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23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

blog.23andme.com

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Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#191

Post by cma »

return0 wrote: post #166
hackinthebochs wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory is that the woman would want the more hearty sperm, but also want the father who is more faithful and more able to provide. It's a sound evolutionary strategy.

How is it sound? Bearing the children of a male that is not a proven provider is more risky than bearing the children of a proven provider (the children will thus be more likely to be providers themselves). The sperm competition would be based solely on sperm motility which is a very poor indicator of evolutionary advantage.

What would favor having a proven provider son? A faithful proven provider son will produce at most 6 or 7 grandchildren for his mom, an unfaithful cheat might produce an order of magnitude more.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#192

Post by darkarmani »

Shenglong wrote: post #136

Just a note, especially for non-Europeans who are thinking of doing this: I just used 23andme from Canada during the $49 A/B testing. Delivery was next-day, and other than 15ml of saliva being a lot to collect, the process was pretty smooth. They say it'll take 2-3 weeks, but realistically it took them about 4 business days to process my sample. Unfortunately, almost all the results are for Europeans. There may not b…

> They also don't test for repetition induced diseases, so things like Huntington's won't show up.

In this case, that only matters if your direct ancestors have it anyway. If your grandparents or (worse) parents have it, you probably want to get a different test (if you want to know).

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#193

Post by hackinthebochs »

return0 wrote: post #166
hackinthebochs wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory is that the woman would want the more hearty sperm, but also want the father who is more faithful and more able to provide. It's a sound evolutionary strategy.

How is it sound? Bearing the children of a male that is not a proven provider is more risky than bearing the children of a proven provider (the children will thus be more likely to be providers themselves). The sperm competition would be based solely on sperm motility which is a very poor indicator of evolutionary advantage.

It's not about competition at the sperm level, gene quality as a whole. An individual is attempting to maximize its own genes. So a woman mating with a more masculine man will give her offspring the advantage of having "alpha" genes. But alpha men are not usually strong providers as they have their pick of women and so they spread their genes widely and divide their resources (or withhold them altogether). Thus maintaining the solid provider as the adoptive parent makes up for this. Of course, a man (evolutionarily speaking) has no interest in raising another man's kids. So the woman has to be sneaky with the affair. If the deceit remains hidden, this setup is by far the best the woman can do.

As far as having kids who are themselves not good providers, an alpha man's strategy is usually one of spreading his genes far and wide. If you're desirable enough, that may be a winning strategy for you.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#195

Post by jjcm »

rsuttongee wrote: post #72

I think one of the most compelling stories as to why 23andme (and other genotyping services) is amazing is Sergey Brin's: http://too.blogspot.com/2008/09/lrrk2.html Because of 23andme he found out early that he has a high chance of getting parkinson's disease. He now has the chance to prevent (or at least prepare for) it.

I found a few things to watch out for by using the service. I have yearly checkups with my doctor now to test for a few things I specifically found out about from 23andme. Definitely value the service.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#196

Post by hackinthebochs »

javert wrote: post #172
mvleming wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with you. I don't believe that every action is correctly designed to optimize gene transmissions and I think you put it into very eloquent words with: "it is trying to say that we are at a global maximum in a space that is probably more nonlinear." However, I think that there are certain actions that we take that are clearly defined by our genetics, like the fact that we eat, or that we have sex. A…

That we have sex is defined by our genes; who we have sex with is a choice we make by thinking about it, not something pre-encoded by our genes, as you are trying to say. Which actually makes sense given your premises. A good evolutionary "strategy" would be to evolve brains that can make choices far more complex (literally, inelligently ) than what can be pre-encoded by genes that change slowly and mutate randomly.…

A cursory glance at discussions online regarding relatinoships and attraction would show that most people would say they don't decide who to be attracted to, that it simply is what it is.

Just because we can show that cheating has evolutionary benefits and thus people are likely prediposed to cheat in certain situations does not eliminate any moral considerations. Morality is precisely the idea of overriding any base instincts with what we "know" to be proper behavior. Claiming your genes made you do it is no more a loophole for morality now than "the devil made me do it" was before the discovery of DNA.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#197

Post by maskedinvader »

mvleming wrote: post #171
justincormack wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree absolutely it is more likely. And I read The Selfish Gene. But how could you disprove that theory? it is sort of too obviously true, if you see what I mean. Which is why I brought up the homosexuality counterexample. So I don't think it should be taken as undeniable, even though it is plausible.

I see what you're trying to get at. You're saying that "x% of children are not genetically related to their fathers because women have affairs to increase the competition for her egg" is a theory, not to be taken as something true. I didn't mean to make myself sound like that I was saying it was. I was just suggesting something and I agree with you: it is plausible, but it is still a theory at the end of the day. We'…

I rarely read discussions between 2 people beyond the 3rd or 4th reply, but this one kept me wanting to see how this goes, very well concluded. This is the reason I love HN, quality of discussion is much better than any other place.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#198

Post by hackinthebochs »

justincormack wrote: post #157
mvleming wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I asked you "Why do you take your hand off a hot stove?" you might say because it hurts. But the fact that it hurts for us when we put our hand on the stove is our genes trying to keep themselves alive, because otherwise they risk being killed. In the same way, a person might say they had an affair for whatever reason, but really its their genes who want to be able to pass on themselves. (Edited for clarity.)

Not really. That's a theory and it is one that is hard to disprove experimentally. It is a much stronger theory than evolution, saying that every action is correctly designed to optimise gene transmission. Essentially it is trying to say that we are at a global maximum in a space that is probably more nonlinear. In fact our genes may well be suboptimal in some respects even if you think they have "control". The conto…

>Not really. That's a theory and it is one that is hard to disprove experimentally. It is a much stronger theory than evolution

This isn't right at all. The idea that our behaviors are shaped in ways that increase our fitness follows necessarily from the theory of evolution. If we believe that behaviors are influenced at all by our genes, then behaviors that are detrimental get weeded out. What's left over was more fit for that environment. There is mountains of evidence that our behavior is affected by our genes.

That is not to say that all behaviors are optimal at all times. For one, our environment has changed monumentally in just the last few hundred years. Behaviors that were optimal back then may not be now. Also, there are multiple levels when considering optimal behavior. Behavior that is suboptimal for the individual can still be optimal for the gene causing that behavior. Homosexuality for example. It may be true that the homosexuality gene is optimally propagated when its in 10% of the population (look up evolutionary stable strategy).

I recently read about a study that claimed the male homosexuality gene when in a woman greatly increased her sexual attractiveness and sexual aggressiveness. When it's in a man it makes him homosexual. I'm sure its too early to take this as fact, but this scenario would lead to a non-zero optimal distribution of that gene in the population.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#199

Post by javert »

mvleming wrote: post #173
javert wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That we have sex is defined by our genes; who we have sex with is a choice we make by thinking about it, not something pre-encoded by our genes, as you are trying to say. Which actually makes sense given your premises. A good evolutionary "strategy" would be to evolve brains that can make choices far more complex (literally, inelligently ) than what can be pre-encoded by genes that change slowly and mutate randomly.…

There was actually a study that showed female rats are more attracted to (read: had sex with) male rats with very different immune systems. The way she senses this is by the pheromone (smell) he gives off and as a consequence, her offspring have stronger immune systems. In other words, this study suggests at least to some degree we don't even choose who we have sex with. Haha.

The purpose of my comment was to point out that humans have a (sophisticated) brain, something critical that you had overlooked, and you still seem to have missed that.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#200

Post by acheron »

r3demon wrote: post #18

Will they give my genotype information to FBI or CIA? Will they pay damages if information gets stolen? This is not some passwords or account numbers, this is data about real world which can't be changed.

I had thought HN was mostly free of that type of absurd Reddit paranoia.

The CIA could not care less about your genotype.

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