December 6, 2018

"Elizabeth Warren Stands by DNA Test. But Around Her, Worries Abound."

A headline in the NYT.
Conservatives have continued to ridicule her. More worrisome to supporters of Ms. Warren’s presidential ambitions, she has yet to allay criticism from grass-roots progressive groups, liberal political operatives and other potential 2020 allies who complain that she put too much emphasis on the controversial field of racial science — and, in doing so, played into Mr. Trump’s hands....

120 comments:

rhhardin said...

She's also part rabbit.

MadisonMan said...

I can only ask: If she can't handle Trump needling her about her claims, how can she stand up to any foreign Government that will do a lot worse?

rehajm said...

She can’t think on the fly and is terrible in a debate format, probably because she isn’t all that intelligent. At least about important political issues. Booker will want to stand next to her so he looks smarter.

Charlie said...

Couldn't have happened to a nicer person!

rehajm said...

Boston Herald says Deval Patrick bowing out of the race clears the way for Elizabeth Warren. Except for the other fifty candidates. Maybe they mean clears the way to be the next candidate from Massachusetts to lose big time.

Gahrie said...

The tests showed she had less Indian DNA than the average American...right?

BarrySanders20 said...

Her Indian name should be One Strange Bird

Roger Sweeny said...

Ah, that "controversial racial science." Like that controversial Jewish science, wierd stuff like relativity and quantum. And controversial evolution science, where God hardly puts in an appearance.

Humperdink said...

Trump buries another one.

Howard said...

The left is starting to catch on and identify the dead wood that needs landfilling

Belle17 said...

I love how all of the articles about this frame it around Trump being a bully instead of her being a total fraud.

She will go over like a lead balloon in Flyover Country.

tcrosse said...

The left has to dispose of the old dead wood in order to make room for the new dead wood.

Lucid-Ideas said...

"Stands With Results"

That's a really good indian name.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

It was a bad move, but at least she didn't set up a Private Server to hide her secret dealings during her time as head of the STate Dept.

Wince said...

Elizabeth Warren Stands by DNA Test.

Warren's "Last Stand"? The Battle of Little Bigmouth.

Fernandinande said...

The tests showed she had less Indian DNA than the average American...right?

No. For one, her test didn't prove that she had any Amerindian DNA at all, just that she might, and for two, the "average American" has zero Indian DNA, none at all is detected.

A few percent of Americans (< 3%, IIRC) who don't consider themselves to be Amerindian turned out to have some Amerindian DNA.

MayBee said...

So is this going to lead to a discussion about how checking a box about your ethnicity can benefit you greatly? And about how you need to proof behind that check mark?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Yes, but who cares? And by that I mean is there anyone, of any ideological stripe, who is even slightly committed to the idea of Warren being President? The notion seems to be a media contrivance, like whatshisface, the ambassador from Utah whose name I can’t pull up at the moment and can’t be bothered to Google.

Fernandinande said...

"They looked at the DNA of 160,000 customers who described themselves as being of European, African or Latino ancestry. Across all the European-Americans in the study, the average amount of Native American ancestry was 0.18 percent.

But once again, averages can be deceptive. The researchers found that 2.7 percent of their European customers had 1 percent or more Native American ancestry. The vast majority had no detectable Native American ancestry at all. It’s impossible to directly compare Senator Warren’s results to the 23andMe customers because they were produced with different software."

chickelit said...

EDH quipped: Warren's "Last Stand"? The Battle of Little Bigmouth.

Perfect!

Paul said...

Ridicule Pocahontas? Say it ain't so, Joe!!


Whooooo hoooo hoooo hoooo!

WO— HA— LI
WO— HA— LI
HEY— YA— HO
HEY— YA— HO

WAH— LE— LU
HEY— HEY

TA— TANKA— HO
YO— HEY— HEY— HO

I am sure Pocahontas knows that one by heart!

chickelit said...

So tell me just one thing that Elizabeth Warren offers the average white male voter.

chickelit said...

The one thing that the modern Dem party has taught us is that we must vote our own tribe.

Limited blogger said...

They will explain this to us dullards until we understand - Orange Man Bad

tcrosse said...

This is ridiculous. I can direct you to neighborhoods in Minneapolis where you can see real, true, honest-to-God, full-blooded Injuns who don't need no stinking DNA tests. They aren't at Harvard partly because some white lady who wears her Mom's glasses took their spot.

iowan2 said...

The headline communicates exactly what the NYT wants. Low information voters, seeing the headline for a fraction of a second have their personal bias validated. If you want to believe, you have just been provided a 'fact'. Carry on in good conscious.

Humperdink said...

I dunno, I would think a Warren-Dolezal ticket might stand a chance. A Native American/ African American/ WASP/ Fraud pairing covers a lot of territory.

Yancey Ward said...

Good thing for Warren she didn't take an IQ test.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

MadisonMan said...
I can only ask: If she can't handle Trump needling her about her claims, how can she stand up to any foreign Government that will do a lot worse?

I can imagine her getting elected (though it sickens me) and having to deal with Putin. He's been the Democrat's boogie man since 2016 and has largely kept mum about all the aspersions they've been casting his way. I'm guessing that means that he's waiting for the next Dem in the White House before he publicly unloads.

RK said...

The media is just busy trying to find a woman to run for President. There's currently a low bar to entry.

Amadeus 48 said...

"racial science" There's the tip-off right there. Is there racial science? The Nazis thought so. So did Woodrow Wilson.

Personally, I am for the science of treating people as individuals.

Nonapod said...

The Dems have something like 40 potential candidates at the moment.

If they're just looking for a female there's still Kamala Harris, Kirsten Jellybrain, and Amy Klobuchar.

TreeJoe said...

As we say goodbye to Bush I, I love the contrast:

1. 41st President was a man who served his country in WWII, shot down in the pacific, came back and went to Yale, started as an oil salesman in WT, progressed his career to lead a company and successfully exited it to congress. 4 years in Congress, 2 years as UN ambassador, 2 years as head of the RNC, 2 years as liaison to China, 2 years as director of the CIA, 8 years as Vice President.

2. Warren was 30 years an academic with various federal appointed positions specializing in finance. Elected to Senate in 2012. Best known for the CFPB, which was prior to her election. 6 years in various committees.

....I don't know if it was Obama in particular, but we seem to have moved from primarily considering life-long public servants with executive government experience and decades at the federal level to looking at representatives with pretty much no executive experience, no real track records, but who say the right things.

Warren as a serious presidential candidate is a joke. And her handling of the DNA issue is a joke as well.

Bob Boyd said...

Warren still hates it that the whites at Harvard force her to wear shoes.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Then she will be “standing by” while the rest of the 2020 hopefuls organize and enter the primaries. She’s just made herself ineligible to be VP for any of the remaining front runners. Trump sure has a way of encouraging unforced errors in his opponents. I can’t wait to hear his nicknames for Harris and Beto!

chickelit said...

From the linked article: In the past week she has received heaps of praise for a foreign policy speech at American University, and she remains one of the party’s top fund-raisers and surrogates.

Poor choice of metaphor; it plays right into Trump's hands.

Anonymous said...

" looking at representatives with pretty much no executive experience, no real track records, but who say the right things."

Speaking of which, Beto seems to be the current front-runner.

Amadeus 48 said...

Climate science (speculative fun with computers). Racial science (group characteristics based on pigmentation). Social science (observations based on surveys of 18 graduate students in the psychology department).

These folks give science a bad name.

Basil Duke said...

chickenlittle, we could - and should! - ask that question (what does Warren offer the average white male voter) of every Democrat candidate. The entire party has been remarkably open about its intent to eradicate us as a demographic. Or, at the very least, render it illegal for us to work, attend college or communicate our political beliefs in public. I used to tell people that it was more instructive to watch what leftwingers DID, rather than what they said, because they're liars by nature. But they stopped lying! Where once they said, "Nobody wants to take anybody's guns," they now publicly tell us that that is in fact what they want to do, and that we're all complicit in mass murder if we believe in the 2nd Amendment. And that they'll unleash nuclear winter on us if we resist. And where they once insisted that they were huge fans of due process, they now flip us the bird and tell us that if a woman says we assaulted her, we're guilty. No trial necessary, rapers!!! The fact that Kamala Harris is considered a serious presidential candidate tells me all I need to know about the modern Democrat party. Every facet of the federal government would be run exactly like the Kavanaugh circus if she were elected.

Robert Cook said...

"Warren as a serious presidential candidate is a joke."

Be careful: they said that about Trump, too. (Of course, it was true, and, as President, he remains a joke, a very bad one. But then, so also were his predecessors going back decades bad jokes. We can't seem to attract or elect anyone to the presidency who is not simply terrible.)

Gabriel said...

@Ferdinandstein: averages can be deceptive. The researchers found that 2.7 percent of their European customers had 1 percent or more Native American ancestry. The vast majority had no detectable Native American ancestry at all.

I would say averages are poorly understood by most people, not "deceptive".

When most people say "average", they mean more like "expected", "typical", "benchmark".

The mathematical average (the mean) means none of these things. There's two other measures beside mean, there's median and mode. Mode comes closest to "typical" but it's only the most frequently-occurring value and that may be far from "typical". Median is the value at which 50% are above and 50% are below, and it is more useful than the mean in a lot of situations.

In this case the mean value was 0.18%, the mode was 0%. The median would also have been 0% but it's not a very useful measure in this case because the vast majority were at 0%.

I have an example I'm dealing with at work, trying to help everyone understand it. You have a group of people who are members of something, but every month some of them leave. They have a 3% probability of leaving each month. So how long do people stay, "on average"?

Well, the mean length of stay is 33.3 months. The median length of stay is 24 months. And the mode is 1 month. People are finding this confusing. But it comes from very simple math and is straightforward to calculate. It is simply hard to accept for people who don't live and breathe math.

Henry said...

That's a headline that really needs an illustration. Picture the DNA Test as a very large body guard and the worries as something like rabbits.

Doug said...

I can’t wait to hear his nicknames for Harris and Beto!
Kamala-ma-ding-dong and Bland Beto.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

She stands by the test that shows she has a margin-of-error amount of Indigian blood? What choice does she have?

Does she stand by her decision to call herself a Native American at Penn and Harvard?

I love the way NYT frames the issue -- The problem isn't that she lied about being a minority to gain personal advantage, claiming to be an Indigian with far less Native blood than many Deplorables are regularly ridiculed for claiming, whether they have it or not. It's that she used the white man's science, playing into the hands of the evil Trump. She should have consulted a shaman. Maybe the right prayer to the Great Spirit in a sweat lodge could have made her a real Indigian.

Humperdink said...

"Be careful: they said that about Trump, too. (Of course, it was true, and, as President, he remains a joke ....)"

Of course Cookie still can't see that Trump is doing exactly what the Deplorables elected him to do. It's an amazing lack of insight.

narayanan said...

tcrosse said... The left has to dispose of the old dead wood in order to make room for the new dead wood.

They also need to have a fire like CA did to bring attention to old idiocies to make room for new ones.

I hear Trump stocked up on flame throwers from Elon Musk or was it Jeff Bezos?
They all have built in TWITTER

tim maguire said...

Robert Cook said...We can't seem to attract or elect anyone to the presidency who is not simply terrible.)

Wasn't it just yesterday when you explained exactly why everyone we elect is terrible?

mandrewa said...

Megan McCardle lost her column at The Atlantic because she wrote an essay that looked critically at Elizabeth Warren's work as an academic.

Now I hasten to stress that this is my interpretation of what happened, based on my reading between the lines, because McCardle did not say this.

But, and this is from my erroneous memory, McCardle wrote the essay alleging that at least one part of Warren's academic output was filled with errors and maybe even academically embarrassing, or should have been, except that McCardle phrased it more politely than that.

Or it may have been that McCardle had already written something along this line, and she had written another essay, except The Atlantic wouldn't publish it.

Nonapod said...

Yeah, always remember, just because some potential dem candidate seems ridiculous to you personally doesn't mean that they won't end up winning the candidacy. You're not the audience they're trying to appeal to.

And you should never underestimate the superficiality of the dem primary voter. Dem primary voters care about things like appearence (is this person good looking? this is especially important if they're male), ethnicity, racial backgrounds (it's a minus if they're just plain ol' white), age (relative youth is a big plus) and obviously gender far more than the typical Republican primary voter. And so far there's way too many old white dudes in the potential Dem field.

Browndog said...

Warren likes to rail against the banks. 'Big banks are stealing your money!'.

Millenials: So what. We don't have any money in the bank.

A winning message to millenials would be 'Academia is stealing your money!'. For some reason Ivy League politicians don't want to touch it. Very odd.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

We can't seem to attract or elect anyone to the presidency who is not simply terrible.

That's your twisted misanthropic take on things, which seem to be belied by the week's events, or at least the opinion of millions refutes it. On the other hand, Trump is doing many things very effectively, things I want done like nominating judges who base their opinions on the constitution in stead of their ideology (ever notice how there is zero criticism of the fact all the liberal justices vote the same way 99% of the time?). Trump is changing the debate about border security issues and strengthening our immigration laws, and I'm confident one way or another the wall will be completed. We are opposing China's and Russia's hegemonic moves and have suppressed ISIS. Trump stands as a shining example of getting a lot done while those around you are distracted by chaos. I hope I have even half that energy and dedication when I'm 70!

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

So, Gabriel, it seems there are a lot of short-timers who bail after a month.

gilbar said...

Elizabeth Warren Stands by DNA Test.

So much so, that she won't take the popular (standard?) 23andMe test; on account of because THEN people would be able to relate to the results .

Faux ca hontus say: "ME stand by DNA test SO MUCH i had someone design a custom one for me to give some sort of result that i could say shows i sorta kinda maybe have an incredibly* small amount of indian ancestry"

incredibly* in EVERY definition of the word

Mark said...

Fun fact -

Did you know that Mildred Jeter Loving (of Loving v. Virginia fame) was actually Native American and not African American? Says who? She said so herself, together with her family.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

We can't seem to attract or elect anyone to the presidency who is not simply terrible.

Because..most sane people refuse to put themselves and their families through the media meat grinder that we now call the election process.

Kavanaugh's experience in that arena should be a clarion warning call to anyone who even considers running for an elective office.

The qualified, good, sensible, moral people just nope the Hell out of the process. What is left are the morally corrupt grifters like the Clintons and others too numerous to name.

SF said...

"The tests showed she had less Indian DNA than the average American...right?"

No. They showed that she almost certainly has Native American DNA, most likely one ancestor 8 generations back. However, because we don't reliably have the genes from one ancestor get cut exactly in half each generation, it could be as recent as 6 generations back or as long as 10 generations. As far as I can tell, 10 generations is essentially as likely as 6 generations. But I'm fairly certain 8 is considerably more likely than either of those.

People got confused (or perhaps intentionally misunderstood) because of statement that the "average European-American" has an amount which would be roughly equivalent to 9 generations back. But as Gabriel says, that's completely misleading -- the majority of European-Americans have NO detectable Native American DNA.

The study results are consistent with (ie DO NOT DISPROVE) the idea she had an Native American ancestor 6 generations back. But all they PROVED was that her most recent full blood Native American ancestor was no more than 10 generations back.

gilbar said...

if i'd been saying that i was scotish, and people didn't believe ME;
and i took a test that showed i was one hundredth of one percent scotish
I'D SHUT THE HELL UP, not proudly proclaim: See? I TOLD you!

AZ Bob said...

Understanding Warren's DNA results requires a modicum of math skill of which she and her loyal supporters lack.

SF said...

Ack. It's so hard to talk about this coherently. And it's not been helped because no major media outlet (as far as I know) came close to accurately explaining what was in the study.

Ray - SoCal said...

Questionable:

1. Percentage is within noise amount
2. DNA used was from South America

>But all they PROVED was that her most recent full blood Native American ancestor was no more than 10 generations back.

TrespassersW said...

chickenlittle said...
From the linked article: In the past week she has received heaps of praise for a foreign policy speech at American University, and she remains one of the party’s top fund-raisers and surrogates.

Oooh, she gave a speech?! And it was PRAISED, even?!

I'm convinced. She should run.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

The lesson of Trump is that she should take the free publicity and double down. In the best defense is a good offense department, I think she should start saying that she did that back when she was a deplorable and before she became a progressive. Everyone likes a good come to Jesus story.

I used to be a deplorable so I understand your way of thinking, but you and I deserve better than Trump. That could be the pathway to victory. Send people to stand outside Trump rallies with Pocahontas for President signs. It’s catchy.

Freedom89 said...

This is the NYT's way of telling Warren not to run. The Boston Globe used to do the same thing with Teddy Kennedy. They loved having him in the Senate because he voted the right way, was guaranteed to get re-elected, and could rally the base. But they also knew he was a not-very-bright drunk lecher who cheated his way through Harvard, killed Kopechne, and would be a disastrous president. So every time he ran or thought of running, the Globe would run a front-page story about the ghosts of Chappaquiddick haunting him and his ambitions.

It galls me that they know these people are awful, but they protect them because the vote the right way.

John henry said...

Gabriel,

Good points about average.

In a perfectly Gaussian or "normal" distribution the mean, median and mode will be the same.

Few people know the meaning of "normal" either. I was thinking of this when pondering whether I should comment on Ann's decidedly anti-feminist obsession with women's fashion.

I was thinking about the non-normalty of most of the fashion designets women like Ann get ga-ga over

But I let it pass.

John Henry

Nonapod said...

As for Warren, I believe most people would probably concede that laying claim to an ancestry on such a technically miniscule amount of genetic material is a little silly. And given that she almost certainly benefited from making such claims in the past, it just puts her in an even worse light. Realistically speaking she lost this political battle, and with it her likely chances at the nomination. Obviously the Dems want someone who can beat Trump, not someone who has been beaten by him.

SF said...

I guess I should say I was talking the study at face value. I did have a strong impression that they were trying to present the results in a way that was as pro-Warren as possible. (For instance, they compared her to some weird group of people from Utah and people from (I think) England (?!?) instead of reporting that at least 2.7% of the European-American population has more detectable Native American DNA than Warren does.)

BUT if they'd actually been willing to make stuff up, they could have easily made up significantly more impressive results. The results they got were nearly the weakest results possible where there still was a decent possibility it might make sense for her to think of herself as Native American.

Fernandinande said...

Gabriel said...
"@Ferdinandstein: averages can be deceptive."

I would say averages are poorly understood by most people, not "deceptive".


I would say that NYT author Carl Zimmer was correct, that "averages can be deceptive", because in this case the MSM itself was deceptive as well as deceived, as you can tell by googling something like 'warren more native american than average'.

hawkeyedjb said...

So, somewhere between the late 1600's and the early 1800's, Elizabeth Warren had a Native American ancestor. Why on earth would she try to make something out of that? If I had an African ancestor from the 17th century, I don't think I could claim any cultural relationship with Africans or African-Americans. What is she trying to prove/claim?

I don't get it.

johns said...

Phrenelogically speaking, she appears Indian to me.

Bob Boyd said...

Trying to explain the mathematical subtleties of Elizabeth Warren's case does not help Warren. Just the opposite, in fact.
The point isn't that a specially designed scientific test can detect an otherwise indetectable ancestry. The point is that Warren took a sweet job that had been set aside for candidates who's ancestry is physically manifest such that they would otherwise have been turned away due to racial discrimination.
If you believe in affirmative action then Warren's a white woman who gamed the system at the expense of a Native American.

Sam L. said...

Oooooohhhhhhh. Is Bummer, Yes? Yes.

James Pawlak said...

Is the agency who did the DNA test independent and credible?

HoodlumDoodlum said...

And how!

jessejames4 said...

Just want to throw this out there for those who are posting attempting to add their intelligence to the conversation: Indians are from the India, et al, and NATIVE AMERICANS are the real indigenous people of America, specifically the U.S. when referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren's claim on her 1/1024th percent inclusion.
An apology at this point won't help her, either.

Quaestor said...

Phrenologically speaking, she appears Indian to me.

I can see that nasty high-cheekboned Indian-shaped bump... but where's the head?

Roger Sweeny said...

mandrewa,

Megan McArdle wrote several articles detailing how terrible a pair of Elizabeth Warren scholarly papers were. The papers were on medical expenses as a cause of bankruptcy and they came up with ridiculously high figures, which were then used as part of the selling job for the Affordable Care Act. You can easily find McArdle's articles on the web.

However, I have never heard anyone suggest that she lost a job because of them. I suspect they actually helped her establish her brand: someone who knows economics, hates phoniness, and writes about substance. She now has a steady gig at the Washington Post.

wild chicken said...

Funny, David Reich says they can't even get DNA from US tribes because bigotry! So the geneticists make do with Canadian, Mexican etc. So there would be no way to nail down Cherokee blood anyway.

Comanche Voter said...

Cherokee squaw only has 1/1024th of a leg to stand on.

Had Senator Warren been bright, she would have arranged for a confidential test, and buried the results deeper than the Marianas Trench when it didn't work out the way she hoped. But then she's not very bright--in the political/electoral sense that is. Camille Paglia noted yesterday that Warren had no appeal to anyone outside a group of screechy liberal upper class females. That's not much of a base.

Virgil Hilts said...

She is making essentially the same mistake as the Lakota Souix did with that Ghost Dance thing (didn't end well for them either).

Kevin said...

Warren might be able to live this down if she were one of two or three running or a good counterpuncher.

She's not a good counterpuncher, and the 20-25 people running will all be looking to gang up on the weaker candidates to clear the field before all the donors' money can be spent on losing causes.

Kevin said...

Maybe they mean clears the way to be the next candidate from Massachusetts to lose big time.

That DNA test is the modern equivalent of putting on a helmet and being driven around in a tank.

It shows you are not who you purport to be.

Trumpit said...

I wish she had more injun in her rather than paleface blood. But she has shown herself to be a brave warrior for the average citizen and for what's right. Paleface and Son of Paleface were popular Bob Hope comedy Westerns in '48 and '52.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/paleface/

mandrewa said...

A long time ago, when I was I think 19, I was working at a restaurant in the Mid-West, and it was late at night and the subject of American Indian ancestry came up. As I recall seventeen out of the nineteen people there believed that they had an American Indian ancestor. I was one of two that did not make that claim. Of these 17 people only one, to my eyes, looked Indian, and she was allegedly half-Cherokee.

Recently one of my brothers looked into our ancestry and it turns out that back to about 1800 it's not difficult to identify something like three-quarters of my ancestors, because 1800 was about the first census, and actually the census makes it kind of easy.

But he also found some pictures, and in particular there is a picture of one of my great-great-grandfathers who looks like he's American Indian. But was he actually? It's hard to say, because there is probably a certain small percentage of Europeans that look Indian.

A little over ten years ago I bought a farm in West Virginia. Although I didn't know it at the time, it turns out that the town nearby had been co-founded by one of my direct ancestors (according to my brother). And also according to him, the last time one of my close relatives had been in that area, briefly for a few years, was about one hundred years ago.

The couple who had owned this farm, and who had lived there all of their lives, had passed away, and I bought the farm from the husband's brothers and sisters. I learned later that the wife of the couple who had owned this farm, and who was still fondly remembered by the person who told me this, was either American Indian or half American Indian.

From my farm I can look across the valley and see another farm, two miles away, that has been continuously occupied by the same family for the last 250 years or so. They were originally Cherokee. By originally Cherokee, I mean of course that they still are but they have intermarried.

Another neighbor has shown me the unmarked grave of his grandmother, back in the woods, who, he said, was Indian.

All of these people look white to me. All of them are culturally white.

It could be that I am so used to looking at people that are one-quarter, or one-eighth, or one-sixty-fourth Indian, that this is what I think white people look like.

Somehow I suspect the genetic tests that Fernandistein has mentioned above will claim that all of these people are 100% European. But I believe that most of them do, with mistakes here and there, actually know who their ancestors are. The problem is more likely with the tests and quite possibly with finding genetic markers that are unique to North American Indians.

Laslo Spatula said...

To cross-reference two posts:

Still, the DNA test DOES prove that Warren is measurably more Native American than she is Victoria's Secret Model.

I am Laslo.

John said...

Well, the mean length of stay is 33.3 months. The median length of stay is 24 months. And the mode is 1 month.

Is it a nursing home? Of all the stay lengths one month is the most common. But most people are there for 2 years. But some have been there for a decade or longer hence the gap between the mean and median. Am I close?

Trumpit said...

"What is left are the morally corrupt grifters like the Clintons and others too numerous to name."

Takes one grifter to know one.

John henry said...

James Pawlak,

No, it is not independent and credible

I forget the details but her husband has a significant connection (ownership?)

It may be a perfectly fine organization but the is a conflict of interest in this case

John Henry

John Henry

SF said...

Comanche Voter, I strongly suspect Warren DID arrange for confidential (ish) tests. It would be nuts to go straight to a big, fancy test when Ancestry will do it for you for $60. My guess is she did a couple of those tests under a false name or something like that. After they all came back "no detectable Native American DNA" -- she only has something like 1/256th Native American DNA, after all -- she hired someone to do the fancy test for her.

As far as that goes, I'd be shocked if this test wasn't confidential as well. I think she looked at the results as "you bet she has Native American ancestry!", and figured that would be more than good enough for her supporters and the media.

MBunge said...

"NATIVE AMERICANS are the real indigenous people of America, specifically the U.S. when referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren's claim on her 1/1024th percent inclusion.
An apology at this point won't help her, either."


Sorry, anyone born in America is a NATIVE AMERICAN. The correct phrase you are looking for is Aboriginal Americans.

Mike

Bill Peschel said...

"is there anyone, of any ideological stripe, who is even slightly committed to the idea of Warren being President?"

This is why if you recast that statement slightly: "is there anyone, of any ideological stripe, who is even slightly committed to the idea of Trump being President?"

I say, take what the bastids say seriously and ground and pound them, because the media sure won't.

Skippy Tisdale said...

The average American has more Neanderthal DNA than she has Aboriginal-American DNA.

Fun Fact: George Washington was our first Neanderthal president.

rehajm said...

I think she looked at the results as "you bet she has Native American ancestry!", and figured that would be more than good enough for her supporters and the media.

Now when she's questioned on it she can claim she's answered every question about it already. MSM will be okay with that...

Ron Winkleheimer said...

She will go over like a lead balloon in Flyover Country.

She reminds people of the female relative that they don't like. The one that takes time during holiday get togethers to inform them of their shortcomings.

Skippy Tisdale said...

"Bob Boyd said...
Warren still hates it that the whites at Harvard force her to wear shoes."

Even worse, they forced her to speak American English!

rcocean said...

Liz Warren for President!

C'mon Democrats - y'know you want to.

YoungHegelian said...

Conservatives have continued to ridicule her.

Ya gotta admit --- Fauxcahontas is a funny & unfortunately for her horribly memorable nickname for a politician.

rcocean said...

She's that kooky left-wing spinster aunt that never shuts up about abortion and Trump.

Everyone lets her ramble and rant at Thanksgiving, because she's a loser.

And they feel sorry for her.

John henry said...

No Mike,

Not aboriginal. (let me abos go loose, Lou?)

The proper term is DEAP for Descendants of Early American Peoples.

H/T Ken Kesey

John Henry

PM said...

She's a non-starter in 2020. But a pretty good attack dog for the eventual Dem candidate.

n.n said...

Racial science... color judgments.... diversity is losing ground. Baby steps.

bagoh20 said...

"It’s impossible to directly compare Senator Warren’s results to the 23andMe customers because they were produced with different software."

That may be true, but if it's the software that determines your ancestry, then you just use that one that give the result you want. We can all be indians if we choose correctly.

mandrewa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Greg said...

Trump should call Beto Dewey (DUI)

tcrosse said...

Trump should call Beto O'Rourke 'Danny Boy' to emphasize his youth and ethnicity.

JaimeRoberto said...

So tell me just one thing that Elizabeth Warren offers the average white male voter.

A lecture.

wildswan said...

The Native Americans have seen genetic tests which showed that undoubted tribal members entered on tribal lists have no "Native American DNA" and they have seen tests showing that Europeans with no tribal ancestry have Native American DNA. Problem is that the organization of certain areas on the chromosomes are very common among Native Americans and very rare among others. So if you have one of these stretches organized a certain way, it is very probable that you have Native American ancestry. But it's only probable. The same linear arrangement exists in some members of all other populations. And if you have two such stretches your chances increase and if three it is considered so probable as to be certain (almost). Elizabeth Warren only had one such stretch - but it was long. So the whole thing was very questionable. And, to reiterate, the native Americans who deal with this issue all the time are very skeptical, due to experiences with claims to tribal membership, that genetics proves or disproves anything.

Rusty said...

My two brothers and I had that test done. Turns out we're something like 1/380th African American. Just thought you motherfuckers should know that.

Roger Sweeny said...

Camille Paglia noted yesterday that Warren had no appeal to anyone outside a group of screechy liberal upper class females. That's not much of a base.

She just won re-election to the Senate with 60.4% of the vote. Even in Massachusetts, there aren't that any screechy liberal upper class females.

Robert Cook said...

"She just won re-election to the Senate with 60.4% of the vote. Even in Massachusetts, there aren't that any screechy liberal upper class females."

There are a lot of working-class people in Massachusetts.

tcrosse said...

There are a lot of working-class people in Massachusetts.

Servants of the wealthy, a lot of them.

Howard said...

Blogger Rusty said...

My two brothers and I had that test done. Turns out we're something like 1/380th African American. Just thought you motherfuckers should know that.


No wonder rhhardin thinks you a retard

Ralph L said...

She just won re-election to the Senate with 60.4% of the vote.

So did Teddy. Mass. voters must be trying for absolution by voting for an unattractive woman, but the rest of the country already knew they're nuts.

Rusty said...

Howard said...
Blogger Rusty said...

My two brothers and I had that test done. Turns out we're something like 1/380th African American. Just thought you motherfuckers should know that.

No wonder rhhardin thinks you a retard

Well, Howard. he doesn't have to think you are.
Cheers

Robert Jackson said...

OMG!! This is certainly a shocking and a genuine Testimony..I visited a
forum here on the internet on the 20TH OF JUNE 2018, And i saw a
marvelous testimony of this powerful and great Doctor called
PRIEST AZIBA on the forum..I never believed it, because i never heard
nor learnt anything about Natural Enlargement Product. Nobody would have been able to influence me about Natural Enlargement Product not until PRIEST AZIBA did it for me and restored my Penis to a Normal size which i was very ok to have(11inch) he ask if i want to increase it further more i told him am ok with this i have now, so i am recommending you all in same or similar depress to contact DR AZIBA via mail: PRIESTAZIBASOLUTIONCENTER@GMAIL.COM and also Contacted him on his whatsApp +2348100368288
I am really short of expressions, and i don't know how much to convey my appreciation to you PRIEST AZIBA you are a God sent to me and my entire family.. And now i am a joyful man with my family here is DR Email and WhatsApp contact below
* Email: priestazibasolutioncenter@gmail.com
*.WhatsApp:+2348100368288.......

Michael McNeil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael McNeil said...

Just want to throw this out there for those who are posting attempting to add their intelligence to the conversation: Indians are from the India, et al, and NATIVE AMERICANS are the real indigenous people of America, specifically the U.S.

Arrogance and ignorance, simultaneously on display — political correctness, emerging from the dreamland swamp of hubristic academia along with the media, runs wild once again.

The fact is that — contrary to notions prevalent in elite bubbles — “Native American” has not succeeded in pushing “American Indian” aside as the usual and ordinary term of reference for the American natives. All that the former has managed to do is add itself as an another acceptable term that may be used in alternation with the original.

Indeed, in this regard, as the Internet site called the Grammarist points out: contrary to popular myth, the term Indian as used in reference to the American natives actually derives not from (what's now the nation of) “India” (so-spelt, a traditional English language term; India is actually called Bhārat by its natives) — or even the historical, Age of Exploration concept of “The Indies” (islands off East and Southeast Asia which ultimately became the modern nations of Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan) — but, as the Grammarist says (quoting…):

Indian was the common term for native [American] peoples for a long time. It stems back to Christopher Columbus. He called the people gente en Dios or people of God, which morphed over time to Indios and then Indian. Some people still prefer to self-identify with this name.

However, as more mixture happened, especially with people coming from India, the name became confusing. In fact, in the dictionary its primary definition now is a person from India. Whereas the original definition has become secondary.

[However] American Indian is the preferred politically correct term currently.

(/unQuote)

It isn't just sites like the Grammarist that say this; Native Americans — American Indians — themselves say it, most vociferously!

A 2005 PBS report put the matter thusly (quoting…):

But despite the supposed political correctness of Native American, it has not become the preferred term. “The acceptance of Native American has not brought about the demise of Indian,” according to the fourth edition of the American Heritage Book of English Usage, published in 2000. “Unlike Negro, which was quickly stigmatized once black became preferred, Indian never fell out of favor with a large segment of the American population.”

Nor did the word Indian fall out of favor with the people it described. A 1995 Census Bureau survey that asked indigenous Americans their preferences for names (the last such survey done by the bureau) found that 49 percent preferred the term Indian, 37 percent Native American, and 3.6 percent “some other name.” About 5 percent expressed no preference.

Moreover, a large number of Indians actually strongly object to the term Native American for political reasons. In his 1998 essay “I Am An American Indian, Not a Native American!”, Russell Means, a Lakota activist and a founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), stated unequivocally, “I abhor the term ‘Native American.’”

(/unQuote)

{Continued on subsequent page, page 2}

Michael McNeil said...

{Continued from previous page, page 2}

For evidence of much more recent Indian sentiment in this regard, here for instance is a piece from 2015 in Native Times which passionately argues in favor of American Indian as the preferred term as opposed to Native American.

Infoplease chimes in with what style and usage guides say in this regard (quoting…):

While many textbook publishers play it safe and use only Native American, the majority of style and usage guides state that American Indian and Native American are synonymous.

“The terms ‘Native American’ and ‘American Indian’ should be used in U.S. mainstream newspaper stories. Use of ‘Indian’ alone generally is discouraged.

(/unQuote)

A National Endowment for the Humanities course on “Native American cultures across the U.S.” explains the matter this way (quoting…):

The term, “Native American,” came into usage in the 1960s to denote the groups served by the Bureau of Indian Affairs: American Indians and Alaska Native (Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska). Later the term also included Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in some Federal programs. It, therefore, came into disfavor among some Indian groups. The preferred term is American Indian.

(/unQuote)

(Emphasis added.)

Q.E.D.

Doug said...

Trump should call Beto Dewey (DUI)

DEWEY (DUI) DEFEATS TRUMPMAN!

Rance Fasoldt said...

Correct term: Siberian Americans

Gabriel said...

@Ferdinandistein:I would say that NYT author Carl Zimmer was correct, that "averages can be deceptive", because in this case the MSM itself was deceptive as well as deceived, as you can tell by googling something like 'warren more native american than average'.

The mathematical concept of arithmetic mean is deceiving no one. Journalists are deceiving people, either through ignorance or deliberately, by misrepresenting the meaning of "average". 0.18% is the arithmetic mean, but the "average American" does not have it. Very likely theres is NO American who has exactly the 0.18% which is the average.

@Mike:So, Gabriel, it seems there are a lot of short-timers who bail after a month.

Only 3% of them do. That's not "a lot" relative to how many we have. But it is the most likely outcome. Because of the 97% who stayed only 3% of them are going to leave and that is fewer of them than left the first month--2.91% of people stay two months, and 2.83% of people stay three months, and so on.

@John:Is it a nursing home? Of all the stay lengths one month is the most common. But most people are there for 2 years. But some have been there for a decade or longer hence the gap between the mean and median. Am I close?

It's not a nursing home, it's an insurance product. But you are close. It's the tail of the curve, the small fraction who stay an absurdly long time, who are disproportionately responsible for the average.

At 33 months, only 36.5% of the original population is remaining. Not only does the average not describe most people, only a small fraction ever get as far as the average and of course an even smaller fraction are ever going past it. Yet they drive the average.