Pocahontas is .09% Peruvian not Cherokee Per Boston Globe

I actually read the Boston Globe article and learned a few things. Most significantly, Pochahontas's DNA wasn't actually compared to a Native American Tribe. Instead, she sent it to an academic "expert" (as opposed to a lab with some kind of published and approved accuracy standards) who winged it with some South Americans.

It is almost as if the Native Americans are worried people may falsely appropriate and exploit their heritage to gain things like professorships, scholarships and other affirmative action programs designed to equal out the history of discrimination against them, so they don't actually contribute DNA to databases.

quote:

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Detecting DNA for Native Americans is particularly tricky because there is an absence of Native American DNA available for comparison.

This is in part because Native American leaders have asked tribal members not to participate in genetic databases. “The tribes have felt they have been exploited,” explained Lawrence Brody, a senior investigator with the Medical Genomics and Metabolic Genetics Branch at the National Institutes of Health.

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As a result, the DNA in the comparison used in Pocahontas' test was actually South American (Mexican, Peruvian, and Columbian).

Interestingly, she didn't use a commercial service - but instead went to a University "expert," where goodness knows there is no political bias.

Reading this article makes me realize that Elizabeth Warren is even more full of shite than we anticipated.

Boston Globe Article