DNA Ancestry Testing

I think the article, The Science and Business of Genetic Ancestry Testing, has done a great job at explaining both the advantages and disadvantages of genetic ancestry testing.

As the author says, genetic ancestry testing might satisfy people's curiosity to know more about their origins and lineage, but at the same time, it is imperative to take this more seriously in that the testing might affect people psychologically and it doesn't represent the whole range of DNAs since it only identifies about 10,000 to 20,000 samples in company's databases.

I understand that people sometimes get curious and thus want to know more about their ethnicity. But I am not sure if this is really something that people can get an easy access to out of mere curiosity. When did using genetic information become so easy to the point where regular people can use it to trace their origins?  I think people should think of the test in a more serious way.

Defining one's race and ethnicity is not that simple. It's not something that can be fully explained by genetics. There are a lot more cultural and social determinants of race and ethnicity, because these socio-environmental factors play a pivotal role in shaping one's identity. You have to consider where you have grown up, your eating habit, with whom you have spent your life time, and so on.

But the thing is when it comes to this kind of testing, regular people get easily lured into it. I think this is because when something looks well-explained with all those professional jargon,  fancy phrases and pictures, in this case scientific terminology and pictures of DNAs and doctors in scrubs, people tend to have a misleading impression of it. Even before they probe into it deeply, they unconsciously start to think that it is something right. Many people don't even question it.

And so I tried to google and visit several sites of genetic ancestry testing. And one of the sites, http://www.dnaancestryproject.com/ydna_intro_ancestry.php, has an image of African indigenous people on its main page. I think this also explains how and why the testing attracts people. By displaying exotic images, the company might try to ignite people's curiosity or desire to find out their ancestry line, making them think that there might be some connections between them and these exotic people living in the other parts of the world. But the problem is it's not as simple as it seems.