 'African ancestry?' In which case, that would be everybody on earth. How helpful! I support the non-racial view, that there is no such thing as a "typical African" - except in the minds of those people who have already predisposed to create arbitrary boundaries dividing people into various arbitrary 'racial' categories. '
To sum up. I do not dispute that your photograph is a Somali man. Nor do I dispute that he is an African. Africa and Somalia are phenotypically diverse - as is the entire human population. However, your picture is based on your clearly admitted desire to assert that Somalis 'in many respects' more 'closely resemble' 'Middle Easterners' than 'typical Africans' - despite the fact that non of those phrases have any scientific meaning whatsoever. What is more, everybody who looks at the page, reads your references, and reads this talk will now clearly understand your 'racial' agenda.
My picture is not based on your 'racial' P.O.V. or the 'race' theorists you quote. I, like the other image selectors you have opposed, am not trying to prove that Somalis 'more closely resemble' so-called 'Middle Easterners' than so-called 'typical Africans'. You are. But, accepting that your image is valid image of a Somali person, I am going reinstate my, equally valid image of a Somali person in addition. So, there will be two, in recognition of the visual diversity of the Somali population - thus refuting any suggestion of racial bias or exclusivity based on dubious theories of 'race'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ackees ( talk • contribs) 13:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
"Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks do not help make a point; they only hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping to create a good encyclopedia. Derogatory comments about another contributor may be removed by any editor. Repeated or egregious personal attacks may lead to blocks."
"Keep on topic: Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects). Keep discussions on the topic of how to improve the associated article. Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal."
"Edit warring is the confrontational use of edits to win a content dispute."
Ackees, I think you are speculating about Causteau's thinking far more than is necessary for this discussion. The practical point at hand is about a point of racial identification, if you want to call it that, which you clearly share an interest in with Causteau - i.e. what a typical Somali looks like. How do we handle that practical question? None of what you have written above shows us any way forward. At least Causteau has taken the risky step of explaining something about his opinions. Perhaps you want to avoid doing the same because you expect something like the response he got from you? I tend to agree with Causteau that it is not a valid compromise to have two photos. My proposal is that you guys accept the spirit of compromise and go looking for other photos to propose. Please also remember to sign your posts on talkpages.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 16:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau, I refer again to the title of the Neil Risch paper that you cited above: "Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, RACE and disease 2, 3".
I also refer you to your previous citation (above) of Carleton S. Coon's 1939 book " The Races of Europe" [19], [20] in which the very first sentence of the chapter "The Mediterranean Race in East Africa' contains the utterly fatuous claim that Somalis are 'white racial stock'.
Until your mention of these documents, the controversial concept of ' race' was not openly referred to on this talk page. Although you (perhaps understandably) 'neglected' to cite the titles of these papers, it is clear that, by quoting Risch and Coon, two of the world's most prominent advocates of 'race' theories, it was you that first referred to the concept of 'race' , not me. I merely expose the fact Risch and Coon are advocates of 'racial' categorization theories and that you quoted them in order to justify your use of the Cadow image man in fez.gif instead of the Hadraawi image [21] and others. It is not my fault that Risch and Coon use the word 'race' in the titles of their works, or that their works are about 'race', or that you openly quoted them.
And as to your statement about me, "LOL you're not interested in race" - I did not say that I wasn't interested in the subject. What I said is that the concept of 'race' is not scientific. You can quote "Caucasian" this or "sub-Saharan African" that until you are blue (or whatever) in the face. I, like Montoya, Greenwood, Cavalli et al [22], [23], [24] (quoted above) utterly reject the scientific/biological validity of all and any racial categories.
Therefore, your justification of an image based on any theory of so-called 'race' or 'white racial stock' introduces an erroneous racial P.O.V.. I, like the thinkers I quoted, accept that 'race' is just a 'social/political' concept, not a scientific/biological category. Furthermore, I note that so-called 'scientific' theories of 'race' 'closely resemble' the basic tenets of fascism, apartheid, racism and segregation. According to Prof. John P Jackon Jr, Coon (the 'expert' you cited), "actively aided the segregationist cause in violation of his own standards for scientific objectivity [25]". In plain English, Coon was a racist (I know, I know). I note that his work is also lovingly quoted on this neo-nazi website [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=554149&page=23], where a strangely familiar set of 'racial' arguments about Somalis are regurgitated ad nauseum.
I am merely reminding readers of the close proximity of psuedo-scientific 'racial' thinking to evil ideologies, and warning contributors of the dangers of introducing so-called 'scientific' theories of 'race' into this article about genetics - which, as is about inherited molecules, not pseudo-scientific nonsense about'race'.
I note that you have reverted my image. I shall again re-introduce my image of a Somali person, on the basis that it is an image of a Somali person (in addition to the image of a Somali person that is already there). However, even though you justify your use of an image on the controversial, unscientific social/political, P.O.V. basis of 'race' 2, 3, I shall not delete it. I hope, that as my image is not based on any discredited 'white racial stock' theory, but is simply a picture of a Somali person, nobody will repeat the mistake of removing it.
ANDREW LANCASTER There is no 'speculation' on my part about Causteau's racial theories. And, if you take the time to read his references, you will realise that there is no need to go forever 'hunting' for 'compromise' images. Causteau's citations unequivocally reveal that his P.O.V. is 'purely' 'racial' and, as such he will probably never accept any image that does not fall into his/her utterly unscientific category about 'white racial stock' that 'more closely resembles a middle-eastern than a typical African'. I know that you have worked on this article intensively. But, to defend Causteau's picture edits looks sadly akin to defending his/her openly stated racial P.O.V. As long as such racialized P.O.V.s continue to goose-step around this article, it will remain 'of low importance' 'starter class', and might even be seen as nothing other than mere propaganda for a long-discredited (but sadly still breathing) creed - ' Scientific Racism'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ackees ( talk • contribs) 19:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Yes Bot, this was me Ackees ( talk) 19:48, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Causteau, Andrew Lancaster and Wapondaponda, all three of you have now stated that the one clear solution to the controversy produced by attempts to represent so-called 'race' or 'ethnicity' is to remove from the article all images apart from maps and graphs. In fact, this is the norm as most Haplogroup pages do not have other imagery. I agree that it is wrong to 'racialize' these pages. I strongly oppose the use of politically controversial 'racial' or 'ethnic' theorists such as Hiernaux [ p156, p43 or Coon to justify the use of any 'ethnic' or 'racial' text or imagery in this article (on the page cited, Coon uses the word 'racial' 15 times, but never once refers to 'genes', 'molecules' or 'haplogroups'). The only legitimately scientific subject at hand is the locational dispersal of specific genetic material and hypotheses about its possible chronology. Therefore, in the interests of consensus, I concur with you three, all images that are not graphs or maps should be removed from this article. I will do this at once. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ackees ( talk • contribs) 23:46, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
As you can see, the page is now purged of all images except maps and graphs. I am sure that editors will join me in continuing to purge the text itself of any pseudo-scientific 'racial' theorizing based on the gross distortions of segregationists like Coon and his contemporary ideological descendants.
Ackees (
talk)
00:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Guys I agree with Ackees, although I think phenotypes still apply just just not in the Y-DNA articles! Cadenas2008 ( talk) 03:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Ackees clearly also has strong opinions about race. He just does not want to explain them. His one-sided "cry wolf" approach has not been helpful. It is a shame that the discussion went straight to extremes on both sides. I think it is worth reflecting upon the fact that his and Causteau's way of presenting (or in fact not presenting) a rational case for their photo preferences is the only place where silly and irrelevant references to Segregationists and Hitler occur, and this irrelevant material has led to the bigger idea of including photos also being questioned. I guess trying to include a little colour in this article is doomed to failure. First all the references to genealogy and well-known people were removed, and now all the pretty pictures. Oh well. For those who don't know, it has also been proposed by others that many contour maps should be removed from haplogroup articles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Human_Genetic_History#Are_contour_maps_WP:OR_or_WP:SYN.3F . What will be left? -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:32, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I thought I should register the discussion going on concerning
this map. The map
initially claimed to be based upon Peričic; et al. (2005),
"High-resolution phylogenetic analysis of southeastern Europe traces major episodes of paternal gene flow among Slavic populations", Mol. Biol. Evol., vol. 22, no. 10, pp. 1964–75,
doi:
10.1093/molbev/msi185,
PMID
15944443 {{
citation}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |author=
(
help) but when it was
pointed out that it was not the same as the map in that article the reference
was changed to Cruciani; et al. (2007),
"Tracing Past Human Male Movements in Northern/Eastern Africa and Western Eurasia: New Clues from Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups E-M78 and J-M12" (PDF), Molecular Biology and Evolution, 24: 1300–1311 {{
citation}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |last=
(
help). It has
then been pointed out this is also clearly not the same map. I personally hope this can be resolved neatly. I think contour maps, though they raise questions, are helpful to many readers trying to grapple with these subjects. If we don't find a good solution then we can expect to eventually have a "no win" situation. See discussions like these ones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wobble#Maps and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Human_Genetic_History#Are_contour_maps_WP:OR_or_WP:SYN.3F.--
Andrew Lancaster (
talk)
07:18, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Sure, I can revise the map at some point soon, if we reach a concesnsus as to which source is preferable Hxseek ( talk) 22:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I created a new contour map based on Cruciani Hxseek ( talk) 02:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
You are right Wapondaponda. Andrew asked me a philosophical question on my talk page and I erroneously moved the discussion here. Andrew, if you don't object I will progressively delete this talk section, as it is now irrelevant. Ackees ( talk) 01:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I stumbled across this abstract Genetics and Tradition as Competing Sources of Knowledge of Human History
Recent genetic studies aiming to reconstruct the history of human migrations made a claim to be able to contribute to the writing of history. However, because such projects are closely linked to sociocultural ideas about the categorization of identity, race and ethnicity, they have raised a number of controversial cultural and political issues and are likely to have important potential socio-political consequences. Though some such studies played a positive role helping the researched communities to reaffirm their identity, other projects yielded results that contradicted local narratives of origin
Since the discovery of these haplogroups many people have attached significant importance to these haplogroups. It seems that these haplogroups have become badges of honor and symbols of ethnic identity and pride. So as the above study mentioned, it becomes a problem when the results of these studies have contradicted local narratives of origin. Some have even suggested that some scientists have been biased and have skewed results of their studies to align with local narratives.
I have mentioned earlier that I think it is possible that people attach maybe a little too much importance to these haplogroups. Firstly, the mitochondria started out as a primitive bacteria that hitched a ride on one of our ancestral single celled organisms. They had a symbiotic relationship and the primitive bacteria later became fully incorporated into our ancestral single celled organization. Technically, the Mitochondrial DNA is not "our DNA". The D-Loop section used for haplogroup identification is in the non-coding or junk DNA section of the mitochondrion DNA. Because the mitochondria is a "foreign body", its DNA does not recombine during sexual reproduction. Likewise the Y-chromosome also does not recombine. Apart from determining sex, the y-chromosome seems to be relatively insignificant relative to other chromosomes. The Y only has 78 genes whereas the X chromosome has over 1500 genes. Much of the Y is junk DNA. In fact the Y started out as an X chromosome, but due to loss of function has lost one of its legs due to shrinkage. Women can do fine without a Y chromosome, but males cannot survive without an X chromosome.
The D-loop of the mitochondria and NRY of the Y-chromosome are the most useless parts of the human genome with regard to phenotype. Yet they are the most useful parts of the genome in determining ancestry. Mutations in junk DNA do not influence phenotype and accumulate at much faster rates than in coding regions. A mutation in an actual coding region of gene will likely influence phenotype. Mutations on average are more likely to be bad than good, since our DNA has already been tried and tested by millions of years of evolution. Consequently, coding genes vary less across human populations and are less useful at determining phenotype. The mitochondria and the NRY are thus not good candidates for determining the so called ethnic superiority or inferiority of a population. They are just junk DNA.
The reason for all this is I think it may be a good idea in the future to create an article that deals with some of the social consequences of the human genome. Already the above article deals with the topic. Another article Genetic ancestry and the search for personalized genetic histories also addresses the conflict between social identity and genetic history. E1b1b appears to have important social consequences at least based on the popularity of this article. Wapondaponda ( talk) 20:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Andrew, the "social consequences" of these haplogroups are in my opinion, the main reason why we are having a lot of difficulty regarding these articles. In the past few weeks since I started looking into these articles, I have witnesses numerous and unnecessary attempts to somewhat distort information contained in these articles. If we don't address this issue, there will be prolonged and unnecessary edit conflicts on several of these articles. Instead of reporting all relevant information, some editors are selectively cherry picking information that favors one view over another. As you point out, some scientists are actually stoking the flames, by injecting politics into their studies. Even though peer reviewed studies are the most reliable sources, scientists have ego's and issues regarding their own identity and unfortunately, these sometimes end up in their studies. If a particular scientist publishes a study that would seem to promote an ethnocentric view of the scientist's own ethnicity, wouldn't there be a conflict of interest. Wapondaponda ( talk) 08:38, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
I have made this a new section at the above mentioned WikiProject page.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)