Saw various articles about the genetic study of Britons in the past two days, and while the data is interesting (clusters of very similar genetic profiles, Anglo-Saxon DNA dominant in England, hardly any Viking or Roman influence), noticed that almost every article managed to misrepresent the findings on at least one fundamental level. Here's the Telegraph's headline:
Wow, that seems surprising, huh ? Assuming, you don't take a literal reading of the headline, which would, in that case, seem to be utter obviously on-its-face horseshit. So, okay...okay, not literally living in Anglo-Saxon tribal kingdoms, but...
Britons are still living in the same 'tribes' that they did in the 7th Century, Oxford University has found after an astonishing study into our genetic make-up.
Archaeologists and geneticists were amazed to find that genetically similar individuals inhabit the same areas they did following the Anglo-Saxon invasion, following the fall of the Roman Empire.
In fact, a map showing tribes of Britain in 600AD is almost identical to a new chart showing genetic variability throughout the UK, suggesting that local communities have stayed put for the past 1415 years.
Okay, first sentence is still suggesting the same horseshit. Latter sentences seem to clarify. Especially as '600AD' plus '1415 years' would bring us exactly up to the present day. Still, seems pretty shocking that populations in the United Kingdom in the Twenty-First Century would bear such a close resemblance to those of one and a half millennia earlier, given especially all the migrations of the past century. One might expect for example that there would be a greater Jewish presence after the Holocaust, a greater percentage of Caribbean, African, and Middle-Eastern populations from the end of empire, a reflection of the Italian presence post-war in Scotland, and some reflection of the in-migration from the eras of the European Community and European Union. So, what might explain this seeming discrepancy, huh ?
The ‘People of the British Isles’ study analysed the DNA of 2,039 people from rural areas of the UK, whose four grandparents were all born within 80km of each other.
Because a quarter of our genome comes from each of our grandparents, the researchers were effectively sampling DNA from these ancestors, allowing a snapshot of UK genetics in the late 19th Century before mass migration events caused by the industrial revolution.
They then analysed DNA differences at over 500,000 positions within the genome and plotted each person onto a map of the British Isles, using the centre point of their grandparents’ birth places, they were able to see how this distribution correlated with their genetic groupings.
Quoted from the same fucking article. So the researchers analysed the DNA of a very selective population of white people in isolated rural populations for the explicit purpose of determining the genetic makeup not of modern-day Britain at all, but that of a century or more before now.
Here's the Guardian headline on the same story for comparison:
A little better...
Since that asshole Rupert Murdoch put his best publication (by far), The Times, behind a paywall, as with The Sun & The Wall Street Rag, I can't easily assess the content of their coverage of this very important subject. But I can access the headline at least, and...
I just...WTF ? Is that picture from the latest series of Game of Thrones, or...Oh, is it that shitty series by the so-called 'History' Channel ? It's that, isn't it ? This is the picture you chose...and the headline you chose...for covering serious scientific research.
I just give up.
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