Elizabeth Warren refuses to take DNA test

I'm not 100% getting why the 'Does anybody care?' argument seems to apply to people wanting Warren to prove she's a Native American but not to Warren for repeatedly bringing it up in the first place.

No I don't care. About any of this. But am I sort of confused as to why to Warren it's important enough to bring up on multiple occasions but not important enough to back up with evidence.

The whole version of this story playing out as suggested by some that Warren bring up her Native American history then... intentionally no support it as a "take that" to the Republicans because "they wouldn't believe her anyway" or "it wouldn't matter" just... doesn't make any kind of sense of all to me.

But I've never been able to grove on any variation on the "It's a big deal until the other side counters it, then my entire argument turns into 'What's the big deal?'" style arguments. "It was a big deal when I said it, but OMG why are you making such a big deal out of this by asking me to support/defend it" is just bad argumentatives.

Warren claiming she's has Native American ancestor and the Republicans demanding she prove it are... pretty much by definition equally a big deal (which is to say none at all in my book.)

This isn't the Republicans latching on to some claim that Warren made once in passing. This is something she's brought up "officially" (for lack of a better term) multiple times in public, prepared speeches and interviews. It's something she obviously expects to mean something.

So given that I don't see how the Republicans asking Warren to support her claim can somehow be making a bigger deal out of something than Warren making the claim.
 
A. Warren claimed to be part Native American and uses this as part of her humble background story that all politicians seem to affect these days.
B. Republicans, conservatives, and occasionally even liberal comedians have made fun of her for it.
C. The Washington Post, a paper of little repute, has asked for proof.
D. I'm with Joe.

This story doesn't matter, its not a big deal that she claimed native american ancestry nor is it a big deal that she's gotten **** for it nor that a paper has asked for proof. It is however, mildly amusing to call her faux-cahontas.

Edit similar to the Mitt Romney's verbal gaffs that highlighted how rich he was,(some of my friends own NASCAR teams and what not.) or Trumps small hands. Those are also stories that didn't really matter but they were mildly amusing.
 
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bonzombiekitty said:
(Disclaimer, my biology education is limited to AP Bio in high school plus some required college level classes that I don't remember anything about)

Yeah, you don't get a full chromosome from your parents. You get half of one. Which is the point being made - if i have half of a chromosome with markerA and the other half has markerB, and I only pass on the half with markerA, markerB is lost.

So that was the question - if by luck, all the halves of the chromosomes your great-great grandfather don't get passed to you how would you be able tie a lineage to him with your DNA?

That's a serious question BTW.
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You can't.

I found this article useful in the past. https://dna-explained.com/2017/06/27/ancestral-dna-percentages-how-much-of-them-is-in-you/
 
JoeMorgue said:
I'm not 100% getting why the 'Does anybody care?' argument seems to apply to people wanting Warren to prove she's a Native American but not to Warren for repeatedly bringing it up in the first place.

No I don't care. About any of this. But am I sort of confused as to why to Warren it's important enough to bring up on multiple occasions but not important enough to back up with evidence.

The whole version of this story playing out as suggested by some that Warren bring up her Native American history then... intentionally no support it as a "take that" to the Republicans because "they wouldn't believe her anyway" or "it wouldn't matter" just... doesn't make any kind of sense of all to me.

But I've never been able to grove on any variation on the "It's a big deal until the other side counters it, then my entire argument turns into 'What's the big deal?'" style arguments. "It was a big deal when I said it, but OMG why are you making such a big deal out of this by asking me to support/defend it" is just bad argumentatives.

Warren claiming she's has Native American ancestor and the Republicans demanding she prove it are... pretty much by definition equally a big deal (which is to say none at all in my book.)

This isn't the Republicans latching on to some claim that Warren made once in passing. This is something she's brought up "officially" (for lack of a better term) multiple times in public, prepared speeches and interviews. It's something she obviously expects to mean something.

So given that I don't see how the Republicans asking Warren to support her claim can somehow be making a bigger deal out of something than Warren making the claim.
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Disagree in saying there is a parity. All the "proof" she needs for the claims she has made is to say "my family has always said we have Native American in our ancestry". That would be parity in this case.

Saying she has to prove her ancestry via DNA is something way beyond that.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
the one-drop of blood rule used to be enough for Americans...
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There were always exceptions to the rule.

The Pocahontas exception; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924
The Racial Integrity Act was subject to the "Pocahontas exception"—since many influential "First Families of Virginia" (FFV) claimed descent from Pocahontas, a daughter of the Powhatan, the legislature declared that a person could be considered white even if he or she had as much as one-sixteenth Native American ancestry.
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Darat said:
Disagree in saying there is a parity. All the "proof" she needs for the claims she has made is to say "my family has always said we have Native American in our ancestry". That would be parity in this case
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Yeah but here's the thing, and yes there is plenty of room here for just differences in how you read the tone and context so maybe this is just me.

Warren didn't just say she had Native American ancestry as some passing bit of personal background trivia and the Republicans latched onto it as a pedantic gotcha, yeah that would have been across the board stupid on their end.

She's made the claim multiples times in contexts (that to me anyway) read more like it's supposed to mean something to us when she says it.

"Brag" has negative connotations I don't think apply but her statements about her Native American ancestry are not meaningless, context-less bits of minutia either. They are, again as seem to me, statements with a purpose behind them.
 
*walks in, sees a bunch of nonsense*

Uh...huh.

As I recall, First nation tribes generally don't care much about DNA tests in the first place, relying instead on ancestral records, and Warren has openly said that she does not claim membership in any tribe.

And "Pocahontas", as used by Dolt 45, is still a racial slur.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I'm not 100% getting why the 'Does anybody care?' argument seems to apply to people wanting Warren to prove she's a Native American but not to Warren for repeatedly bringing it up in the first place.
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Does she though? I only ever hear about it when someone is disparaging Warren.


JoeMorgue said:
This isn't the Republicans latching on to some claim that Warren made once in passing. This is something she's brought up "officially" (for lack of a better term) multiple times in public, prepared speeches and interviews. It's something she obviously expects to mean something.
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What is the context of these times she's brought it up officially?
 
As much as demagogues depend on character assassination to rile up the reactionaries, and as much as they'd like to bring down Warren, you might think they could come up with something less *********** pathetic than "she believes her family's oral history." But it does remind me that Trump never took that DNA test to prove that he isn't half orangutan.

My own family's oral history also mentions Cherokee blood several generations back, and I always thought that was cool, but Ancestry.com's DNA test didn't report any. There are too many gaps in the surviving documents to be sure, so I guess it's a good thing I didn't run for public office. :rolleyes:
 
Upchurch said:
Does she though? I only ever hear about it when someone is disparaging Warren.



What is the context of these times she's brought it up officially?
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According to the article in the OP, at least once in a speech in front of a group of Native Americans.

Other than that, mostly when asked about but, it comes up because she formerly advertised herself as a minority professor. Dubious even if she is part Indian because she was raised with all the advantages of being white folk. Any rate, she did bring it up first and its funny so.... She is from the Oklahoma Territory so, its not unlikely she is 1/32 native.
 
I like how these DNA ancestry tests can tell what percentage neanderthal you are, or which specific part of europe your ancestors came from before crossing the atlantic, but somehow cant tell if you're 1/32nd native american.
 
ahhell said:
According to the article in the OP, at least once in a speech in front of a group of Native Americans.
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Wherein she makes the distinction that she's not a member of any tribe. That hardly sounds like she's claiming any special privilege.

ahhell said:
Other than that, mostly when asked about but, it comes up because she formerly advertised herself as a minority professor.
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That doesn't seem to be true.


ahhell said:
Any rate, she did bring it up first and its funny so....
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She did bring it up first when/where? In law school before ever being in the public eye, hardly ever to be mentioned again until political opponents dug it up to use against her?
 
Pterodactyl said:
I like how these DNA ancestry tests can tell what percentage neanderthal you are, or which specific part of europe your ancestors came from before crossing the atlantic, but somehow cant tell if you're 1/32nd native american.
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They can tell you if your DNA has chromosomes traceable to certain areas or neanderthals. They cannot, however, prove a negative. They cannot prove that there have never been certain chromosomes in your ancestry in the past.
 
Upchurch said:
Does she though? I only ever hear about it when someone is disparaging Warren.
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It, to the best of my knowledge, gets weird.

According to Politifact's breakdown of it outside of a weird and out of left field incident with a cookbook back in 1984 (no seriously) this whole thing started because Warren sent a formal notice to a couple of law schools (Harvard and University of Penn) claiming either Cherokee or Delaware blood in what appears to be a bid to get a teaching job.

And this was pretty much it (outside of a one off reference in a 1996 University newsletter from Harvard touting the schools diversity) until 2012 when it got brought up... somehow in some context during her Senate race and sort of just snowballed from there.
 
Random said:
But the genes don't get all mixed together like that. You have 23 pairs of chromosomes, each with a bunch of genes in them. In each pair, you inherited one chromosome from your mother, and one from your father. There might be some genetic drift between one and the other, but it would be the exception, not the rule.
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Genes do get all mixed together. A sperm or egg doesn't just have one or the other of each pair of the parent's chromosomes. It has a new chromosome built of parts of both the copies that the parent had. Every gamete is a unique combination of the genes from both chromosomes in every pair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_recombination
 
Upchurch said:
They can tell you if your DNA has chromosomes traceable to certain areas or neanderthals. They cannot, however, prove a negative. They cannot prove that there have never been certain chromosomes in your ancestry in the past.
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Genes, not chromosomes. Whole chromosomes never get passed down.
 
Upchurch said:
Wherein she makes the distinction that she's not a member of any tribe. That hardly sounds like she's claiming any special privilege.
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Ya I haven't seen any proof that her claims had given her any specific handouts in the sense some seem to believe. Believe I read that her initial college paperwork merely self identified herself as white. Not like she was trying to get acceptance at that point due to native american status etc.

Upchurch said:
That doesn't seem to be true.
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There is nothing in there that dismisses what he claimed. She did specifically identify herself as a minority/Native American, explained by herself to be in the interest of networking with others that share her background while a professor. Seems an odd explanation, but meh.


Upchurch said:
She did bring it up first when/where? In law school before ever being in the public eye, hardly ever to be mentioned again until political opponents dug it up to use against her?
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There seems to be the issue some have pointed out. Her more recent appearances refer to it being a large part of her upbringing and identity, but it wasn't really discussed by herself at all besides identifying as a minority professor and upon it becoming an attack during her political career. Seems like she is overcompensating to defend at this point.
 
Upchurch said:
Wherein she makes the distinction that she's not a member of any tribe. That hardly sounds like she's claiming any special privilege.


That doesn't seem to be true.



She did bring it up first when/where? In law school before ever being in the public eye, hardly ever to be mentioned again until political opponents dug it up to use against her?
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You should actually read that Snopes piece. Under false, it points out that whether she got any advantage from it is actually unclear. It doesn't not address my claim that she seems to have advertised herself as a minority professor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren
In April 2012, The Boston Globe sparked a campaign controversy by reporting that from 1986 to 1995 Warren had listed herself as a racial minority in the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) directories, called the Directory of Law Teachers (1970–1988) and the AALS Directory of Law Teachers (1989–present).[66] Harvard Law School had identified Warren as a "woman of color" in response to criticisms about a lack of faculty diversity.[67][68]
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Now, is there any evidence that conservatives really care about this other than for the Lolz? It seems to mostly come up as a joke, much like Trump's small fingers or family's original last name. Are we to assume that progressives think Drumpf's small fingers are unfitting a president?
 
Pterodactyl said:
I like how these DNA ancestry tests can tell what percentage neanderthal you are, or which specific part of europe your ancestors came from before crossing the atlantic, but somehow cant tell if you're 1/32nd native american.
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It's probably off topic, but actually they can't tell you what part of Europe our ancestors came from. If you submit samples to different companies, you get different results, and if you submit three samples to the same company year after year, you can get different results every year. The science isn't ready yet.

I'm starting to consider them a category of healthfraud, IMO. Depends on the claim: if it's just for entertainment value, then no fraud. If it's medical diagnosis, then fraud. And the grey area is ancestry analysis: I would say it's fraud if the company claims it's scientifically valid analysis. At this point, we don't have enough information to give reliable geographic/ethnic ancestry breakdowns.

I think sciency people like skeptics have a blindspot for these because they're so techy.

gizmodo article: [How DNA Testing Botched My Family's Heritage, and Probably Yours]
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
I have a similar story in my family, a great-great grandfather married a Blackfeet Indian woman. My brother's test at Ancestry.com didn't show it. Does that make the story untrue? No, because the tests are not that sensitive.
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I also have a similar story told by my great grandmother, although I don't recall how far back it went (her grandfather/great/great-great etc.). Mother's dna test came back with none. So same boat.

It is funny to me that this is such a common story in a lot of families. Not sure why to be honest, but for most of us it is not taken too seriously I'd imagine. Nothing that would make the average person identify as Native American in any official capacity, just a cool story to tell randomly to friends who coincidentally have a one just like it themselves..
 
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JoeMorgue said:
It, to the best of my knowledge, gets weird.

According to Politifact's breakdown of it outside of a weird and out of left field incident with a cookbook back in 1984 (no seriously) this whole thing started because Warren sent a formal notice to a couple of law schools (Harvard and University of Penn) claiming either Cherokee or Delaware blood in what appears to be a bid to get a teaching job.

And this was pretty much it (outside of a one off reference in a 1996 University newsletter from Harvard touting the schools diversity) until 2012 when it got brought up... somehow in some context during her Senate race and sort of just snowballed from there.
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Obviously that's far worse than anything Trump has done, and it's indicative of the left's hypocrisy!
 
phunk said:
Genes, not chromosomes. Whole chromosomes never get passed down.
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My apologies. A biologist, I am not.

rdwight said:
There is nothing in there that dismisses what he claimed. She did specifically identify herself as a minority/Native American, explained by herself to be in the interest of networking with others that share her background while a professor. Seems an odd explanation, but meh.
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Dammit. You're right. I was reading the part after it that said the school had said it.

rdwight said:
There seems to be the issue some have pointed out. Her more recent appearances refer to it being a large part of her upbringing and identity, but it wasn't really discussed by herself at all besides identifying as a minority professor and upon it becoming an attack during her political career. Seems like she is overcompensating to defend at this point.
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I don't see it as overcompensation. I see it more as not backing down to the bullying.
 
WilliamSeger said:
As much as demagogues depend on character assassination to rile up the reactionaries, and as much as they'd like to bring down Warren, you might think they could come up with something less *********** pathetic than "she believes her family's oral history." But it does remind me that Trump never took that DNA test to prove that he isn't half orangutan.

My own family's oral history also mentions Cherokee blood several generations back, and I always thought that was cool, but Ancestry.com's DNA test didn't report any. There are too many gaps in the surviving documents to be sure, so I guess it's a good thing I didn't run for public office. :rolleyes:
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I'm in a similar boat. My family had no oral history of Native American blood, but in researching my genealogy, I found well documented evidence of a Creek 4X great-grandmother who is listed as "Indian" in the 1860 US census and who died on the Muskogee, OK Indian reservation in 1890. However, my Ancestry DNA test showed no Native American results. Apparently, I received no DNA from that ancestor but she is still my ancestor. My full sister is awaiting her DNA results and it will be interesting to see what her results show compared to mine.
 
Belz... said:
Obviously that's far worse than anything Trump has done, and it's indicative of the left's hypocrisy!
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Oh yeah smart guy! Well what about when someone from your political side didn't salt his pasta before boiling it on October 18th, 1987 at 7:42 PM.

Thought I had forgot about that? Well think again!

(Adds another point to my side's scorecard)
 
Pterodactyl said:
I like Elizabeth Warren, and consider her to be a decent presidential candidate honestly.

But I think she should attempt to clear this up, even though it's a no-win, really.
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Yeah I mean as soon as Obama released his birth certificate the Birthers all apologized and moved on....
 
ahhell said:
Now, is there any evidence that conservatives really care about this other than for the Lolz? It seems to mostly come up as a joke, much like Trump's small fingers or family's original last name. Are we to assume that progressives think Drumpf's small fingers are unfitting a president?
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Quite the knee slapper.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
The OP doesn't seem to be joking to me.
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Maybe, I guess I just have a hard time taking posts on an internet forum seriously. Even the Op Ed piece linked in the op didn't seem to be suggesting it was that serious, more of a hey, isn't this weird?

Again, I compare it to the small fingered drumpf stuff, it gets brought up all the time, it started in an op ed by...Rolling stone? some periodical or other. Its not serious and effectively nobody takes it as such.

She can't actually make it go away because it's too funny but she can respond better. A simple, this is the story my grandma told us, are you calling my grannie a liar?* Rather than her response which seems to be, "This was a big part of my childhood and who I am" Which rings hollow when coming from a blond haired blue eyed law professor.

Probalby not that last bit but a simple, this is the story my family believes, lots of folks in america have a story just like it with just as little evidence. Again, "I'm 1/32 Cherokee" is a bit of cliche'd joke.
 
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ahhell said:
Maybe, I guess I just have a hard time taking posts on an internet forum seriously. Even the Op Ed piece linked in the op didn't seem to be suggesting it was that serious, more of a hey, isn't this weird?

Again, I compare it to the small fingered drumpf stuff, it gets brought up all the time, it started in an op ed by...Rolling stone? some periodical or other. Its not serious and effectively nobody takes it as such.

She can't actually make it go away because it's too funny but she can respond better. A simple, this is the story my grandma told us, are you calling my grannie a liar?* Rather than her response which seems to be, "This was a big part of my childhood and who I am" Which rings hollow when coming from a blond haired blue eyed law professor.

Probalby not that last bit but simple, this the story my family believes, lots of folks in america have a story just like it with just as little evidence. Again, "I'm 1/32 Cherokee" is a bit of cliche'd joke.
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So "funny" in the "I'm not racist, but..." sense of the word.
 
Pterodactyl said:
I like how these DNA ancestry tests can tell what percentage neanderthal you are, or which specific part of europe your ancestors came from before crossing the atlantic, but somehow cant tell if you're 1/32nd native american.
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Perhaps you don't understand the uneven balance in their data base and how much of your genome is actually used in the report.

Once someone identifies more alleles associated with different Native American lineages you will see more precision. Ancestry has that ad claiming, "I found out I was 26% Native American" because it's popular for people to want to have NA blood. Notice the ad doesn't say, Cherokee or Hopi or Blackfeet (by the way, I've seen photographs of that relative on my father's side that is supposed to be Blackfeet and she does look like a NA).

My last name is German, my ancestors were immigrants from Germany that became farmers in Kansas. My brother's analysis didn't show any German ancestry. That clearly was not a very precise analysis.

How many Mayan or Incan genetic identifiers are in their data base?
 
Stacyhs said:
... Apparently, I received no DNA from that ancestor but she is still my ancestor. My full sister is awaiting her DNA results and it will be interesting to see what her results show compared to mine.
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It's not necessarily that you have no DNA from that ancestor in your genome, it is just, if not more likely, the testing company doesn't have any genetic identifiers in their data base.

These companies are not (or were not they may be doing some now) researching genetic markers. They are using the data done by other researchers. For example, researchers that identified neanderthal genetic markers made that information available. The genetic analysis companies then put that data in their data base. Recording your full genome is cheaper now, they may be identifying your full genome, I don't know. Then their computer program mines that genome for identifying alleles or markers that are in the data base.

They can find Neanderthal DNA because that data is in their data base. The Nat Geo researchers mapped the human migrations out of Africa so there are lots of markers in the publicly available data base. The way a marker is used is when a particular mutation occurs, then anytime you see that mutation, you know that person is a descendant from the ancestor that mutation was first seen in. By following those markers, migration routes can be mapped.

Until there are a lot of alleles or genetic markers which identify Native American ancestry, the companies look at your DNA will have blind spots. They might see that DNA but not connect it to any particular ancestry.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
The OP doesn't seem to be joking to me.
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No, certain members on this forum and in the population at large are led down the demonization path by the propaganda.

Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are demonized on a regular basis. You need not know what the complaint is, or that the complaint has not been substantiated or it may even have been disproved. All you need know is Pelosi and Clinton are evil demons.

Schumer and Warren are demonized. Could be a trivial thing like this one. Recently the GOP has begun demonizing Congressman Schiff because he's provided reliable evidence discrediting Nunes. Nunes' BS is easily documented. Schiff has done nothing that can't be supported by factual evidence. Won't matter, Schiff is a demon.

The OP is attacking a demon.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
It's not necessarily that you have no DNA from that ancestor in your genome, it is just, if not more likely, the testing company doesn't have any genetic identifiers in their data base.

These companies are not (or were not they may be doing some now) researching genetic markers. They are using the data done by other researchers. For example, researchers that identified neanderthal genetic markers made that information available. The genetic analysis companies then put that data in their data base. Recording your full genome is cheaper now, they may be identifying your full genome, I don't know. Then their computer program mines that genome for identifying alleles or markers that are in the data base.

They can find Neanderthal DNA because that data is in their data base. The Nat Geo researchers mapped the human migrations out of Africa so there are lots of markers in the publicly available data base. The way a marker is used is when a particular mutation occurs, then anytime you see that mutation, you know that person is a descendant from the ancestor that mutation was first seen in. By following those markers, migration routes can be mapped.

Until there are a lot of alleles or genetic markers which identify Native American ancestry, the companies look at your DNA will have blind spots. They might see that DNA but not connect it to any particular ancestry.
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I would find it very unlikely that Ancestry.com, which has largely US based data, would not have quite a bit of Native American genetic identifiers.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Perhaps you don't understand the uneven balance in their data base and how much of your genome is actually used in the report.

Once someone identifies more alleles associated with different Native American lineages you will see more precision. Ancestry has that ad claiming, "I found out I was 26% Native American" because it's popular for people to want to have NA blood. Notice the ad doesn't say, Cherokee or Hopi or Blackfeet (by the way, I've seen photographs of that relative on my father's side that is supposed to be Blackfeet and she does look like a NA).

My last name is German, my ancestors were immigrants from Germany that became farmers in Kansas. My brother's analysis didn't show any German ancestry. That clearly was not a very precise analysis.

How many Mayan or Incan genetic identifiers are in their data base?
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In my case, my immigrant German great-grandparents spoke German and were originally German citizens. However, my DNA showed Scandinavian rather than German ancestry because they were from Schleswig-Holstein, an area of Germany that had been Danish until 1864 and they were actually of Danish descent. If your ancestors were from Schleswig-Holstein, this could explain your brother's results.
 
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