Talk:Genetic studies of Jews: Difference between revisions

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The claim Pushtuhs/Pathans/Pashtuns have genetic similarity to Ashkenazi as based on G2c

Claim on Wiki Page:

'Furthermore, 7%[38][45] of Ashkenazi Jews have the haplogroup G2c, which is found mainly among the Pashtuns and on a lower scale among all major Jewish groups, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Behar et al. suggest that those haplogroups are minor Ashkenazi founding lineages.[38]'

I have checked both papers suppsedly claiming this, specifically of Pashtun G2c rate as compared to the mentioned populations. It is not in the paper at all. If there is...if i have missed something, please correct me and provide a clearer source to this while citing.

Omar Kharoti. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.222.168.234 (talk) 09:15, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Request for discussion

@Andromedean and Skllagyook: of course you can both tell me to get lost but as someone who has worked on the article, and who has been watching this situation without concentrating, I am willing to try to work with both of you. It would be best if we can get some sort of understandings which will be stable for a few more years. Obviously there are lots of potential things to discuss, but I propose we aim to define disagreements first, without too many words. Could I ask you to start by defining specific change proposal/dispute is currently the most controversial? Is there only one, and is that only to do with Elhaik? I am hoping that you can keep this first answer down to 20 words or so each, because it is just a start.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: Hello. To me the article seems better as is, with the controversial proposal being the recent Elhaik's addition added by Andromedean. I tried to explain my reasoning (in several messages) here:[[1]]). Thank you for your help in this matter. Skllagyook (talk) 20:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Since the genetic theories initially advanced by Elhaik, and later by Elhaik and Wexler, are fringe minority theories, I agree with the clear improvements to the article that have been made by User:Skllagyook. Thank you. warshy ^(¥¥) 21:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes last I worked on this article Elhaik was already a difficult issue. Is it a disagreement about mentioning at all, or just how much to mention?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:01, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

This is the only debated addition? If so then, a lot of it does not even seem to be citing Elhaik directly. One of the problems we always had with Elhaik is that his own publications were not coming through the traditional peer review system. Two of the newer articles are now through open access journals and so theoretically they had some community review, but to be honest I am not sure what they means in practice in each case. Potentially we could raise those at WP:RSN to see how seriously we should see that. But it does not seem to be the issue here with the debated addition? My feeling was, when Elhaik first came up, that the sourcing was weak, but the main concern was censoring all mention of his work, because it has some WP:NOTE of its own. If we remove mention of such theories then readers will misunderstand and see WP as censoring. It is good to read, if I understand correctly, that more reviews of his work have also been published now.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:18, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: I appologize for the length of this response (I just want to make sure to include all important details). My issue is with the recent edit whose diff you linked above, which seems to me undue. Elhaik's various studies are/were already mentioned in that section (some with a fair amount of detail), with the most recent (2017) study briefly mentioned as well in a sentence that says: "In 2017, the same authors further supported a non-Levantine origin of Ashkenazi Jews claiming that "Overall, the combined results (of linguistics study and GPS tool) are in a strong agreement with the predictions of the Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis and rule out an ancient Levantine origin for AJs, which is predominant among modern-day Levantine populations (e.g., Bedouins and Palestinians)." It does not seem to me that there there is an issue in the current version of censoring all mention if his work. The current version (that I restored) seems to be a version that vas stable and mentioned with due weight the relevant hypotheses.

It seems to me that the recent addition by Andromedean (which goes into more detail over Elhaik's 2017 conclusions and included additional refs from journalistic articles by or about Elhaik) was undue and gave the misleading impression that Elhaik's position is more mainstream, authoritative, and representative of recent research on the topic than it is, and thus seeming to raise the issue of WP:UNDUE. My objections are based on the fact that Elhaik's hypotheses represent a very small minority opinion and also have a history of being criticisized by many researchers (both geneticists, and those from relevant disciplines such as history and linguistics - and his hypothesis regrading the origin of the Ashkenazi jews is radically at odds with the mainstream opinion and majority view in all of those disciplines), in addition to the recent studies' co-authorship by the fringe Linguist Paul Wexler. Elhaik has been criticized repeatedly for his methods and this addition seems to me to be case of WP:FALSEBALANCE, and since his conclusions are in drastic contrast to the majority opinion and consensus on the subject (which is that most Jewish groups, including the Ashkenazi, share a significant component of common Middle Eastern ancestry derived from the Levant, usually in addition to significant non-Levantine admixture from host populations) this seems to be another reason that such an addition is misrepresentative and misleading and also seems to into the fourth indicator of WP:REDFLAG "Claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living people..."

It is not that WP should censor the position (I feel that it already has due representation), but rather that I worry about giving it undue prominence, which it very much seems to me that Andromedean's addition did.

"if I understand correctly, that more reviews of his work have also been published now."

As far as I know that is not the case. I do not believe there have been scientific reviews of Elhaik's conclusions that have reviewed them favorably, or very few (at any rate, those of which I am aware have been critical - some are noted in the article). At any rate, there do not seem to have been scientific reviews of his most recent 2017 study, and papers that cite it seem to be written by members of Elhaik's group of co-authors - i.e people that were co-authors of the Elhaik study/studies (such as Das), sometimes including Elhaik himself. It seems to me that a view as controversial and strongly contrasting with the majority should (for one) have more in the way of review before being given additional WP:WEIGHT in this article. (More details re my concerns are in my messages in the "Recent addition" topic/section on this Talk page.) Skllagyook (talk) 00:01, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

OK, to me then it seems like the system is working, so to speak. All of that reasoning seems correct to me. I think DGG's remarks below are pretty close to my own impression.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:14, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The entire recent studies section is not really a good idea, lending itself all too easily to overemphasis, . The material should be covered in the sections to which they pertain. We write connected articles discussing the subject systematically , not main articles with supplementary addenda.

Anywhere in the article, Elhaik is fringe. Their publications need to be mentioned, and a single fairly short paragraph would do it, evenly divided between their view and the rebuttal. Devoting too much space to the rebuttal would give the incorrect appearance that their work is has any real support, and the section on it needs to be distinguished from the ones discussing the science. I've seen their work previously--I'm basing what I say on their publications, not the above discussion. The GPS tool is irrelevant when actual biological studies exist, and the great majority of the studies contradict their selected data; I would not use the phrase "[their study] found that ..." but "[their study] proposed that .... ". Though I am not a linguist, the geographical and linguistic arguments based on the word "Askenaz" seem laughable. DGG ( talk ) 06:08, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster (talk) Thanks for your advice. Let me try to summarise my concerns concisely.

1) We should be reflecting the range of views of researchers on this topic as shown in this graphic, this is not just about Elheik. https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/290345/fgene-08-00101-HTML/image_m/fgene-08-00101-g001.jpg

2) the academic behaviour and political views of Ostrer need to be mentioned in the article, as these could potentially bias his work. He's not sharing his data with those who don't have his political views, and has also stated land disputes should be based on genetic inheritance.

3) whilst it's relatively straightforward to show a vague genetic link of Jews to a broad area of the ancient civilised world (such as the middle East) the article needs to compare this to any link heterogeneous groups such as Europeans in general have with the same area. Is this sufficiently clear? Andromedean (talk) 09:19, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Andromedean, About 1 We cannot trust this graph as it opinion piece[2] written by Elhiak himself to promote his fringe views.

2)This article is not about politics but about genetic studies so it would off topic to mention it here anyhow I doubt you have WP:RS about this.Not to mention that Elhiak himself have political views --Shrike (talk) 09:51, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean: I think it is important to note that Elhaik's views, though controversial, are being mentioned quite a lot. Concerning vague connections etc, I have not double checked for this discussion but I think for example the Ashkenazi link to Italy is quite strong, and not really supporting any particular theory? Because there is a strong link also, last I heard, between Italy and the Levant, this can indeed be something important. All of that type of discussion is indeed important. However, the Elhaik theory, IIRC is actually ignoring a lot of that and trying to explain apparent genetic affiliations connections to the north Middle East and Caucasus as a proxy for Khazars? So there are quite a few steps to that position also. I am not even sure that other researchers see a clear independent link to the northern Middle East (separate from other possible links including one via Italy)? But even if they did, it is not clear why these should be seen as Khazar proxies?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:17, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean: and @Andrew Lancaster:. I replied to some of those points (just raised above by Andromedean) before in the previous "Recent addition" topic.

(to Andromedean): Regarding the graph link you have posted above, as previously memtioned, that graphic which comes from Elhaik's most recent study, (though it did not seem to include all research to date such as that by Behar et al.) nonetheless shows that the majority of research has found a significant proportion of Levantine autosomal ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews, generally around 60-40% (Behar et al. also found similar results). The exception(s) to that are the research labeled in the graph as "Das", which is also co-authored by Elhaik - i.e. it/"Das" is the same recent Elhaik et al. research we are discussing (in which Das was also a co-author). The Costa (2013) study is (as mentioned) only on maternal lineages rather than on autosomal dna (positing that those lineages in the Ashkenazi are mostly European with their paternal lineages being mostly Middle Eastern (Also, Fernandez et al. 2014 tentatively suggested that some common Askenazi maternal lineages might be Levantine). And, though some question its findings re maternal lineages (the reaction from notable researchers has been varied as the article shows), like most research, Costa et al. posits that the European admixture in Ashkenazi Jews is mostly Italian/southern European and central European as per the mainstream hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestral migration - i.e. positing that the migration route went from the Near East/Levant to Italy to central Europe to eastern Europe - rather than the "through the Caucasus to eastern europe and then westward" hypothesis of Ashkenazi migration held by Elhaik et al. which is fringe/not mainstream. Skllagyook (talk) 09:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

(also as written before) The range of views is represented according to the principle of WP:WEIGHT. Giving more attention to Elhaik et al. than is currently would be an instance of WP:FALSEBALANCE and a non-neutral representation of the status of his research and general state of research on the topic.

You (Andromedean) wrote:

"Ostrer...has also stated land disputes should be based on genetic inheritance."

I have not been able to find a source for this, and asked you for one when you stated this earlier in the previous discussion. As far as know, he does not seem to have made that statement. Skllagyook (talk) 09:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Every year there are renewed efforts by at least 10 socks (that were caught during this years and sent to SPI) to create WP:FALSEBALANCE and to present the rapidly changing fringe theories of Elhaik and Wexler that were refuted by dozens of world leading geneticists, linguists and archaeologists as falls. Tens of pages of this talk page are full of citations, references and sources. All socks and their patterns of pulling laughable Elhaik theories into this article could be red on this talk pages.Tritomex (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I notice it also, but I suggest that (a) some types of fringe theories should be mentioned because notable (and it also reduces the problem with socks and other policy violating efforts) and (b) what this means in a case like this is that we should try to get an experienced editor watching for new publications, and adapting the article early in a fair and policy consistent way, before a storm hits.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:11, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Skllagyook: just to be clear, what you call an opinion piece is published in https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2017.00101/full and fully referenced. Nine genomic estimates of the Levantine ancestry in AJs (2009–2017) (Kopelman et al., 2009; Need et al., 2009; Tian et al., 2009; Atzmon et al., 2010; Costa et al., 2013; Elhaik, 2013; Carmi et al., 2014; Das et al., 2016; Xue et al., 2017)

Criticism of Ostrer's reluctance to share data is here https://forward.com/news/israel/175912/jews-a-race-genetic-theory-comes-under-fierce-atta/ :::::Ostrer's proposal that land disputes in the Middle East should be decided by the proportion of Middle Eastern ancestry in one's genome is in Ostrer H. (2012). Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]

PS who are the Sock Puppets @Tritomex:is referring to? It's the second time this inference has been made. State your sources/names so the accusations can be investigated. All I can see on this talk page is an echo chamber which might explain how the article got into the state it has.Andromedean (talk) 11:33, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

There's many references to language in the article, which suggests supporting evidence isn't off bounds. In which case why is there no discussion of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People by Shlomo Sand In it he suggests

it is likely that the ancestry of most contemporary Jews stems mainly from outside the Land of Israel and that a "nation-race" of Jews with a common origin never existed, and that just as most Christians and Muslims are the progeny of converted people, not of the first Christians and Muslims, Jews are also descended from converts.

also The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology by Nadia Abu El–haj https://www.amazon.co.uk/Genealogical-Science-Politics-Epistemology-Practices/dp/0226201406y In this she

explores novel cultural and political practices that are emerging as genetic history's claims and "facts" circulate in the public domain, going on to illustrate how this historical science is intrinsically entangled with cultural imaginations and political commitments...through her focus on the history of projects of Jewish self-fashioning that have taken place on the terrain of the biological sciences, "The Genealogical Science" analyzes genetic history as the latest iteration of a cultural and political practice now over a century old.

These works might provide some perspective to the core genetic claims Andromedean (talk) 12:54, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean: please try to keep comments shorter. Sands, who you mention, is clearly also controversial, but also notable? When a controversy is notable enough to be mentioned in newspapers etc, we should mention it. But this is different from saying that we should treat it as a widely accepted mainstream position in the field of human population genetics.

I suppose a second issue in what you say could be that Ostrer and Behar are also controversial, and for example this may be sourceable in newspapers etc? That's possible, and potentially that can be something to discuss, if you could find strong critical sources (e.g. not tabloids). In fact much of human population genetics research is still a bit new and controversial in some of its conclusions.

On the other hand, that would still only be for a side discussion I think, because Behar is seen by the field itself as mainstream as far as I can see, and so in as much as we report upon that field, we have to pay attention to what the experts in that field think is mainstream and fringe. (I don't think we've found specialist geneticist criticism of Behar etc?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:25, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster:This criticism of Ostrer can be found in the main Wikipedia article about him, so his controversial behaviour is clearly suitable for inclusion. In addition: he's been criticised as working too hard on trying to proove that Jews are biologically different than non-Jews. "three biological myths" race, ancestry, ethnicity (Corcos A 2018)

Note, I'm not advocating a pro Elhaik or anti-Ostrer view position here. The article needs to explain there are many POV on this issue which questions the simplistic notion of Jews being descended from the Israelites. For example:

Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent - (Raphael Falk et al, 2014 Frontiers in Genetics) also Falk ascribed only 50% of Middle Eastern ancestry to Jews compared to 56-59% of non-Jews (Atzmon, G.L. HaoI. Pe’er et al. 2010. American Journal of Human Genetics)

Would this place Falk and Atzman in what adherents of this article define as 'fringe'? At this rate we might have more experts in the fringe than the mainstream! Andromedean (talk) 13:03, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

But it is not only Ostrer who is in disagreement of Elhaik?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:16, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean: What you have cited is not in agreement with Elhaik and is very different from his proposal. It is not about Jews being genetically unique per se, and that is not what the artickle states; it states (as the majority if studies do) that most Jewish groups share a significant component of common ancestry traced to the Levant (as well as non Levantine admixture). Many non Jewish groups also have Levantine ancestry (Samaritans, Druze, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Cypriots, etc.). Falk acknowledges a considerable consanguinity among Jewish groups as well as/despite heterogeneity due to their various types of non-Levantine admixture. Hao and Aztmon find significant common Middle Eastern ancestry in Jews despite their also having considerable other admixture (and I believe Hao and Atzmon are already included on this page). This is in contrast to Elhaik who claims Ashkenazi Jews are only 3% Levantine which is much more radical and at odds with the consensus than any other study mentioned.

You mentioned Hao and Atzmon. Here is a link to their study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032072/

From Hao and Atzmon:

"In this study, Jewish populations from the major Jewish Diaspora groups—Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi—formed a distinctive population cluster by PCA analysis, albeit one that is closely related to European and Middle Eastern, non-Jewish populations."

"Two major differences among the populations in this study were the high degree of European admixture (30%–60%) among the Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Italian, and Syrian Jews and the genetic proximity of these populations to each other compared to their proximity to Iranian and Iraqi Jews. This time of a split between Middle Eastern Iraqi and Iranian Jews and European/Syrian Jews, calculated by simulation and comparison of length distributions of IBD segments, is 100–150 generations, compatible with a historical divide that is reported to have occurred more than 2500 years ago.2,5 "

As Andrew Lancaster mentioned, there are other studies that (the majority) disagree with Elhaik. I noted and described some (e.g. Kopelman, Hammer, Atzmon, Moorjani, Behar, Shai Carmi) in my first reply to you in the "Recent addition" topic on this page. It is very far from the case that more experts are in the camp/on the side of Elhaik.

Regarding your statement that "Falk ascribed only 50% of Middle Eastern ancestry to Jews compared to 56-59% of non-Jews" I cannot find that anywhere in either Falk or Atzmon (And which non-Jews? This would not seem to make sense, unless perhaps they mean a group of Middle Eastern non-Jews?). Where in the source does that statement appear (quote?). (Though roughly 50% Middle Eastern ancestry, give or take, is estimated for the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews in some studies.)

Also, Alain F. Corcos, "A. (Corcos 2018), is not a geneticist/not a specialist in the field, but a botanist. See: [[3]], and at any rate does not seem to dispute the finding that Jewish groups share a significant partial common Middle Eastern ancestry. Skllagyook (talk) 13:35, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@Skllagyook I think you seem keen to be keen to frame this as Elhaik verses the rest who all agree with one another. I've already said I'm not trying to promote anyone's view, merely point out there are multiple differences of opinion between various groups. For example: how does the article reflect Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent Falk concludes: "there is no Jewish genotype to identify"- (Raphael Falk et al, 2014 Frontiers in Genetics). I would never be able to reconcile this with the article which seems too imply the opposite. Can you show me which section in the article represents this view?Andromedean (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean: You wrote: "I think you seem keen to be keen to frame this as Elhaik verses the rest who all agree with one another."

That is not what I said. There is a range of views (which are not allways exactly in agreement), but the majority agree that most Jewish groups (are of mixed ancestry) and share both significant Levantine components and significant non-Levantine components (with some variation of opinion regarding exactly how much of each and regarding things such as the origins of some maternal lineages). Elhaik's view that Ashkenazi (and other Jews) have almost no Levantine ancestry at all is a strongly divergent view, along with historical claims re their migration route that are not mainstream (from a researcher, Elhaik, with a history of being criticized by other experts - including by leading experts - , and a linguist, Wexler, who is largely dismissed by the field). I (and now others) explained this previously.

Again, there is a difference between the idea that there is a partial common Levantine ancestry among most Jewish groups (along with other ancestry - making Jewish groups both related and also different from each other/heterogenous) and claiming that all Jewish groups are fully genetically unique among all others in the world (including even non-Jewish Levantines and non-Jews with Levantine ancestry) and allways identifiable with one single genotype. The first idea is the majority/consensus view (reflected in the article) and the second is a different idea that is not reflected in the article. There is evidence of a common Levantine ancestry component among Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and most Mizrahi groups that is dated by some research to around the time of the early diaspora (around 2,500 years ago) and thought to derive from ancient Israel/Judea. But this ancestry would be similar to that found in other Levantines (ancient Israelites would have been extremely similar genetically to other Levantines such as the Canaanites and Phoenicians from Judea/Palestine and Lebanon - the Israelites/Judeans themselves were a Canaanite group in their ethno-linguistic origin), and it is combined with different kinds of other ancestry in each Jewish group (with European ancestry in the case of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi). This is not the same as a single homogeneous Jewish genotype.

Somewhat similarly, the Roma and Sinti "Gypsy" groups of Europe (another diaspora group) have a partial northwest Indian ancestry shared with certain groups in northwest India, as well as with other "Gypsy" groups of the Middle East such as the Dom and Lom who are also of partly northwest Indian descent (and these groups also have also have other significant, sometimes non-shared, admixture from non-Indian host populations). However that would not really mean there is a single Roma or "Gypsy" genotype. Skllagyook (talk) 21:38, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Add this

Need help editing lol, this study by Kopelman et al. in 2009 should be added he states: In several analyses, the population in the study that is most similar to the Jewish populations is the Palestinian population. This result is reflected by the fact that for K = 5, Bayesian clustering with Structure assigns the Jewish populations and the Palestinians to the same cluster (Figure ​(Figure2),2), and by the relatively close placement of the Palestinians and the Jewish populations in MDS plots of individual distances (Figure ​(Figure5).5). This genetic similarity, which is supported by several previous studies [12,65,66], is compatible with a similar Middle Eastern origin of the Jewish populations and the Palestinians. WikiPerson28828292929 (talk) 19:36, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Should be added in the Comparison with the genetic inheritance of non-Jewish populations at the levantine section WikiPerson28828292929 (talk) 19:37, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean: Are modern day Jews a "race" or not a "race"? A new paper, The Geography of Jewish Ethnogenesis (2019), is an overview of Genetic Studies on Jews, and supports the Elhaik research that indicates that most modern day Jews and their ancestors are the descendants of converts to Judaism from outside of the Levant, and does not support the Ostrer camp old "mainstream" research that indicates that most modern day Jews and their ancestors are the descendants of the Ancient Hebrew from the Levant.

Ostrer and his old "mainstream" camp say Jews are a "race", they are mostly the descendants of the Ancient Hebrew from the Levant/Canaan/Palestine, Elhaik, Yardumian, and Schurr say no, Jews are not a "race" but are mostly converts to Judaism from outside the Levant/Canaan/Palestine, which calls into question a key justification for Israel's right to exist in Palestine, DNA.

See ... http://www.biblaridion.info/video/ethnogenesis.pdf See ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Eran_Elhaik

The paper opens with this statement "A reevaluation of the anthropological genetics literature on Jewish populations reveals them not simply to be a body of genetically related people descending from a small group of common ancestors, but rather a “mosaic” of peoples of diverse origins."

And concludes with this statement "Stated differently, if we are to accept that Jewish ethnogenesis was a complex and multicentered process—with contributions from diverse Western Asian and autochthonous European populations and thus taking place more in the “diaspora” than in the “homeland”—then we must also reconsider the historical geography of the Jewish diaspora and homeland." SteveBenassi (talk) 03:00, 25 May 2021 (UTC)