tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post6597748903098903509..comments2024-01-04T04:11:55.717+02:00Comments on Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: Why genome-wide association studies don't really work (and how human evolution really happens)Dienekeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-9710367260317467332008-09-17T07:08:00.000+03:002008-09-17T07:08:00.000+03:00"Rather, it is fortuitous combinations of unexcept...<I>"Rather, it is fortuitous combinations of unexceptional alleles."</I><BR/><BR/>This is epistasis, and I don't think it agrees with what behavior genetic studies show for traits like height, beauty, intelligence, etc. For instance estimates of heritability from identical twins, who share all their gene combinations, is not significantly higher than estimates of heritability from fraternal twins, who do not share all their gene combinations.<BR/><BR/>I think the genetic variation for many valued pheonotypical traits is simply spread across a large number of common variants of very small effect. <BR/><BR/>I suppose this predicts a fair amount of pleiotropy. There seems to be more evidence of this in populations where there appears to be rapid, recent selection. For instance all the disease-intelligence associations Cochran-Harpending identified for Ashkenazi Jews. Using the General Social Survey I <A HREF="http://www.haloscan.com/comments/raldanash/352680685814726798/#2553026" REL="nofollow">also found</A> mental illness and personality disorder traits were associated with intelligence for Jews, but not for gentiles.Jason Malloyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04855482153162314172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-81206468841704095822008-09-16T14:52:00.000+03:002008-09-16T14:52:00.000+03:00Great piece. David Goldstein (google him) wrote m...Great piece. David Goldstein (google him) wrote my two favorite papers on pop gen, review papers with Pollack and later Stumpf. He was/is a strong advocate that mutations are constrained. I have mentioned before that my greatest concern about the type of analysis we are trying to do is that we have no channel model. I think maybe I should express it more strongly, there is an awful lot of intelligence built into this whole system, call it natural selection or what you will, but there is more than randomness, H/T coin flipping going on, as to when and to who mutations occur.<BR/><BR/>In all my work I have tried to analyze results, histograms of mutations without predicating how or why they occurred. I think the initial paper of ZUL did the same thing along with establishing that STR microsatellite rates were the same as autosomalmicrocsatellite rates.<BR/><BR/>His subsequent analyses of trying to explain why evolutionary rates are not the same as germ-line is somewhat flawed by the forward looking methodology he used. He presumed he could model how and when mutations occurred as a simple Poisson process. I'm not at all sure that is correct??<BR/><BR/>I wish he was still "into" popgen.McGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03459589185170647441noreply@blogger.com