Akritas Macedonian blog: iGENEA wins an award

Friday, October 17, 2008

iGENEA wins an award

... the newly instituted Anthropology Blog award for Outstanding Achievement in Misleading the Public about Human Population Genetics.

I don't usually post about specific genetic testing companies unless they do something innovative, but I got two e-mails recently about a particular company, and I have to make an exception.

First of all, let me state that I have no reason to doubt that their genetic testing results (i.e., the actual Y-STR values) are accurate. What I do have a problem with is the copious amount of misleading information provided in their website (as of Oct 16, 2008).

You will learn for example that there is no haplogroup N in Finland, that there is 30% R1b in Russia, 5% of haplogroup J in Armenia, but 10% in Germany. You will also be pleased to know that Y-chromosome haplogroup J is associated with the Jews and mtDNA haplogroup H with the Vikings. But, wait, haplogroup I1a is associated with the Scythians [absent in most of Siberia and Central Asia but who cares about details], while mtDNA haplogroup H with the Teutons.

If you have time to kill, browse around the site, it is priceless as entertainment, and don't forget to stop by this thread where the company not only asserts that Y-chromosomes of ancient Greeks and Macedonians have been tested, pointing to completely irrelevant bibliography, as "evidence", but also lists the percentages of various ancient tribes in modern nations. Apparently, Bulgarians are 49% Thracian, while Albanians 18%, whereas Greeks and "Macedonians" 0%. Those Thracians must have evacuated from Greek Thrace and flown over Macedonia to settle in Albania

If you have any understanding of population genetics, no more needs to be said.

But, if you are a newbie researching the field, spend some time to educate yourself, and don't trust companies that offer you the sky. If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't.

source: dienekes antropology blog

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Regarding the Greek debt Crisis....

Greece, a peripheral european state was encouraged to join a badly designed single currency by the rich elite of countries that dominated it. Those countries, having set up borrowing rules for the currency union, were the first to break them and did so with impunity.

Through complacency and inept financial regulation, and lacking good investment opportunities in their own stuttering economies, they then encouraged their banks to lend recklessly to the country on the periphery.

When those investments went sour, the elite governments -influence from Germany- with theirs globalizing neoliberal leadeships, rushed to bail out their banks first by loading up the debtor government with yet more loans to pay them back and then by imposing a foreign overlord to extract repayments through legal force.

We need History Lectures based on FACTS not political motives!

In November 5-8 2009 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City took place the so-called "7th Macedonian-North American Conference on Macedonian Studies".
Although a number of presenters strictly deal with subjects of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, there are politically motivated lectures that attack and disparage the people of Greece, the Greek Cultural identity and as they twist historical facts through their disturbing presentation.
These motivated lectures are influence under the umbrella of the Slavmacedonism [5], a post-modern ultra nationalist ideology.

Read more here.

Modern Macedonian question - What is it all about?

Ancient Macedonia was a Greek kingdom situated in the north end of Greece. It became the most powerful Greek state during the 4th century bc after the decline of Athina (Athens) and Sparta. Under the leadership of King Philippos II and his son Alexandros III (Alexander the Great) the Macedonian army conquered most of the world and created the world's largest empire ever, including South-East Europe, most of Asia and North Africa.
After the death of Alexandros, Macedonia followed the fate of the rest of Greece. It became a Roman province, later a Byzantine province, it was occupied by the Ottoman empire and finally it became part of the indepented Greek state in 1912.
Today a Slavic nation attempts to adopt the history and culture of Macedonia as their own and present themselves to the world as "ethnic Macedonians" and "descedants of ancient Macedonians"
This is a blatant attack against Greece and its world wide respected history.
The FYROM Slavs who claim to be "Macedonians" have no historical, cultural or linguistic relation with ancient Macedonia. They descended into the region not before the 6th cent. A.D. long after ancient Macedonia was homogenized with the rest of Greece. Their 'Republic of Macedonia' occupies less than 10% of ancient Macedonia.
Therefore their claim on ancient Macedonia's name, history, culture and symbols can not be justified.

Aegean Macedonia.........

is a FYROMacedonian Slav nationalist term used to refer to the region of Macedonia in Greece, in the context of a United Macedonia.
The origins of the term seem to be rooted in the 1940s but its modern usage is widely considered ambiguous and irredentist.
The term has occasionally appeared on maps circulated in the FYROM, which envisioned Greek Macedonia (referred to as "Aegean Macedonia") as part of a "Greater Macedonia", and is regarded as a challenge of of the legitimacy of Greek sovereignity over the area.

Akritas Macedonian blog

Friday, October 17, 2008

iGENEA wins an award

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