Talk:Genetic studies of Jews/Archive 6

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Lead

I have been bold and modified the lead as per WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT and reflecting article content. One cannot have a lead with dozens of studies based on only one of them Asilah1981 (talk) 16:45, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

The lead was discussed many times for many years. You came first time to this article and removed a work done through many years. The lead summarize the opinion of many authors respecting prevailing views in populational genetic science,exactly per WP:WEIGHTTritomex (talk) 23:23, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
By what I see the lead is not the result of many years of work, let alone consensus building. What is more, numerous studies have appeared since it was first drafted and more are appearing yearly. There is an ongoing dispute regarding this article and its sources. The lead, in its current form, does not reflect the diversity or the divergence in conclusions of the various sources. None of its statements are uncontested by at least a couple of scientific studies sourced in the article. I'm not taking a position on the various disputes here or on which academic study is more credible. I frankly don't care that much. What I'm saying is that as per WP:NPOV, we cannot cherry pick sources or statements from sources and include them as undisputed fact in the lead when they clearly are disputed within the scientific community. We should most certainly make it clear that different studies yield different results and consequently have different conclusions. The focus of the debate should be on the content, not on the lead which should simply reflect the debate.Asilah1981 (talk) 14:15, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
The lead summarize the results of all Y DNA, autosomal and mtDNA genetic studies, as all genetic studies came to similar conclusion regarding substantial Middle Eastern origin of all major Jewish population groups. (The only among 30+ genetic studies that came to different conclusion is the controversial ELhaik study which was debunked by dozens of geneticists, historians and described as unscientific by virtually all in academic world. The divergence in conclusions is related to the scope of non Jewish admixture in mt DNA which is properly mentioned in the lead. Although not all authors are given in inline citations of lead, it represent the results of Hammer et al, Nebla et al, Shen et al, Bray et al, Behar at al 2004,2006,2008,2010,2016, all studies of Harry Ostrrer, Moorijani et al, Atzmon et al, L Hao et al, Bauchet et al, Pierce at al, Carmi et al, Pauli et al, scientific articles of N Wade, academic books of Toni Frudakis at al and many many more. If there is a need to add all 30 sources into the current lead (upon which the lead was already written, it could be done)Tritomex (talk) 05:39, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Further removals/edits without consensus, I will see as nonconstructive editing (This site was vandalized many times by numerous socks, 6 of them are currently blocked) and I will have to take action to protect the work that has been done for many years.Tritomex (talk) 05:43, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Tritomex:

The article currently states Zoossmann-Diskin (2010) argues, that based upon the analysis of X chromosome and seventeen autosomal markers, Eastern European Jewish populations and Jewish populations from Iran, Iraq and Yemen, do not have the same genetic origins. In particular, concerning Eastern European Jews, he believes the evidence points to a dominant amount of southern European, and specifically Italian, ancestry, which he argues is probably a result of conversions during the Roman empire. Concerning the similarity between Sephardi and Ashkenazi, he argues that the reasons are uncertain, but that it is likely to be caused by Sephardic Jews having "Mediterranean" ancestry also, like the Ashkenazi. Concerning mitochondrial DNA, and particularly Y DNA, he accepts that there are superficial signs of some Middle Eastern ancestry among Ashkenazi Jews, but he argues that this can be ignored as it is may have come from a small number of ancestors.

This is a sourced genetic study and contradicts your version of the lead. I see you have been edit warring here for a few years now. I'm not saying this particular study is right or wrong. It simply invalidates your lead's assertion. I'm neutral about this matter and don't have any insecurities about my Jewishness so please don't give me attitude, threaten me or accuse me of vandalism. I will wait for 48 hours for an adequate rationale or argument.Asilah1981 (talk) 16:43, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The study of Zoossmann-Diskin, based on X chromosome and 17 autosomal markers, unlike 30+ additional studies is mentioned in the lead when it comes to genetic similarities between Ashkeanzi Jews and Italians. There are 34 genetic studies cowered by this text. 33 genetic studies confirmed the significant shared Middle Eastern ancestry of all major Jewish groups. This includes all studies done after 2010, analyzing all transgenomic autosomal markers (studies of Atzmon, Behar and Ostrrer etc), studies of all Jewish population groups beside Iran, Iraq and Yemen. This studies includes hundreds of authors from dozens of universities and countries. All this studies confirmed the significant shared Middle Eastern origin of all major Jewish groups. This is also confirmed by many secondary and tertiary sources. So to argue that that the population genetic studies results concerning the existence of significant Middle Eastern ancestry of Jews is controversial, would be tendentious. 109.111.235.66 (talk) 19:53, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

No one is saying that Jews don't share significant shared Middle Eastern Ancestry. The question of the degree of significance is where the divergence lies. The lead says they all have "a predominant amount of shared Middle Eastern ancestry which is simply not an established consensus (besides being increasingly refuted by more recent studies). Asilah1981 (talk) 16:38, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

All unchallenged trans genome genetic studies carried out shows the dominant Middle Eastern origin of all major Jews, including the recent studies. However if no further objections are raised I am willing to change the wording for the sake of consensus. In my opinion sources have to stay in the lead.Tritomex (talk) 05:06, 2 March 2017 (UTC).
Tritomex I slightly changed the wording also for consensus sake, I hope you agree. Another issue we have here is the concept of "challenged". As I said in my previous long post, we have to accept that this is a politically sensitive topic and we can't lace each genetic study with challenges by non-scientists who find the results offensive (that goes for anti-semitic khazar-theory edit-warriors as well, not just "our" side). The section on El Haik largely discusses linguistics for example. How is that relevant to genetics? There are also criticisms from people who are pretty much religious scholars or historians or what seem to be amateurs on the topic. The whole article has to remain within the scope of population genetics scientific research and be depoliticized. I know its hard but that's the way forward for this to be a quality article. We also have to accept that the final discussion sections of many of these studies are more often than not garbage and to a degree based on BS speculation by the authors. Population genetics is not that far advanced yet although it is advancing fast. There is a recent study which concludes 20% of the Spanish gene pool is of Jewish origin. That is speculation based on Middle Eastern admixture which is not necessarily Jewish. Although I'm sure there are millions of Converso desdendants in Spain, 20% specifically Jewish admixture is just ridiculous. The admixture could be from multiple historical origins (phonenician, punic, greco-roman and even arab-syrian, not just Jewish.) But I have the feeling it is the conclusions sections which get the studies to have the punch to stand out and make it to the news.

My key points are:

  • 1) Caution with "conclusion" sections of genetic studies.
  • 2) No non-scientific opinions should be in the content.
  • 3) Avoiding sources on the lead because the quotes are taken from the "subjective" interpretation of results. My original version aimed at that.
  • 4) What about genetics and health? Why does everything have to revolve about politics. One of the main reasons Israel is a leader in population genetics is due to high levels of historic endogamy in part of its population leading to inherited diseases. This should have a prominent section in the article.
  • 5)Considering over half of Palestinians are descendants from immigrants from surrounding countries, Ashkenazim having European, Caucasian or Turkic admixture does not really impact the fact that all Jews ultimately descend from Israel and have a claim to our ancestral homeland land. It is even stated in the Quran that they do. So we should not be that touchy about that subject about our ethnic purity. I would frankly be worried if my family line was totally inbred for millennia and I sincerely hope I have a significant portion of Iberian and Berber blood in me, as well as Hebrew. We should not fall into the trap of edit-warring about ethnic purity to fight anti-semitic propaganda - since that is a "position" which is not very Jewish considering our history.
  • 6) There is a trend in the US of DNA testing where everyone who finds traces of near eastern ancestry in their gene pool are told they are of Jewish ancestry. More often than not, this is not the case. This seems to be particularly popular among hispanics in the US and I suspect there is an element of social mobility involved. It is more prestigious in the US to be "Jewish" than to be "Hispanic" especially these days. You cannot as of yet determine Jewish ancestry of an individual based on genetics. That is why I am very much against this Bnei Anusim concept which is all over wikipedia. I have been editing lately to get rid of that, I find it more of a threat to the Jewish community than any Khazarian theory.
If we collaborate here in good faith I will support in safeguarding article against the anti-ashkenazi POV editing here which I'm sure this article is constantly subject to.Asilah1981 (talk) 07:28, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Asilah1981 Thank you for your constructive help for precise wording of that sentence.The 2016 Elhaik study is not an autosomal genetic study but a mixture of linguistic study (described as "falls" "fabrication" and "manipulative" by relevant Yiddish scholars) and an "innovative" genetic analysis which used genetic "GPS" toold also described by the group of leading geneticists as unscientific. In my opinion his entire study should not be included in this text, but as it is, relevant opinion of geneticists and linguistics (who are many times more cited than Elhaik) has to be included. This is per WP:NPOV. The genetic study you mentioned does not claim that 20% were Jews, but that up to 1/5 of Spaniards may have Sepharadic genetic admixture. I really cant discuss political implications, or ideological motivations. There are 34 genetic studies and many secondary and tertiary sources which almost unanimously have same conclusions. All Y DNA studies (paternal origin) of Mizrahi and Ashenazi Jews confirmed the common and shared Middle Eastern origin of this two groups, without doubts or controversies . As for maternal X chromosome, all studies found Middle Eastern ancestry in both groups. While the studies of Behar and Fernandez found this component to be dominant, the study of Richards found the European admixture of X chromosome, as prevailing. This is covered extensively in the article. The study of Zoosman Disskin which is only a X chromosome study and covers only very limited number of Jewish population group (it is mentioned in autosomal genetic section, although it belongs here).

As for transgenomic autosomal population studies, all studies without exception confirmed the shared and significant Middle Eastern origin of all major Jewish groups. This studies are covering the entire genome and are much more precise than just Y or X chromosome studies. Population geneticists do not like the idea of quantification of genetic origin, but if you read their articles, you will see that there is a consensus of 50% and upward regarding Middle Eastern ancestry of A and M Jews. Our goal is not to take politics into this question, or to hide something because of political implications, but to present the prevailing opinion of science, with proportional WP:WEIGHT. If the question is: If there is shared Middle Eastern ancestry in major Jewish population groups, or not, the population genetics science gave its verdict and there are no questions on this issue. As a medical doctor I cant agree with you that population genetics is not advanced, it is on its peak. By using conventional techniques, (as all geneticists beside Elhaik did) you have a very scientific, precise and hardly changeable result, and this is today accepted from forensic medicine to paternity tests. Keeping sources in the lead is very important. The entire artickle should be sourced (this article is under constant WP:WAN attack) Therefore I ask you for consensus to put them back. Tritomex (talk) 15:36, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Tritomex I have not really read the ElHaik study. All I meant was we should ignore the linguistics part of it. If its rubbish anyways then just mention the genetics part of it in the article. A Hebrew/Yiddish linguist is qualified to comment on the language side, but that bit doesn't come within the scope of this article.
Regarding the study on Spain, no it literally concludes that "Admixture analysis based on binary and Y-STR haplotypes indicates a high mean proportion of ancestry from North African (10.6%) and Sephardic Jewish (19.8%) sources". The North African one is plausible but the Jewish one is just impossible. 19.8% of near eastern admixture, sure. But 19.8% specifically Sephardic Jewish??? If there were 5 million people in Spain after the expulsion and lets say a high figure of 300,000 former Jews remained by converting (assuming all were pure Jewish) that would give a maximum Jewish admixture of 6% Jewish today. The rest would come from elsewhere. This is what I meant by being careful with how geneticists interpret or communicate the results of their genetic analysis. The exact same markers were used to determine the level of Phoenician ancestry in one of the Balearic islands in another study, I think by the same authors.
The issue is that Near Eastern ancestry is quite prevalent in Southern Europe, particularly in the South East (Greece, Albania for example), mainly due to Neolithic migrations across the Bosphorous. Ashkenazi Jews are typically compared with Northern European populations, when they are clearly not a Northern European ethnicity in origin. Some of their Near Eastern ancestry directly comes from ancient Israel and some must come from the fact that they migrated to Poland, Germany etc... from areas further to the South and East. Its all quite complicated but genetic studies seem to gloss over this complexity in their conclusion section. Are Southern Greeks or Kosovars more Near Eastern in ancestry or Ashkenazi Jews? I suspect the former have significantly more Near Eastern Ancestry. By what I have read of population genetics, to date, there is no way of identifying someone as being specifically Jewish, which is just as well since that would make us seem like martians.
On a personal side, I know many Askhenazim hailing from northern and eastern Europe originally (Poland, Romania, Russia etc..). I would say about slighty less than half look specifically Jewish/Eastern Med (could be Jews from anywhere Sephardic or Ashkenazi) and the rest look like their host populations. If you add admixture during their complex migration history, it is normal that they picked up ancestry from a bunch of places in Eurasia/Anatolia/Caucasus. I mean, how many French people are pure "Gaulish". How many British people are pure "Celtic"? Jewish endogamy is one of our traits but also our higher level of mixture than our host populations of origins who have absorbed other groups passively rather than actively through migration. Geneticists take a personal decision on which of the two to focus on when interpreting results of their analysis. Are we "wandering Jews" or are we "Jews who only marry within our often tiny community"? I believe both are true but like to favor the former. Asilah1981 (talk) 05:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Btw, Tritomex yes, I'll keep this on my watch list if it is under attack and make sure no one starts POV pushing that Askhenazim are actually Mongols or anything. :-) I'll also go through all the sources carefully one more time as soon as I have time. Asilah1981 (talk) 05:34, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Jews are an ethnoreligious group whose religion is both 1. not easy to convert to and 2. for most of history very dangerous to convert to. Ethnoreligious groups are usually quite tribal and endogamous. The comparison to the British and the French are inapt at best and downright disingenuous at worst. Most Jews who exist today are linear descendents of ancient Jews and inherit much more than the name. In Europe most nations are relatively new. You cannot compare the changing of a land to the history of a people. Today's France was formed from the Franks, not the Gauls. Likewise today's Britain is "Anglo-Saxon", not Insular Celtic. Although "Anglo-Saxons" are generously only about 30% Anglo-Saxon. Most Jews in contrast left their land to become a rough slice in time of the people in that ancient period, though their host nations undoubtedly left an impact. (and so did expulsions from them) The Gauls and the Britons are invoked nationalistically but they are dead nations, the Jews are not. They have consistently kept the identity of their ancestors and have inherited their culture, religion, and yes, genes. You claim to be Jewish but your understanding of Jewish nationhood is completely Western.--Monochrome_Monitor 19:48, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree with User:Monochrome Monitor. Regarding the rest we can not keep parts of one highly controversial study in the text, and remove other. This would be WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Especially when that particular study is actually based on the core (or the criticism of it) which is proposed to be removed. For the rest, I do not see policy based arguments not to return academic sources removed from the lead. In 17th century, 1 out 100 of inhabitants of historic Poland had Jewish ancestry, before world war II without any major migration, probably one in five Polish citizens had some Jewish ancestry. This shows how unpredictable demography is, and here we speak only about 300 years time span. However, our task is to find appropriate criticism of any study concerned, from reliable secondary or primary sources. Otherwise our opinion on this subject could be described only as Original research. Tritomex (talk) 03:26, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
Monochrome Hi Monochrome, you pinged me to continue this discussion, so responding. I can talk about my own community - the Moroccan Jewish one. Tbh, I don't even think Moroccan Jews are ethnically homogenous - there are those among us who are dark, with berber features and completely different from Arabs or Semitic peoples. Such physiognomy predominates among Jews of the Sous and other areas of the interior. Whereas Jews from the North West Coast are often very fair skinned with blue eyes - significantly fairer than the average Spaniard or Portuguese, probably due to endogamy bringing out recessive genes. Shlomo Ben Ami, Richard Attias, Andre Azoulay or Gad Elmaleh are typical north Atlantic coast Moroccan Jews. And of course, there is everything in between. Joseph Chetrit, for example has a typically Berber surname. It is wrong to say, as has been argued here, that Jews have been consistently persecuted in the Maghreb - thus genetic isolation. They arrived during Carthaginian and Roman times, long before Islam and even before Christianity penetrated the hinterland. There were important mass conversions of (largely pagan) Berbers and intermarriage between Berbers and Jews. A significant part of Morocco's Berber population practiced Karaite Judaism at the time of the Muslim conquest. Evidently, those of our ancestors which arrived from Spain or elsewhere many centuries later did remain a more genetically isolated community - but Monochrome, I would say that your vision of our community is more Western, indeed, it strange that you accuse me of that since I personally am not from a Western country like you are. In any case, you should be aware how long we have been in the region. We are very much awlad lablad, "children of the country" as we say, regardless of ancestry, and have no issue with being mixed. In fact, it is very common among our community to define ourselves ethnically as "hispano-berbers" (something I personally don't do but have often heard). In the case of Ashkenazi Jews, it is anti-semitic propaganda and Israel related politics where Ashkenazim are (were) portrayed as "white/European" or "western" colonialists which, IMO, drives the fear or insecurity about their origins. I personally think its silly to fall into this game. Ashkenazim are mixed as are Sephardim. They simply mixed with different peoples. So what? Jews are Jews and Israel is Jewish. Asilah1981 (talk) 13:52, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Edie Vanja, can you elaborate on your revert? Please help me find exactly where in the cited sources does it scientifically verify the statement "with most in a community sharing significant ancestry and up to 75% Levantine genes." I cannot find this at all in the cited sources and if not found, it will be removed for being inaccurate and/or unverified. WP:VER Dr.Greyhawk (talk) 21:59, 4 February 2018 (UTC) striking blocked sock

This page was many times vandalized with over-inclusion of Elhaik controversial views and by removing criticism from scientific experts. Until now I caught 4 or 5 socks of same sock master who are now all banned from editing. All of them immediately after they opened their account came here to add Elhaik and remove criticsm. This topic is related to Arab-Israeli conflict, so new editors should respect Wikipedia restrictions on this issue. [[1]] Tritomex (talk) 02:22, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

::You are vandalizing the page by adding statements which I have already warned you are wrong according to your own source and even the source itself is unscientific. Another thing is that you and Shrike are removing Elhaik's actual objective scientific research and trying to replace it with commentary, conjecture, criticism, and opinion to try and discredit the scientific studies which is equivalent to pushing a point a view WP:POV. I have already warned you of this. Dr.Greyhawk (talk) 19:37, 15 February 2018 (UTC) striking blocked sock

Please explain why do you oppose the inclusion of the sourced material that you constantly removing?--Shrike (talk) 08:00, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

striking blocked sock::The material you are adding is unscientific material which is basically commentary, conjecture, criticism, opinions with the goal of discrediting certain studies and not others. This is equivalent of pushing a point of view which is against the rules WP:POV. Not only that but you are also removing some of the important results from the actual scientific studies. Dr.Greyhawk (talk) 19:37, 15 February 2018 (UTC) striking blocked sock

We obviously are having to deal with fifth consecutive sock of historylover account. The previous 4 whose accounts were terminated after my report immediately after they opened their account, came here to add more Elhaik, theories and remove scientific criticism. The last one was few moths ago when Elhaik also wrote some article. Further attempts to continue this pattern while violating restrictions regarding new editors/Arab-Israeli conflict will be met by filling immediate SPI file.Tritomex (talk) 12:23, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I have been looking for a reliable citation for "most in a community sharing significant ancestry and up to 75% Levantine genes". I can see the question being asked, but I can't see it being answered. If it was answered already, please point me to it. Zerotalk 23:46, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Oh I see, it is the reported public speech of businessman Bennett Greenspan, who not only has no qualifications in genetics but has an obvious commercial interest in making such claims. You should all hang your heads in shame for treating that as a reliable source. Zerotalk 00:07, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
Besides that, the source statement "No less than 75 percent of Ashekanzi, Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews, their ancestors came from what we call the general Middle East." makes polemic sense but no scientific sense. Where I come from, everyone has 2 parents, 4 grandparents (except very rarely), etc.. With the exception of some indigenous peoples such as Amazonian tribes, it is statistically certain that everybody alive today had an ancestor who lived in the Middle East, say 2000-3000 years ago. Zerotalk 00:14, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

striking blocked sock::Not only does their own unreliable non-scientific source say "general Middle East" and not "Levant," but I even made a report about this here and somehow the admin didn't see anything wrong with the constant reverting and intentional re-inclusion of this false information. Dr.Greyhawk (talk) 02:36, 16 February 2018 (UTC) striking blocked sock

Administrators on those boards rarely examine edits for compliance with policies like NPOV and RS. They are more likely to just counts reverts and treat reverting bad edits to be the same as reverting good edits. It is a problem with Wikipedia's processes and I'm not surprised by the result of your complaint. Zerotalk 03:35, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
That's unfortunate because NPOV and RS are the biggest problems I can see with this article so far and I haven't even gone through most of it. Dr.Greyhawk (talk) 08:15, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

I've come here for the first time and am bewildered by the space given to this Elhaik study. Paragraphs and paragraphs. Include it, but as a brief mention as a dissenting view rejected by most authorities. Does he claim that the term Ashkenaz arose in the medieval Caucasus? It was used in Hebrew in the Old Testament compiled in about 600BC (obviously). Markbenjamin (talk) 23:52, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

@Markbenjamin: Don't be surprised. The reason is that Elhaik goes against the Party Line and must therefore (according to the Guardians of this page) be discredited from all possible angles. Now, the truth is that Elhaik's views are in the minority and it is reasonable for the article to establish that with one or two quality references, but at the moment the attack on him is completely ridiculous. Zerotalk 01:34, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
Of course, Elhaik et al., are quite aware of the Biblical usage,Markbenjamin

“Ashkenaz” is one of the most disputed Biblical placenames. It appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name of one of Noah's descendants (Genesis 10:3) and as a reference to the kingdom of Ashkenaz, prophesied to be called together with Ararat and Minnai to wage war against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27). In addition to tracing AJs to the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz and uncovering the villages whose names may derive from “Ashkenaz,” Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler, Mehdi Pirooznia, and Eran Elhaik, The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish Frontiers in Genetics, June 21 2017; 8: 87. 2017

As Zero notes, this page is largely crap, because it is held under lock and key by POV pushers, who are illiterate in the topic, and steadfastly wedded to 'proving' modern Israelis descend from ancient Israelites living in Palestine. Second point, is that, unlike the impression given on this page, Elhaik's northern Turkey hypothesis, successively modified, for the Middle Eastern component, rather than the Levantine thesis, is not a minority view. Behar and others basically same the same thing.Nishidani (talk) 12:34, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
Its incorrect. Not a single genetic study backed ever a Khazar-Turkish-Iranian origin of Ashkenazi Jews, while the Slavic origin of Yiddish thesis was rejected by all linguists. What Nishidani, maybe wanted to say is that Y chromosome studies found genetic influx between all Jewish groups and Palestinians on one side and the people of Fertile Crescent on the other side, which researchers dated to the Neolithic period and the beginning of the Chalcolithic period migrations. This admixture predates ethnogensis and the era covered by Elhaik by almost 10 000 years and is part of genetic ethnogensis of all people in Levant. This findings were based on Semino 2000 genetic study.There is no such thing as Turkey hypothesis or Levantine hypothesis in any of this studies or in population genetics, so this represents WP:OR. The second aspect involved would be the current genetic differences between all Jewish groups and neighboring population which was studied by Behar- Behar very clearly explained the source of Jewish Diaspora orig based on numerous studies he conducted: "Our PCA, ADMIXTURE and ASD analyses, which are based on genome-wide data from a large sample of Jewish communities, their non-Jewish host populations, and novel samples from the Middle East, are concordant in revealing a close relationship between most contemporary Jews and non-Jewish populations from the Levant. The most parsimonious explanation for these observations is a commongenetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant. [2]. Behar further wrote "8. An illustrative example at K 5 8 (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Note 3) is the pattern of membership of Ashkenazi, Caucasus (Azerbaijani and Georgian), Middle Eastern (Iranian and Iraqi), north African (Moroccan), Sephardi (Bulgarian and Turkish) and Yemenite Jewish communities in the light-green and lightblue genetic components, which is similar to that observed for Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations, suggesting a shared regional origin of these Jewish communities. This inference is consistent with historical records describing the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World1–4. Our conclusion favoring common ancestry over recent admixture is further supported by the fact that our sample contains individuals that are known not to be admixed in the most recent one or two generations." Behar explains the reasons for differences between all Jewish groups and Palestinians "Bedouins, Jordanians, Palestinians and Saudi Arabians are located in close proximity to each other, which is consistent with a common origin in the Arabian Peninsula, whereas the Egyptian, Moroccan, Mozabite Berber, and Yemenite samples are located closer to subSaharan populations (Fig. 1a and Supplementary Fig. 2a)." This is inline with the newest and only transgenome DNA study covering all contemporary Levantine population that was carried out by Lebanese geneticists. Haber at all found that : [3] "This study explores the Levant, a region flanked by the Middle East and Europe, where individual and population relationships are still strongly influenced by religion. We show that religious affiliation had a strong impact on the genomes of the Levantines. In particular, conversion of the region's populations to Islam appears to have introduced major rearrangements in populations' relations through admixture with culturally similar but geographically remote populations, leading to genetic similarities between remarkably distant populations like Jordanians, Moroccans, and Yemenis. Conversely, other populations, like Christians and Druze, became genetically isolated in the new cultural environment. We reconstructed the genetic structure of the Levantines and found that a pre-Islamic expansion Levant was more genetically similar to Europeans than to Middle Easterners....The population tree (Figure 3A) splits Levantine populations in two branches: one leading to Europeans and Central Asians that includes Lebanese, Armenians, Cypriots, Druze and Jews, as well as Turks, Iranians and Caucasian populations; and a second branch composed of Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, as well as North Africans, Ethiopians, Saudis, and Bedouins. The tree shows a correlation between religion and the population structures in the Levant: all Jews (Sephardi and Ashkenazi) cluster in one branch; Druze from Mount Lebanon and Druze from Mount Carmel are depicted on a private branch; and Lebanese Christians form a private branch with the Christian populations of Armenia and Cyprus placing the Lebanese Muslims as an outer group. The predominantly Muslim populations of Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians cluster on branches with other Muslim populations as distant as Morocco and Yemen. So, although all Jewish groups have shared genetic origin, they have different degrees of admixture with other populations as well. Although all Jewish groups and Palestinians share common origin, the differences between them may arise not only from Jewish admixture with non Levantine/host population, but with Arabian component among Palestinians (Behar at all) or admixture (or migration) with other Arab population of Islamic faith (as found in Haber at al 2013) from as far as Morocco or Yemen. So there is no such thing as "intact Levantine population" Both Jews and Palestinians, may have common origin and admixture with different population groups. Finally returning again to Elhaik. As it s obvious the Elhaik hypothesis is considered a fringe theory based on studies that did not met the scientific criteria of population genetics and linguistics (as said by cited geneticists and linguists) [4] [5] Genetic experts from many countries and leading genetic instituions reanalyzed the Elhaik study and found that: "In our view, Das et al. have attempted to fit together a marginal and unsupported interpretation of the linguistic data with a genetic provenancing approach, GPS, that is at best only suited to inferring the most likely geographic location of modern and relatively unadmixed genomes, and tells little or nothing of population history and origin. Using explication of the GPS workflow and examples from the original GPS publication (Elhaik et al. 2014), as well as from the paper discussed here (Das et al. 2016) we find that this inference methodology provides no more information on an individual’s population origin than a few generations of family history. As opposed to GPS and similar tools (Kozlov et al. 2015) operating on highly reduced data, we advocate the use of more data-intensive and sophisticated approaches for the study of population history within the last 5,000 years: Rarecoal (Schiffels et al. 2016), ChromoPainter, fineSTRUCTURE (Lawson et al. 2012), and GLOBETROTTER (Hellenthal et al. 2014), among others... In summary, genetic studies support the traditional view on the history of the European Jewish diaspora: its Levantine origin, migration to the North Mediterranean followed by substantial local admixture, especially on the maternal side, and subsequent limited East European admixture in the Ashkenazi community (Atzmon et al. 2010; Behar et al. 2010, 2013; Costa et al. 2013; Rootsi et al. 2013)." Regarding the level of criticism of Elhaik papers, this article does not cover most of it. Marion Aptroot, a leading Yiddish expert criticized the fact that the Elhaik papers in this form were could be published by peer reviewed scientific journal " the ny peer-reviewed journal which publishes interdisciplinary research is well advised to consult reviewers from the disciplines involved. It is possible that experts for Yiddish historical linguistics were not consulted in the peer review process. Several issues concerning Yiddish that were not discussed in the paper deserve attention. " [6] she wrote. So to summarize: The Elhaik theory is not supported by any genetic or linguistic study, to the countrary it is in colison with everything that other studies and pop. genetics concluded. It is at best, overrepresented in this article. Tritomex (talk) 14:02, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
That is a childish synthesis of very complex arguments, all distorted. There are three prongs to the argument: linguistic, genetic, and historical. You are confusing all three. This page deals with genetics, and while Elhaik et al., may use Wexler, whose theory is distinctly minor, but not as you assert, universally rejected, the essence of their argument as refined in 2016-2017 is genetic, and any attempt, as here, to say that historians and linguists with no knowledge of genetics can judge the genetic hypothesis of a northern Anatolian basis for the Middle Eastern component is rubbish. What you need is (a) geneticists responding to Elhaik Das et als, recent papers, and their responses. Nothing more. This you haven't done, and so we have the attack mode tripe you keep repeating above.Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
Read references number 4 and 5. A direct response of some 35+ leading genetic experts, from 10+ countries and 15+ universities savaging Elhaik claims and discrediting the scientific approach he used: This experts includes: Pavel Flegontov, Alexei Kassian Mark G. Thomas, Valentina Fedchenko, Piya Changmai, George Starostin, Doron M. Behar, Mait Metspalu, Yael Baran, Naama M. Kopelman, Bayazit Yunusbayev, Ariella Gladstein, Shay Tzur, Havhannes Sahakyan, Ardeshir Bahmanimehr, Levon Yepiskoposyan, Kristiina Tambets, Elza K.Khusnutdinova, Aljona Kusniarevich, Oleg Balanovsky, Elena Balanovsky, Lejla Kovacevic, Damir Marjanovic, Evelin Mihailov, Anastasia Kouvatsi, Costas Traintaphyllidis, Roy J. King, Ornella Semino,Antonio Torroni, Michael F. Hammer, Ene Metspalu, Karl Skorecki, Saharon Rosset, Eran Halperin, Richard Villems, and Noah A. Rosenberg......Tritomex (talk) 17:38, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
It's called 'name dropping', the strategy of trying to impress someone, or persuade them, by stitching a list of peoples names, about whom you otherwise know nothing.
Try to keep awake when you are editing here. I wrote:
'What you need is (a) geneticists responding to Elhaik Das et als' recent papers, and their responses.'
'Recent' refers to 2016-2017
You refer me to references 4 and 5 as answering this request, without noticing that they don't.
  • (Ref.4)'The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people' was published in 2010
I.e. before Elhaik wrote his paper and
  • (Ref 5) ‘The population genetics of the Jewish people". was published online in October 2012,
I.e. before Elhaik’s first paper The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses was published (December 2012)
Winnow out the old papers and names and all you have is Flegontov Kassian; Thomas; Fedchenko; Changmai; Starostin, 'Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jews,' published in July 2016
That was answered in detail in
Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler, Mehdi Pirooznia, and Eran Elhaik Responding to an enquiry concerning the geographic population structure (GPS) approach and the origin of Ashkenazic Jews – a reply to Flegontov et al. published later that year.
So all you are doing is making a mishmash of names and articles over a 10-15 year period, most utterly unrelated to Elhaik et al., in order to imply these papers affirm the one 'truth' and if that is challenged by Elhaik later, then this means Elhaik is invalid because he ignored the already established consensus. WP:OR Jeezus! Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
You did not read anything he wrote did you. You just assumed he was bullshitting you.
(Ref.4) Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jews 2016
(Ref.5) No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews 2013
Anyway Elhaik 2016 basically dropped the Khazar thing. Elhaik 2017 similarly moves away from the turkic origin in favor of an Iranian origin. It is really hard to know what to think when hypotheses change so radically. Parts of the texts are recycled from older work. Wexler 2002 was similar making for confusing reading.
Elhaik has a hard time explaining the similarities between Jewish populations. So you get text like this.

There are good grounds, therefore, for inferring that Jews who considered themselves Ashkenazic adopted this name and spoke of their lands as Ashkenaz, since they perceived themselves as of Iranian origin. That we find varied evidence of the knowledge of Iranian language among Moroccan and Andalusian Jews and Karaites prior to the Eleventh century is a compelling point of reference to assess the shared Iranian origins of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews Elhaik 2017

Jonney2000 (talk) 21:08, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
So that makes two editors who can't read what they write or what other editors write in response. If you examine References you will see that the two papers I was referred to (4,5) refer to papers published before Elhaik went to print. The references you note are not to nos. 4,5 but to 15, and 20. As to changing conclusions, this is what open science does: Behar is on record as late as 2008 as allowing the possibility for a Khazar origin, but you guys only get hysterical because Elhaik went on and formulated a model, which he then, in response to further research and criticism, developed. I'm in the fortunate position of not 'believing' anything, unlike those, Tritomex in the forefront, who have a dogma - all Jews descend from a Levantine population, and read only to find anything that will corroborate or support that myth, ignoring all of the contradictions in the various conclusions made in 30 odd articles and books on this over the last 2 decades. Technically, if that community of like-minded experimenters were convinced of what they are variously saying (and every scientist there has changed his views over time) they would do the obvious: extract DNA from the massive skeletal remains available from digs in Israel/Palestine at strata levels from 1,000 to 1 A.D., and see what they come up with. They won't press for that obvious move (unlike Elhaik) and that is why, apart from my natural scientific contempt for any thinking that posits a concept of racial identity, I don't trust the results, which are often glossed by the most brainless embrace of Biblical writ.Nishidani (talk) 10:47, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
Nishidani, you obviously failed to read anything I wrote including the references you asked for. "Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jew" was published in 2016 a a direct response of geneticists to Elhaik papers and the "No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews" was published in 2013 as response of another group of geneticists to previous Elhaik claims. All together, almost 40 geneticist savaged the Elhaik papers. You were obviously not aware of this (based on your previous comments) Tritomex (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
I read, though it is painful construing a WP:SYNTH mishmash of cherrypicked titbits. (b)Elhaik et al., replied to the Pitfalls paper, noting its author was using the very technique of the Kets, whose validity he denied if used on the Ashkenazi (and much else). If you cite the first you are duty-bound to cite the second with equal weight. I don't believe the Jews have a Levantine, Middle Eastern, Iranian, Turkic or Khazar or any other basic origin. You can draw any inference you like from these papers, that Ashkenazi have basically an ancient (southern) European profile, for example. Like every other population group, they have mixed origins, and the genetic data can be used to place large amounts of the genome patterns sought for to establish a Jewish genetic profile in Europe or the Mediterranean as much as anywhere else. Singling out a single target zone for genesis of identity is, in the immortal words of Benny Hill's oriental gentleman, 'a road of cobbrers'. I'm not particularly worried by your taking over this page: it is so poorly written no one will read it, and if geneticists do, they would get past the first few paragraphs without laughing. Nishidani (talk) 10:47, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Tagging of this article with original research and too much Primary sources

Nishidani, could you explain your newest revert? Where are the original research in this article? (so we can remove it, or go to WP:NOR noticeboard). As for primary sources, there are as in the case of all genetic studies, many per-revived scientific sources, out of whom many are here because you added them. Tritomex (talk) 10:13, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Tritomex. There does not seem to be a problem with OR or sources in this article. If anyone disagrees, they are free to make that case but not just reinsert tags. Tags are meant to highlight issues so the issues can be solved, nothing else. Jeppiz (talk) 14:56, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
The WP:OR/WP:SYNTH is in the lead which does not reflect the studies a lead is supposed to summarize, but irons them out to obtain a foregone dogmatic conclusion. Nishidani (talk) 15:36, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

To be removed

this edit has to be reverted. Greenspan runs a company on genetics, and has a natural interest in promoting its putative results to get more business. It is just an opinion, in any case.Nishidani (talk) 11:46, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

The actual words of the source are "Greenspan said he estimates that no less than 75 percent of Ashekanzi, Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews, their ancestors came from what we call the general Middle East." As I wrote above, the statement has no scientific meaning since almost everyone alive today had an ancestor in the Middle East. It can be turned into a meaningful statement, but that would be OR. Zerotalk 12:28, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
Without taking definite side on whether the Greenspan quote should be included or not, I wish to say that it doesnt mean that everyone alive have ancestors in Middle East and I dont know from which source ZeroOOOO, took this conclusion as the wast majority of human haplogroups, both mtDNA and YDNA are not Middle Eastern in origin.Tritomex (talk) 13:32, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I don't the time or obligation to explain to you why haplotypes and ancestors are not the same thing. Almost everyone alive today had an ancestor living 2000 years ago in the Middle East, also one in Europe, also one in Africa, also one in China, etc etc. (Note that I didn't say "the same ancestor", for that see my note below to Nish's comment.) It follows with extremely high probability from the fact that people have two parents. The existence of minorities who breed only rarely with the surrounding population slows this process down only a little. Zerotalk 00:20, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I have removed this claim. As Nishidani says, there is a conflict of interest. Furthermore, a businessman speculating in a daily newspaper interview is not even close to being a reliable scientific claim. Jeppiz (talk) 14:58, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Compare

What is esp. funny about this is that the whole paper assumes Jewishness is basically genetically determined, and the dominant religious and Israeli legal definition of Jewishness, descent through the maternal line, is utterly ignored. 'In 2013, however, Richards et al. published work suggesting that an overwhelming majority of Ashkenazi Jewish maternal ancestry, estimated at "80 percent of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from women indigenous to Europe, and [only] 8 percent from the Near East, with the rest uncertain".'

If you go systematically through this stuff, what is cherrypicked is the Middle Eastern meme which overrides all of the complexities and internal contradictions in these decades of study. Here's just a sample.

  • In a 2009 study by Kopelman et al., four Jewish groups, Ashkenazi, Turkish, Moroccan and Tunisian, were found to share a common origin from the Middle East,. . Although they did find genetic similarities between Jews, especially Ashkenazi Jews, and the Adyghe people, a group from the Caucasus, whose region was formerly occupied by the Khazars, the Adyghe, living on the edge of geographical Europe, are more genetically related to Middle Easterners, including Palestinians, Bedouin, and non-Ashkenazi Jews, than to Europeans
  • In July 2010, Bray et al., using SNP microarray techniques and linkage analysis,[76] "confirms that there is a closer relationship between the Ashkenazim and several European populations (Tuscans, Italians, and French) than between the Ashkenazim and Middle Eastern populations,"
  • Zoossmann-Diskin (2010) argues, that based upon the analysis of X chromosome and seventeen autosomal markers, Eastern European Jewish populations and Jewish populations from Iran, Iraq and Yemen, do not have the same genetic origins. In particular, concerning Eastern European Jews, he believes the evidence points to a dominant amount of southern European, and specifically Italian, ancestry, which he argues is probably a result of conversions during the Roman empire
  • A 2012 study by Eran Elhaik analyzed data collected for previous studies and concluded that the DNA of Eastern and Central European Jewish populations indicates that their ancestry is "a mosaic of Caucasus, European, and Semitic ancestries.
  • A 2014 study by Carmi et al. published by Nature Communications found that the Ashkenazi Jewish population originates from an even mixture between Middle Eastern and European peoples.

These articles are generally summarized to arrive at the same conclusion, but even in the clipped summaries the contradictions in the conclusions, or lack of lucidity, is striking. You would need a geneticist with a thorough command of the discipline to make an intelligible synthesis. Our lead is WP:SYNTH that doesn't fit the complexities of the data given. In short we need to use secondary and tertiary sources of high quality for the article, and not summaries of the primary texts, which only produces the confusion you see above. Zoossmann-Diskin (2010) sees a dominant amount of southern European, and specifically Italian, ancestry, in east European Ashkenazi whereas Carmi et al.2014) stress even mixture between Middle Eastern and European peoples. In English, the difference between 'dominant' and 'even' is marked. Elhaik is targeted at length but Kopelman et al's 2010 study states similarities between a Caucasian population and the Ashkenazi, which then other studies deny etc.etc. etc. It's a nightmare.Nishidani (talk) 15:30, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

What you want with this? No one denies that Ashkenazi Jews have Southern European admixture as well. You are speaking abut cherry-picking yet out of 45 studies you choose 4. Zoosman-Diskin study is a maternal mt DNA study, as Richhards. This mt DNA studies were confronted with Behar and Fernandez studies, who found mainly Levantine mt DNA origin. The most recent of whom was the study of Fernandez. The mt debate is covered more extensively than any other issue, due to your additions in the article. Bray and Carmi both confirmed the shared Middle Eastern origin of Ashekanazi Jews (standing at 50-55%) beside South European component. The Elhaik study is a primarily linguistic study, which has been so much discredited by virtually all genetics and linguists that it is at best overrepresented in this article.Tritomex (talk) 18:12, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
You're not reading what I wrote, and Elhaik's work is not primarily linguistic - that it, indeed, perhaps the point where it is most vulnerable, but he is a technical expert in molecular genetics of recognized standing as are his associates, and the only relevant technical literature regarding his 2016-2017 work is apposite. The rest is just waffle.Nishidani (talk) 18:17, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
You above mentioned Kopelman, but you didnt even red his conclusions and results: [7]"Results: We find that the Jewish populations show a high level of genetic similarity to each other, clustering together in several types of analysis of population structure. Further, Bayesian clustering, neighbor-joining trees, and multidimensional scaling place the Jewish populations as intermediate between the non-Jewish Middle Eastern and European populations.Conclusion: These results support the view that the Jewish populations largely share a common Middle Eastern ancestry and that over their history they have undergone varying degrees of admixture with non-Jewish populations of European descent." As for Elhaik, I really have nothing more to say. 40 leading geneticists from 10+ countries and 15+ universities savaged his papers as unscientific. This all, in addition to huge number of linguists who discredited the linguistic pillar of his study. You keep coming back with him, opening new talk sections on his papers, although you got above all references. Are you trying to make some synthesis of Elhaik papers with prior non controversial studies by your own? I have really nothing more to say on this issue.Tritomex (talk) 18:29, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
I got interested in Elhaik's work when I saw a coalition of editors going berserk with a mass of silly newspaper quotes smearing him because he failed to subscribe to the official state doctrine and diaspora myth about who a Jew is. He happened to be both Jewish and Israeli so, as always, I defended his right to have his views represented neutrally on Wikipedia, and since the people attacking him were totally ignorant about Judaism and Jewish history, I wrote the Khazars article to show that this 'antisemitic' shit thrown at a decent scholar had an eminent lineage in Jewish scholarship.
You can interpret the Koppelman paper in a radically different sense. Please reread your quote. (b)40 leading geneticists from 10+ countries and 15+ universities savaged his papers as unscientific' shows you shouldn't be editing a scientific article. Have you a source for that? Some of those names Ostrer and Hammer have made notorious blunders in their work, but you reserve your enmity for Elhaik. That list is your personal arithmetic toting up the name count of co-authors of several articles who at times have arrived at different conclusions mainly from Elhaik's earliest position. Had he been 'savaged' by an entire scientific community, it would be difficult to understand why many molecular biologists of distinction (Dan Graur etc.,) collaborate with him, or why his career has not suffered, or why he is invited by colleagues, also in Israel, to present his scientific works. And, lastly, I note that geneticists are working on 'Jews' without defining the term: in Israeli law, and in Judaism, descent is on the maternal line. Joan Collins, like my relatives, is 'Jewish' on her father's side, I see from reading her autobiography yesterday, and thus is not considered a Jew by the state of Israel, nor by the rabbinate. Genetics can't establish her identity. If I approached these papers reading as an historian what all of your geneticists state en passant from books on Jewish identity I'd have a field day showing up their appalling ignorance.Nishidani (talk) 18:49, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
ps. I think it was questioned when both I and Zero stated that common middle eastern ancestry (only for Jews) is statistical nonsense. I can't speak for Zero but I posted way back in 2013 on the Ashkenazi talk pages the following technical point:

How far back must we go to find the most recent shared ancestor for – say – all Welsh people or all Japanese? And how much further is it to the last person from whom everyone alive today- Welsh, Japanese, Nigerian, or Papuan-can trace descent. . . Speculative as they are, the results are a surprise. In a population of around a thousand people everyone is likely to share the same ancestor about ten generations. Some three hundred years- ago. The figure goes up at a regular rate for larger groups, which means that almost all native Britons can trace descent from a single anonymous individual on these islands who lived in about the thirteenth century. On the global scale, universal common ancestry emerges no more than a hundred generations ago-well into the Old Testament era, perhaps, around the destruction of the First Temple in about 600 B.C.Steve Jones, Serpent's Promise: The Bible Retold as Science, Hachette 2013 p.27.

I.e. universal common ancestry statistically goes back to a period contemporary with the Babylonian exile, hence it is farcical to try and spin things to make out that this point of departure 2,600 ago applies exclusively to Jews (because that was when the coerced diasporas are said to have begun in the religious mythology) and no one else.Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews-Authors 2013 Doron M Behar1,2,*, Mait Metspalu2,3,4*, Yael Baran5, Naama M Kopelman6 , Bayazit Yunusbayev2,7, Ariella Gladstein8 , Shay Tzur1 ,Hovhannes Sahakyan2,9 ,Ardeshir Bahmanimehr9 ,Levon Yepiskoposyan9 , Kristiina Tambets2, Elza K. Khusnutdinova2,10,11, Alena Kushniarevich2 ,Oleg Balanovsky12,13 , Elena Balanovsky12,13 , Lejla Kovacevic14,15 , Damir Marjanovic 14,16, Evelin Mihailov17, Anastasia Kouvatsi18, Costas Triantaphyllidis18, Roy J King19, Ornella Semino20,21,Antonio Torroni20, Michael F Hammer8 ,Ene Metspalu3,Karl Skorecki1,22, Saharon Rosset23 ,Eran Halperin5,24,25, Richard Villems2,3,26, Noah A Rosenberg271Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa 31096, Israel 2 Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology group, Tartu 51010, Estonia 3 Department of Evolutionary Biology University of Tartu, Tartu 51010, Estonia4Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA 5The Blavatnik School of Computer Science, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel, 6 Porter School of Environmental Studies, Department of Zoology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel 7Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa 450054, Russia 8 ARL Division of Biotechnology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA 9 Laboratory of Ethnogenomics, Institute of Molecular Biology 10Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa 450054, Russia 11 Department of Genetics and Fundamental Medicine, Bashkir State University, Ufa 450074, Russia 12 Vavilov Institute for General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 190000, Russia 1 3Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow 115478, Russia 14 Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Sarajevo 71000, Bosnia and Herzegovina 15 Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo 71000, Bosnia and Herzegovina 16 Genos doo, Zagreb 10000, Croatia 17 Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu, Tartu 51010, Estonia 18 Department of Genetics, Development and Molecular Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece19 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, School of Medicine Stanford, California 94305, USA 20 Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “Lazzaro Spallanzani”,Università di Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy Centro Interdipartimentale “Studi di Genere”, Università di Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy 22 Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology]], Haifa 31096, Israel 23Department of Statistics and Operations Research, School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel 3 24 Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, George Wise Faculty of Life Science, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel 25 International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, California 94704, USA26 Estonian Academy of Sciences, Tallinn 10130, Estonia 27Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA "One recent study (Elhaik, 2013), making use of part of our data set (Behar and others, 2010), focused specifically on the Khazar hypothesis, arguing that it has strong genetic support. This claim was built on a series of analyses similar to those performed in our original study that initially reported the data. However, the reanalysis relied on the provocative assumption that the Armenians and Georgians of the South Caucasus region could serve as appropriate proxies for Khazar descendants (Elhaik, 2013). This assumption is problematic for a number of reasons. First, because of the great variety of populations in the Caucasus region and the fact that nospecific population in the region is known to represent Khazar descendants, evidence for ancestry among Caucasus populations need not reflect Khazar ancestry. Second, even if it were allowed that Caucasus affinities could represent Khazar ancestry, the use of the Armenians and Georgians as Khazar proxies is particularly poor, as they represent the southern part of the Caucasus region, while the Khazar Khaganate was centered in the North Caucasus and further to the north. Furthermore, among populations of the Caucasus, Armenians and Georgians are geographically the closest to the Middle East, and are therefore expected a priori to show the greatest genetic similarity to Middle Eastern populations. Indeed, a rather high similarity of South Caucasus populations to Middle Eastern groups was observed at the level of the whole genome in a recent study (Yunusbayev and others, 2012). Thus, any genetic similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Armenians and Georgians might merely reflect a common shared Middle Eastern ancestry component, actually providing further support to a Middle Eastern origin of Ashkenazi Jews, rather than a hint for a Khazar origin. Here, we examine Ashkenazi Jewish origins by assembling new and previously reported data from the three regions relevant to the origins of the Ashkenazi population, namely, Europe, the Middle East, and the region historically associated with the Khazar Khaganate. The data set, which contains 222 individuals from 13 populations covering the full Caucasus region, as well as 39 individuals from two populations in the region of the Khazar Khaganate located to the north of the Caucasus, is the largest available genome-wide sample set overlapping the Khazar region(Figure 1). Our study is the first to integrate genomic data spanning the Khazar region togetherw with a large collection of Jewish samples. With the inclusion of the new data from the region of the Khazar Khaganate, each of a series of approaches, including principal components analysis (PCA), spatial ancestry analysis (SPA), Bayesian clustering analysis, and analyses of genetic distance and identity-by-descent sharing continues to support the view that Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry derives from the Middle East and Europe, and not from the Caucasus region" 2.Pitfalls of the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) Approach Applied to Human Genetic History: A Case Study of Ashkenazi Jews Pavel Flegontov from Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic, A.A. Kharkevich Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Mark G. Thomas from Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, UK, Valentina Fedchenko from Saint Petersburg State University, and George Starostin from Russian State University for the Humanities,

"In our view, Das et al. have attempted to fit together a marginal and unsupported interpretation of the linguistic data with a genetic provenancing approach, GPS, that is at best only suited to inferring the most likely geographic location of modern and relatively unadmixed genomes, and tells little or nothing of population history and origin . Using explication of the GPS workflow and examples from the original GPS publication (Elhaik et al. 2014), as well as from the paper discussed here (Das et al. 2016) we find that this inference methodology provides no more information on an individual’s population origin than a few generations of family history. As opposed to GPS and similar tools (Kozlov et al. 2015) operating on highly reduced data, we advocate the use of more data-intensive and sophisticated approaches for the study of population history within the last 5,000 years: Rarecoal (Schiffels et al. 2016), ChromoPainter, fineSTRUCTURE (Lawson et al. 2012), and GLOBETROTTER (Hellenthal et al. 2014), among others... In summary, genetic studies support the traditional view on the history of the European Jewish diaspora: its Levantine origin, migration to the North Mediterranean followed by substantial local admixture, especially on the maternal side, and subsequent limited East European admixture in the Ashkenazi community (Atzmon et al. 2010; Behar et al. 2010, 2013; Costa et al. 2013; Rootsi et al. 2013). In our view, there are major conceptual problems with both the genetic and linguistic parts of the work. We argue that GPS is a provenancing tool suited to inferring the geographic region where a modern and recently unadmixed genome is most likely to arise, but is hardly suitable for admixed populations and for tracing ancestry up to 1,000 years before present, as its authors have previously claimed. Moreover, all methods of historical linguistics concur that Yiddish is a Germanic language, with no reliable evidence for Slavic, Iranian, or Turkic substrata.".

I have no more time for this, as I have to reanalyize the continues sockpuppetry at this article and steps that should be taken.Tritomex (talk) 20:44, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Tritomex, stop repeating the same post per WP:BLUDGEON. All you have above for Elhaik and co's, most recen t model is Pavel Flegontov, A.A. Kharkevich, Mark G. Thomas, Valentina Fedchenko and George Starostin querying a paper written by 4 scholars. That makes source against one, and you leave out the fact that the criticism was replied to by Elhaik. What critics may say is not the last word, as you keep asserting, if the authors criticized have replied in turn.Nishidani (talk) 09:12, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I'll add a footnote to Nish's quotation from Steve Jones. See this paper. Here n is the population size and lg denotes the logarithm to base 2.

..at about 1.77 lg n generations before the present, all partial ancestry of the current population ends, in the following sense: with high probability for large n, in each generation at least 1.77 lg n generations before the present, all individuals who have any descendants among the present-day individuals are actually ancestors of all present-day individuals.

For example, in a population of one million, it takes 35 generations (say 800 years) and in a population of ten million it takes 41 generations (say 1000 years). The stochastic model used in this paper is mathematically ideal and there is good reason to believe real populations will take a few (but only a few) extra generations for this type of complete mixing. If we only want everyone today to have some ancestor (not necessarily the same one) amongst some specified small subset of the original population, rather than to be descended from all of them, fewer generations are required. Zerotalk 00:34, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

The percents of North African Jewish ancestry

Andrew Lancaster: Could you please provide an exact source and citation for this claim "The Moroccan/Algerian, Djerban/Tunisian and Libyan subgroups of North African Jewry were found to demonstrate varying levels of Middle Eastern (40-42%), European (37-39%) and North African ancestry (20-21%)" I see this interpretation as possible original research.Tritomex (talk) 21:15, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

It had a source, and you did not delete everything from that source. Please explain a bit more. I am always worried when I see people delete one line of data from a sourced study, for obvious reasons. Have you looked at this source?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:54, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster, I think this claim was inserted few months ago. The source refers to entire Campbell at al study, (added by myself years ago) without any specific citation.[8], I do not find this claim in the source. The rest does correspond with the reference given.Tritomex (talk) 00:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I guess you looked at the appendices? I just looked but I also do not find those numbers, at least in a straightforward way, so it does look like maybe someone did their own interpretation. Thanks for going through these steps, because it is very hard to monitor genetics articles. When people register the reasoning it helps.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:13, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Andrew Lancaster. I found smth. Probably someone tried to translate this appendix [9] referring to comparison of genome between Jewish, Moroccan, Basque and Palestinian population being equivalent to the percentage of Middle Eastern, European and North African origin, with its own reading of numbers (which are not stated precisely in the diagram) This is in my opinion original research, because all three groups have components of genome that "were labeled" as Middle Eastern, European and North African in different rate. Referring to the diagram, the authors wrote "Jewish populations exhibit increased European and decreased Maghrebi ancestry compared with corresponding non-Jewish groups. The Middle Eastern component is comparable across all groups." The point of original research is that although this diagram shows comparable Middle Eastern component across all groups with decreased North African and increased European component among north African Jewish groups, (which could be mentioned by precise quote) this percentages are not equivalent to the overall Middle Eastern, European and North African origin, nor are as such presented in the study or its results. For example, North Africans may have Middle Eastern contribution, that may date from pre-historic migrations, so the 30% of Middle Eastern component among North Africans, does not necessary means that they have 30% Middle Eastern origin. As the authors nowhere stated this numbers in the study, nor they have made such conclusions, presenting them in this way would amount to WP:OR. As this is primary source, conclusions and claims have to be taken from the abstract or the results of the study (and not in self made calculations of diagrams given in appendix) and in a straightforward way, as presented by authors themselves.Tritomex (talk) 12:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
In cases like that a good solution is often to rewrite the claim, and explain what the original source really said, "in gory detail". I do not say this to be sarcastic but because this type of field which relies on lots of unreviewed secondary literature is hard to do in any other way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

RfC

Please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RfC:Genetics_references Jytdog (talk) 17:05, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Asking for help from members of the inactive project Human Genetic History who have edited in the last month

@JWB, Jheald, Nagelfar, DGG, Dbachmann, Jingiby, Andrew Lancaster, Grant65, and SMcCandlish: sorry to be a pain, but as Skllagyook was told that just pinging two editors was canvassing, and the project itself seems defunct, I'm doing this to help with the dispute above. Don't bother to join in if you don't want to. It's not really my field. Doug Weller talk 15:22, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Thank you. Skllagyook (talk) 15:35, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: it is on my watchlist and I worked on this Elhaik question in the past (which we would have hoped would have moved on with new publications etc). From memory a messy compromise was least worst, and part of the reason this is often needed with these human population genetics articles is that the field is (1) so new (with few reviews of the field we can cite, just lots of individual study results) and (2) so multidisciplinary (raising questions of whether for example a geneticist is qualified to talk about history etc). So this probably requires a bit of time. I will look at it to see if I can help.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I thought you might have, I'm sure I recall discussions about him before. Doug Weller talk 16:17, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
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