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Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

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Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#151

Post by tzs »

vorg wrote: post #113

There was a book I read in the 1970's about "sociobiology" that explained this. If I remember right: People share exactly 50% of their genes with their parents and children, but only probably 50% of genes with siblings -- it could be 51%, or could be 48%. To preserve their own genes, people will feel altruistic to give their lives for three of their siblings (about 150% of their own genes saved), but not for one sibl…

> People share exactly 50% of their genes with their parents and children, but only probably 50% of genes with siblings -- it could be 51%, or could be 48%.

I don't see why the percent shared could not be higher than 50% with your parents or children. You can share a gene with someone that you did not get it from or give it to. For example, suppose some particular gene has three variants, V1, V2, and V3. If your mother has V1/V2, and your father has V2/V3, the possible cases for you are V1/V2, V1/V3, V2/V2, and V2/V3.

In two of those cases you share 50% of that gene with each parent. In the other two cases you share 50% with one parent and 100% with the other parent.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#153

Post by gwern »

subroutine wrote: post #68
Real_S wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population structure is controlled through the use of the structure as a co-factor in the analyses. They use a principal component analysis on the genotypes to estimate the structure, and then use the first few principal components (PCs) as cofactors in the analyses. So if the European population they used consisted of half English and half French participants, then the first PC would likely divide the two. So if Bri…

Do you believe these findings though? (original article: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/Supplement_3/10796.full ) To me there are a few things worth highlighting, that are at least tangentially relevant: 1. This article was a PNAS Direct Submission. PNAS Direct Submission, a privilege typically reserved for members of the National Academy of Sciences, is like using trump-card to basically skip peer review. Since NAS…

> 3. I recently read a genome-wide association study (GWAS) with over 400 authors (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28714976). I think 400 authors is way above median, but even relatively tame GWAS typically require a group effort just for data QC. Here, somehow these two guys did it all themselves.

This is from Framingham. The QC was all done well before, so not having 400 authors is no more suspicious than a one or two-author paper using UKBB data from 500k people - the point of having a long-running systematic study such as Framingham or UKBB or the twin registries is, among other things, to amortize the cost of data collection and preparation, instead of expecting every paper to collect an entire new sample and build a pipeline and analyze it.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#154

Post by interfixus »

gph wrote: post #74
emodendroket wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it isn't, I don't think there is much meaningful distinction left among Americans of English and French ancestry. How many people would even notice?

Depends on the area. I think in parts of Maine where there's a strong Quebecois influence there's definitely a meaningful distinction. There's other areas, especially in rural communities, where a specific European country has a lingering overstated influence. But within any major metro area you're right, there's typically little meaningful distinction anyone would pick up on between two Americans of different Europe…

> there's typically little meaningful distinction anyone would pick up on

We don't know. At least I don't. But it would hugely surprise me if we are not constantly picking up on all sorts of subtle gene expressions. And this needs not in any way be a conscious process. Sophisticated ability to suss out degrees of relatedness would be a far too useful feature not to have been selected for again and again and again.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#156

Post by smitherfield »

gph wrote: post #33
choxi wrote: post #7

> The tendency for friends to have similar genomes might result from people befriending those of similar ancestry, but the duo are confident that isn't the case. Not only did they control for the effect of population structure and ancestry, but the Framingham data is relatively homogeneous in terms of ethnicity, consisting largely of people of European descent. How did they control it? Even amongst Europeans, I imagi…

Framingham, MA is old school New England. I wouldn't be surprised if 75+% of the participants are of direct English/Anglo-Saxon descent, even though the article describes it as "European" descent.

As someone who lives in the area, this is a ludicrous statement. Framingham has one of the proportionally-largest immigrant populations of anywhere in the state, and, by extension, New England.

Statistics to the contrary are out-of-date or highly-misleading/inaccurate (counting Brazilians as "non-Hispanic white" and/or, for obvious reasons, undercounting illegal and non-English-speaking immigrants).

Further the non-Hispanic white population is itself ethnically diverse (Italian, Portuguese, Irish etc) with "English/Anglo-Saxons" a small minority.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#157

Post by emodendroket »

interfixus wrote: post #154
gph wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the area. I think in parts of Maine where there's a strong Quebecois influence there's definitely a meaningful distinction. There's other areas, especially in rural communities, where a specific European country has a lingering overstated influence. But within any major metro area you're right, there's typically little meaningful distinction anyone would pick up on between two Americans of different Europe…

> there's typically little meaningful distinction anyone would pick up on We don't know. At least I don't. But it would hugely surprise me if we are not constantly picking up on all sorts of subtle gene expressions. And this needs not in any way be a conscious process. Sophisticated ability to suss out degrees of relatedness would be a far too useful feature not to have been selected for again and again and again.

I have two thoughts there:

1. Surely very high intermarriage rates between different European ethnicities complicate that.

2. In that case, wouldn't the opposite behavior be expected? If the goal were to have as little genetic variation as possible humans would be better off reproducing asexually.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#158

Post by cgag »

grzm wrote: post #114
vorg wrote: post #113

There was a book I read in the 1970's about "sociobiology" that explained this. If I remember right: People share exactly 50% of their genes with their parents and children, but only probably 50% of genes with siblings -- it could be 51%, or could be 48%. To preserve their own genes, people will feel altruistic to give their lives for three of their siblings (about 150% of their own genes saved), but not for one sibl…

Could it have been E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociobiology:_The_New_Synthesi... The two brothers/eight cousins idea goes back as far as Haldane regarding kin selection: > No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane Wikiquote has that as quoted in 2007, but I'm not sure how far back he originally stated it.

The version I heard was "I would gladly give up my life for two brothers or eight cousins.". I much prefer it.

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#159

Post by subroutine »

NewRapGod wrote: post #144
subroutine wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe these findings though? (original article: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/Supplement_3/10796.full ) To me there are a few things worth highlighting, that are at least tangentially relevant: 1. This article was a PNAS Direct Submission. PNAS Direct Submission, a privilege typically reserved for members of the National Academy of Sciences, is like using trump-card to basically skip peer review. Since NAS…

You seem to not like the result of the study and making non-arguments to try to discredit it.

I don't feel strongly one way or the other about these results, or their implications. If anything I think they are fairly interesting. You're right, these would be weak arguments if I were trying to discredit the findings (and are fairly ad hominem-y).

I am not a genomics expert, so my comment above was intended to be more of a question directed to Real_S and those versed in genomics analysis (i.e. given this list of concerns, are these findings still legit?).

Re: Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014)

#160

Post by grzm »

cgag wrote: post #158
grzm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it have been E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociobiology:_The_New_Synthesi... The two brothers/eight cousins idea goes back as far as Haldane regarding kin selection: > No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane Wikiquote has that as quoted in 2007, but I'm not sure how far back he originally stated it.

The version I heard was "I would gladly give up my life for two brothers or eight cousins.". I much prefer it.

It's more succinct and stands alone (as opposed to the actual quote, which requires additional context), I agree. It's just not quote attributed to anyone in particular, as far as I know.
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