Talk:Genetic studies of Jews/Archive 7

Archive 1

←

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

Archive 9

Archive 10

Recent Addition

@Andromedean: Regarding your new addition, I explained my reasons for its removal in the notes. I will try to explain again. I am not sure what you mean by "two approaches reached the same conclusion. Elhaik have produced several studies whose methods have been criticized by many other researchers. His most recent (2017) study conclusions of Elhailk is already represented in the section "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)." What you have added are journalistic sources (not "reliable sources" acceptable as refs/WP:RS) discussing the same study (one was a non-peer-reviewed article by Elhaik on a - seemingly non mainstream - blog or site). In that study, Elhaik attempts to calculate Levantine ancestry by using the dna of peoples living in the Levant in the epipalaeolothic and mesolithic (Natufians) and neolithic (though recent studies have shown that Levantine peoples of that period were not genetically equivalent to those of later periods - like the Bronze or Iron ages - such as the Israelites and similar groups). In that study, Elhaik also claims that the maternal line of Ashkenazi Jews is "almost entirely European", but this is not from his own analysis. It is derived/referenced from the findings of the Richards et al 2013 et al. study which is mentioned and cited on this page in the maternal lineages section (and which stated that most Ashkenazi maternal lineages were European and most Ashkenazi paternal lineages were Middle Eastern (the later 2014 Fernandez et al study on the other hand, has proposed that a significant proportion of Ashkenazi maternal lineages, the K lineages, may be Levantine - with many of the rest possibly being European).

Elhaik has a history of using methods that have been criticized and considered dubious by other researchers from various fields (genetics, history, linguistics), as the "Recent studies" section makes clear. Thus WP:REDFLAG also seems to apply, particularly the fourth "reflag" listed: "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. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them." The view that Ashkenazi Jews (or Mesopotamian Jews) lack significant Levantine ancestry is a minority view contradicting the majority of research (most of which has found evidence of a significant Levantine component in several Jewish groups including the Ashkenazi - Behar et al. 2013 for instance, in response to an earlier study by Elkaik, found no evidence of a Caucasian, Armenian, or East Anatolian origin in the Ashkenazi Jews and concluded that they were of European and Middle Eastern origin with affinities to both Levantines and southern Europeans. Xue and Shai Carmi et al. 2017 found similar results). As explained previously in the edit notes, an additional and detailed addition dedicated to/describing Elhaik's research /statements is WP:UNDUE and unnecessary, misleadingly gives the impression that his research represents the latest/most authoritative/reliable evidence on the subject of Jewish genetics, and seems to violate WP:WEIGHT. The majority of research majorly conflicts with his findings. His most recent study is cited mainly by his and his group rather than other unassociated researchers (a study's citations, as well as it's treatment in secondary sources, are one measure/indication of it's notability and its qualification re WP:WEIGHT). Given his opposition to the general consensus of the subject and the history of seemingly wide objections to his propositions and methods, it seems that WP:FRINGE may also apply. Skllagyook (talk) 13:13, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I hope we dont have a 10 th case of Historiclover4 sock here, because there are indications that this is the case. If this continues, it will go to SPI.Tritomex (talk) 15:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

My concerns about this article (and related ones) go much further than sidelining a highly qualified professional researcher in this field. It presents the Jewish Levantine origin hypothesis as mainstream and any other as fringe. This simply isn't true. In fact there are probably more articles in the last 5 years which challenge this view than support it. For example:

There are many more academics who agree with Elhaik such as Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler and Mehdi Pirooznia eg. Genes 2018, 9(12), 625; https://doi.org/10.3390/genes9120625

Marta D. Costa et al says the origin of Ashkenazi Jews remains highly controversial. Like Judaism, mitochondrial DNA is passed along the maternal line. Thus the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Levant, as commonly supposed, nor recruited in the Caucasus, as sometimes suggested, but assimilated within Europe. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3543

Similarly Richards et al says: more than 80% of Ashkenazi mtDNAs had their origins thousands of years ago in Western Europe, during or before Biblical times—and in some cases even before farming came to that part of the continent some 7500 years ago. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/10/did-modern-jews-originate-italy

Some researchers are sceptical of all attempts to identify ancient Jewish genotypes. In 2015 Raphael Falk wrote a paper called 'Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent' he went on: In recent decades ever-increasing efforts and ingenuity were invested in identifying Biblical Israelite genotypic common denominators....Thus, in spite of considerable consanguinity, there is no Jewish genotype to identify. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301023/

With regard to Israelite DNA, Elhaik has compared DNA from the first century AD with modern day Jewish people as well as more ancient sources. Extracting DNA from ancient remains amd directly comparing them with modern-day Jews is different than earlier approaches, so if similar conclusions are found between these methods this should provide confidence to both sets of findings.

The 'Levantine supporters' have also had their views criticised as being politically motivated. This may be the case with Ostrer who refuses to provide information on his studies to those he believes have a "defamatory nature toward the Jewish people”. Catherine DeAngelis, who edited the Journal of the American Medical Association for a decade says about him “What he does is set himself up for criticism: Wait a minute. What’s this guy trying to hide?” https://forward.com/news/israel/175912/jews-a-race-genetic-theory-comes-under-fierce-atta/

Ostrer also states "The political stakes in genetic analysis are high".

All this information isn't made clear in the article. Therefore, I suggest it is rewritten to include several POVs on this subject, especially those expressed more recently so it doesn't conflict with Wikipedia's guidelines, particularly "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV)"

PS I also believe the references I used conform to Wikipedia's standards. Yet I see politically biased newspapers are referenced in the main article. I suggest you read The Conversation's standards and policies before criticising them https://theconversation.com/uk/charter https://theconversation.com/uk/who-we-are Andromedean (talk) 22:51, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean: It is seemongly not the case that many researchers support Elhaik et al.'s hypothesis. And said position is currently a small minority one and does not seem to warrant more representation or weight in the article than it currently has. Your comparison of Elhaiks's position with the paper by D. Costa, Richards et al. is not apt in this case.

You wrote:

"Marta D. Costa et al says ...the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Levant, as commonly supposed, nor recruited in the Caucasus, as sometimes suggested, but assimilated within Europe."

The D. Costa study posits that the maternal line of Ashkenazi Jews is mostly European (but not the paternal line) and does not concern autosomal dna. It does not posit that the Ashkenazi lack significant Levantine ancestry. The Costa study (which posits a mostly southern European/Italian and west/central Europeam ancestry, mostly in the maternal line and Middle Eastern ancestry in the paternal line) is very distinct from the position of Elhaik (that the Ashkenazi Jews are of Turkic, Anatolian, Iranian, and Slavic origin and entered Europe via the Caucasus and moved west from Eastern Europe - which is in contradiction to the majority view, not only in population genetics, but also history and linguistics). In addition, the Costa study is already included in the mtdna section, and is also cited in the lede where it is mentioned that Ashkenazi Jews have European admixture (the possible European origin of much if their maternal lines is also mentioned in the lede and thus is already proportionally and duly represented in the article including in the Maternal lineages section).

The lede says: "In the case of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews (in particular Moroccan Jews), who are closely related, the source of non-Jewish admixture is mainly southern European. Behar and colleagues have remarked on an especially close relationship between Ashkenazi Jews and modern Italians."

"You wrote: "Similarly Richards et al says: more than 80% of Ashkenazi mtDNAs had their origins thousands of years ago in Western Europe..."

"The Richards study is the same study as the D. Costa study. Richards is a co-author. They are not two separate studies. They propose a mostly mixed Italian/west-central European origin for Ashkenazi maternal lineages (and a mostly Middle eastern origin for their paternal lineages)

Despite some uncertainty and disagreement from some researchers, the reception to the Costa, Richards, et al. study does not seem to have been similar to that to Elhaik's. The Costa, Richards et al. study (whether or not a minority position) is fairly mainstream and seemingly considered plausible by some notable scholars (some of whom are quoted in the article in the "Maternal line" section: Behar and Skorecki criticized the study, Ostrer and Antonio Torroni thought it was "reasonable", and "convincing" respectively, and David B. Goldstein was uncertain.). The Richards, Costa et al. study is also still consistent with what is generally believed regarding the migration route of the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews (from the Middle East to Italy/southern Europe, to western/central Europe, and then finally to eastern Europe). Though the study's conclusion regarding maternal lineages was made somewhat more uncertain by The Fernandez et al. 2014 study's (albeit inconclusive) suggestion that the common Ashkenazi maternal K lineages (comprising about 30-40% of the Ashkenazi maternal line) might be Levantine ([[1]].

The debate regarding the origins of Ashkenazi maternal lineages is mainstream (with opinions ranging from largely Levantine, to mainly European, to evenly mixed) - which is also cited at least twice in the article (However, the largely Middle Eastern origin of Ashkenazi paternal lineages and their shared origin with those of other non-Ashkenazi Jewish groups, and with non-Jewish peoples of the Levant and Fertile Crescent) is well established and has been supported by multiple studies (and does not conflict with Costa and Richards et al.). The reception to Elhaik's papers has been, in contrast, widely critical.

Studies on autosomal dna also support a mostly mixed European-Levantine origin for Ashkenazi and Sephardic (and Italkic) Jews (who all/both genetically cluster closely together), who are found to share some ancestry with several Mizrahi Jewish groups but to be distinguished from them mainly by their (mainly southern) European admixture.

Some studies finding evidence of shared Middle Eastern ancestry (both paternal and autosomal) attributed to the Levant among Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews include:

Kopelman et al.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19995433/

Hammer et al.: 2009 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771134/

Atzmon et al.: 2010 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032072/

Moorjani et al 2011 (which found evidence of minor sub-Saharan admixture shared by Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews, dated to a comon ancestry prior to a migration from the Levant.

https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1001373

Behar et al. 2011: http://www.biologiaevolutiva.org/dcomas/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Behar2010.pdf

"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 common genetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant."

Cambell et al. 2012: https://www.pnas.org/content/109/34/13865

The large 2013 study by Behar et al. (A 2013 trans-genome study carried out by 30 geneticists, from 13 universities and academies, from 9 countries, assembling the largest data set available to date) tested the proposition of Elhaik, and rejected a Khazarian or Caucasian origin for Ashkenazi Jews. Behar et al. also found no evidence that the Ashkenazi were of Turkic, Armenian, east Anatolian, or Iranian origin (as posited by Elhaik more recently). Their affinities were instead with Levantine groups (like the Druze, Lebanese and Samaritans and European groups (like Italians) - as well as with Cypriots, who show an intermediate Levantine-east Mediteranean European affinity. https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/BeharEtAl2013-HumBiol.pdf

Xue and Shai Carmi et al. (2017) found evidence of a roughly equal mixture (autosomally) of Levantine and European admixture in Ashkenazim. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5380316/ (an earlier 2014 study by Shai Carmi et al. found similar results)

Behar et al. (2017) argues that the R1a paternal lineages found in the Ashkenazi represent a minor lineage derived from/present in ancient Israel/the Levant ("It can be strongly argued that contemporary R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites descend from a single Levite ancestor who arrived in Europe from the Levant.") and states that most of the remaining Ashkenazi paternal lineages also originate from that region, also citing a study (by Haber et al. 2017) finding that "Furthermore, ancient DNA studies of the Levant may offer direct information. Indeed, a recent study revealed the presence of both J1a-P58 and J2-M12 Y-chromosomes, frequent among contemporary Jews, in two Canaanite samples date to 3,700 ybp." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-14761-7#ref-CR37

You wrote:

"There are many more academics who agree with Elhaik such as Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler and Mehdi Pirooznia eg. Genes 2018, 9(12), 625"

As far as mainstream researchers of notabity, this does not seem to be the case. The researchers who agree with Elhaik have mostly been members of his group (his co-authors: sich as Das, Wexler, and Pirooznia

The link you provided is a paper authored/co-authored by Ekhaik himself (as well as by Das and Pirooznia). Wexler (who is a linguist, not a geneticist) is considered fringe, and his positions on Jewish languages are generally rejected by other experts in the field.

The piece by Raphael Falk that you have linked does not discount the possibility that Jewish groups share a significant Levantine ancestry (nor deny the evidence that they do) along with other kinds of ancestry, but rather more so critiques the idea of a specifically Jewish ancestry (unique among all other groups including Levantines). Nevertheless Falk's position is different from Elhaik's hypothesis that Askhenazi Jews (as well as Sephardic and Mesopotamian Jews) necessarily lack significant Levantine ancestry. Falk's piece seems to call attention to (in his view) the likelihood of varied and diverse (non-homogenous) genetic profiles among different Jewish groups (which include many types of significant differential non-Levantine admixture) but also allows that Jewish groups share considerable "consanguinity. Both of these facts are consistent with what is proposed by many other researchers involving an origin in the Levant for many Jewish groups followed by significant admixture with host populations (admixture combined with significant shared ancestry derived from a common partially Middle Eastern origin).

Interestingly, Ostrer himself even, somewhat similarly, clarified that the presence of a partial common Levantine ancestry in Jewish groups would not necessarily support an idea of Jewish uniqueness (as much or some of this ancestry would be found in other Levantine-descended and partly Levantine-descended groups as well), as the article you linked says: "Ostrer’s theory is sometimes marshaled to lend the authority of science to the Zionist narrative, which views the migration of modern-day Jews to what is now Israel, and their rule over that land, as a simple act of repossession by the descendants of the land’s original residents. Ostrer declined to be interviewed for this story. But in his writings, Ostrer points out the dangers of such reductionism; some of the same genetic markers common among Jews, he finds, can be found in Palestinians, as well." [[2]]

You wrote:

"With regard to Israelite DNA, Elhaik has compared DNA from the first century AD with modern day Jewish people as well as more ancient sources."

In Elhaik's 2017 study, he used samples from early peoples that inhabited the Levant (in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods). There are, as far as I know, no samples used from the first century AD. It would likely be helpfull to (autosomally) compare a samples such as the Canaanite ones from 3,700 years ago (mentioned by Behar 2017), which have already yielded y-lineages common in modern Jewish groups (including the Ashkenazi). Haber et al. also found the modern Lebanese (to whom the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews have a partial affinity) to closely resemble the ancient Canaanites/Phoenicians (including autosomally) indicating a mostly Canaanite/Phoenician anncestry for the modern Lebanese (with very minor admixture from later Arab/Arabian migrations).

Elhaik's position (that the Ashkenazim lack significant Levantine ancestry and migrated to Europe via the Caucasus from the east) is an extreme minority one which makes claims that radically conflict with the consensus and majority opinion, which certainly qualifies for 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. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them."

Also, one might (regarding Elhaik's most recent statements) keep in mind the possible issue of WP:RECENTISM, it is often preferred wait until there's been some response from the academic community (for example sometimes in the form of citations from - unassociated - researchers and/or an analysis of the study in a reliable secondary source. This is not always required, but is especially true in the case of a highly controversial study advancing claims that are greatly at odds with majority expert opinion, from a researcher whose work has a history of being judged as questionable and repeatedly criticized by multiple notable researchers (the geneticists among them including Marcus Feldman, Harry Ostrer, Michael Hammer, Doron Behar - and the many co-authors of the 2013 Behar et al. paper -, and others. And his 2016 paper was also widely criticized on both genetic and historical and linguistic grounds).

As mentioned before, adding a paragraph devoted to Elhaik's statements under "Recent studies" when his is a small minority position (and when he - and Wexler - have a history of being critcized for questionable methods, is a case of WP:UNDUE WP:FALSEBALANCE and is highly undue and misleading. Elhaik's position is not currently mainstream. As the WP:UNDUE page says: "Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to the view of a significant minority, or to include that of a tiny minority, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute."

Also, regarding the final "Conversation" links you provided, I am not sure of their relevance to Wikipedia and its guidelines. Skllagyook (talk) 03:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I want to thank User:Skllagyook for all his very diligent work on this issue and for his corrections, additions, and edits to the page. I agree with him, and I completely endorse all his edits. I am very skeptical to begin with about the real scientific benefits of all ethnographic genetic studies. These studies are basically all just political views disguised under a thin "scientific" jargon and veneer. But in terms of summarizing for Wikipedia what there is out there on the field, I believe User:Skllagyook is correct. Both Elhaik and his Yiddish linguistics associate Paul Wexler come from very strong political views on the subject, and Paul Wexler's linguistic arguments are all fringe views, in addition to being completely ridiculous in my own view. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Skllagyook, thanks for your detailed reply. However, I fear much of this is a liberal re-intepretation of what these sources say. I've provided a range of views from different respected researchers, whilst the current article only includes selective quotes from them which supports your particular narrative, and in one case attached a substantial critique of an author you disagree with. There's no similar critique attached to Ostrer, yet he refuses to share information to those who don't share his political views which makes his work highly opaque.(note: in 2012 Ostrer proposed that land disputes in the Middle East should be decided by the proportion of Middle Eastern ancestry in one's genome). In academic circles this should be a red flag and we need to mention this.

I believe we need unbiased advice from an unbiased uninvolved Wikipedia editor to assess if the article fully reflects the range of views of the researchers on this topic as shown in this graphic. https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/290345/fgene-08-00101-HTML/image_m/fgene-08-00101-g001.jpg

Skllagyook, are you still claiming 'the Conversation' isn't a reliable source? Wikipedia guidelines say: "If available, academic publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science" This is precisely what the Conversation is! The link I gave you states "The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public" [to] "Inform public debate with knowledge-based journalism that is responsible, ethical and supported by evidence". The Wikipedia page on 'The Conversation' states In 2016, The Conversation's FactCheck unit become the first fact-checking team in Australia and one of only two worldwide accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversation_(website)#FactCheck. Also Media bias fact check rates the Conversation's factual repoting standard as 'high' and it belongs to the 'least biased category'.https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-conversation/ So this most definitely IS a most reliable source. As a result I don't think they would have included Elhaik if he was such a maverick as you suggest, so his figures from that source at least should be included. This is his academic record https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eran_Elhaik2

Andromedean (talk) 21:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean:

You wrote:

"I fear much of this is a liberal re-intepretation of what these sources say. I've provided a range of views from different respected researchers, whilst the current article only includes selective quotes from them which supports your particular narrative"

I'm not sure what you mean. I believe the sources I cited above, and, as far as I can tell those in the article, are accurately and representatively portrayed (per the findings of the cited authors). The statement that the majority of research (indeed the consensus) is that Ashkenazi Jews (and most other groups of Jews) share a significant common ancestral component likely derived from the Levant (usually along with substantial non-Levantine admixture from various host populations) is not a misrepresentation of said research. This is not my particular narrative. It is the scholarly consensus (which is what Wikipedia should reflect).

The Costa, Richards, et al. paper, as I mentioned, advances a hypothesis that is very different from Elhaik's (and has received a much more varied/balanced response from notable experts) and it (the hypothesis that Ashkenazim might have a mostly European maternal line) already is featured propotionally in the article (with due detail and weight) and is hardly sidelined.

You wrote:

"(note: in 2012 Ostrer proposed that land disputes in the Middle East should be decided by the proportion of Middle Eastern ancestry in one's genome)."

Do you have a source for this?

Also, the majority opinion of researchers in the field does not consist solely of Ostrer, but also of several works by many other researchers both before and since who have found similar results.

You wrote:

"In academic circles this should be a red flag and we need to mention this."

The requirements/indicators for Redflag are specific and are listed at the WP:REDFLAG link.

The criticism of Ostrer described regarding a refusal to freely share data comes from a single journalistic source and seems to be quoting one person/researcher, Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, (See: [[3]]) who is a physician/medical doctor (a pediatrician) but does not seem to be an expert/researcher in the field of population genetics. This does not seem to be comparable to the criticism from multiple relevant disciplines that more than one of Elhaik's studies have received (in addition to his association with Paul Wexler, to whom Redflag and WP:FRINGE apply).

Below also is a discussion of Elhaik's paper from an anthropology/population genetics forum; obviously not WP:RS (obviously not an acceptable source as far as refs go), but nevertheless somewhat informative/interesting and points out/discuses some of the problems and attempts to test some of its hypotheses. (Link here:[[4]])

You wrote: "...if the article fully reflects the range of views of the researchers on this topic as shown in this graphic. https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/290345/fgene-08-00101-HTML/image_m/fgene-08-00101-g001.jpg"

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.) 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) are the research labeled in the graph as "Das", which is also co-authored by Elhaik - i.e. it is the same recent Elhaik et al. research we are discussing (in which Das was also a co-author).

The range of views is represented according to the principle of WP:WEIGHT. As explained, for reasons described my previous reply, 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 wrote:

"Skllagyook, are you still claiming 'the Conversation' isn't a reliable source? Wikipedia guidelines say: "If available, academic publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science" This is precisely what the Conversation is! The link I gave you states "The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public"..."

The Conversation is not a peer-reviewed academic source, but appears to be a source of science journalism (and, in my last comment, I was initially confused as to the relevance of The Conversation's standards to Wikipedia). But that is not the main issue (since Elhaik also published in a peer-reviewed source, which is what the Conversation source referenced). The main issue (as has been explained previously) is more that Elhaik's position is in radical contradiction/departure to the expert consensus on the subject consisting of muliple studies over years by many researchers (in addition to the fact that his work has a history of being strongly criticized by several notable researchers, along with his academic association/collaboration with a less ambiguously fringe researcher such as Wexler) and thus does not warrant such a prominent place in the article as your adition gave it, which misleadingly portrays it as significany more authoritative and representative of recent research on the subject than it is. As mentioned in my first post above, the "Recent studies" section already contains a sentence describing the conclusions of Elhaik's 2017 study. Adding more, again, seems undue (for the reasons explained). In Wikipedia, secondary sources are often preferred to primary ones. However, this, as I understand, does not mean that primary sources cannot be used in articles on scientific topics (this article and many others use many), but (as explained), the radical character of the research's proposition and its author's history of controversy also strongly suggest/are reasons that your addition was undue. Skllagyook (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Re Red Flag I was referring to basic academic standards, but yes Ostrer has a Red flad due to a conflict of interest as defined by Wikipedia's rules as well. In fact I would say anyone with strong Zionist or Palestinian interests may have a conflict of interest, which might compromise most references at a rough guess.

The initial text just not represent the views over the last 10 years as illustrated in that chart I referenced, take this extract for example.

"Studies of autosomal DNA, which look at the entire DNA mixture, show that Jewish populations have tended to form relatively closely related groups in independent communities with most in a community sharing significant ancestry. For populations of the Jewish diaspora, the genetic composition of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jewish populations show significant amounts of shared Middle Eastern ancestry.[1][2][3] According to Behar and colleagues (2010), this is "consistent with a historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelites of the Levant" and "the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World".[4][5"

A non specialist reading this, would assume academic research has shown that most Jews' are strongly related to ancient Israelites, and this certainly isn't true by any source. What does 'Middle East' mean, it's a large area which includes Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the old South West Soviet states, of which Israel is a tiny proportion. What does in mean in terms of genetics anyway? (Atzmon et al. 2010) ascribed only 50% of Middle Eastern ancestry to Jews compared to 56-59% of non-Jews.

I think we are going round in circles. Would you agree to a uninvolved editor prefereably with knowledge in Genetics and no conflicts of interest should take a look at this?Andromedean (talk) 08:01, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Andromedean:

You wrote:

"A non specialist reading this, would assume academic research has shown that most Jews' are strongly related to ancient Israelites, and this certainly isn't true by any source."

It seems that it is true according to many sources, and it is indeed tbe majority opinion. According to the majority of sources, the aforementioned Jewish groups (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi) are very closely related in their paternal lineages and share a significant degree of autosomal ancestry. That does not necessarily mean that that the majority of their autosomal ancestry derives from Levantines or the ancient Israelites and that is not what lede says (most autosomal estimates range along the lines of 40-60%), but only that significant amounts do, as it simply says "significant amounts of shared Middle Eastern ancestry" which is "consistent with a historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelites of the Levant". This is what the majority of the studies conclude. I am having some trouble undertanding your objections.

You wrote:

"Ostrer has a Red flad due to a conflict of interest as defined by Wikipedia's rules as well."

That does not seem to be the case. This is hiw Wikipedia's rules define Conflict of Interest:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest

As far as I can tell, Ostrer is a notable researcher whose findings in that area have been confirmed by various other studies (including those by: Atzmon, Behar, Shai Carmi).

You wrote:

"Would you agree to a uninvolved editor prefereably with knowledge in Genetics and no conflicts of interest should take a look at this?"

I will look into that. How would you propose to do it?

Edit: I have recently messaged the administrator Doug Weller regarding this. Hopefully that will help. Skllagyook (talk) 09:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Who have here a WP:COI problem?--Shrike (talk) 10:18, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tritomex: It seems it may be continuing, though fortunately, for the time being there has been no edit warring. I do not know whether Andromedean is a sock (and I'm afraid I do not have the knowledge, experience or qualifications to determine that, nor to make an SPI report) but I fear there may be a case of refusal to get the point WP:LISTEN developing. I have messages administrator User:Doug Weller, whom I hope can help in this situation. Skllagyook (talk) 13:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)13:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Short version: we cannot cite any primary/original research papers in journals for any claims that involve WP:AEIS (analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis), because they are primary sources. They are scientifically untested work which has been published in journals for other scientists to attempt to replicate and verify. We have to rely on independent, secondary sources, and in a topic like this, that mostly means literature reviews, especially systematic reviews, in non-predatory journals, though arguably recent books from high-reputation academic presses and written by notable experts might also be usable.

If we keep that in mind, then much of the kind of text-walling repetitive argument like the above can be avoided. Is the material being added/challenged relying on weak sources like new journal research, or is it based on high-reputation scientific secondary sources? The answer to that is generally the end of the argument before it even really gets going.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:17, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

It is a long run problem with genetics articles, that there is very little secondaryreview of the initial research announcements. There is therefore an argument that an enormous number of our articles should not exist. It is not simple though, because the small number of review works are often also not very notable or up-to-date and so basing WP off of those would be a worse solution. So we have tended to report research articles. The problem in this article is more to do with worse research articles which have not even been through a well-known peer review. Why mention them at all? Because they have gone through some sort of reputable review, and because they've become well known and discussed, ie notable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:28, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

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:[[5]]). 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[6] 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: [[7]], 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)

There needs to be some actual objective scientific moderation on this article

I'm sorry but this article is nothing but a clusterf--k of mythologies and straight up lies trying to pass off as actual genetic research meanwhile many of the statements don't even match the conclusions of the original research papers cited. Every time I look away from this article for some period of time, a certain group of trolls slowly change the content of the article in a pernicious way to match with their fictitious mythological narratives. There is literally not one objective scientific research to this day that can actually prove that modern-day jews originate from the Levant yet somehow the article is full of statements implying such with references that don't even substantiate the statements. It already says enough that an article about supposed "genetic research" of a certain group of people seems to be one of the longest articles in all of wikipedia. I guess the longer the article, the more room there is to insert lies and push a certain narrative. 69.157.143.2 (talk) 02:33, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Recent edit by IP

To the IP: Regarding the recent edit ([[8]]), in which your edit summary stated that the previous edit was WP:OR: that is not the case. It is not OR but reflects the source, which suggests that modern Levantine Arabic-speaking groups, as well as various Jewish groups, derive substantially from a Bronze Age Canaanite-related population (which they find was itself a mixture of earlier Levantine populations and a population from the Zagros or Caucasus).

From the study: "Finally, we show that the genomes of present-day groups geographically and historically linked to the Bronze Age Levant, including the great majority of present-day Jewish groups and Levantine Arabic-speaking groups, are consistent with having 50% or more of their ancestry from people related to groups who lived in the Bronze Age Levant and the Chalcolithic Zagros." (page1147) https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2820%2930487-6

Figure 5 (on page 1153) shows how that they model various populations as partly of Bronze-Age Levantine ancestry (with the Ashkenazi deriving the remaining 41% of their ancestry from Europeans as the text explains).

Figure S4 (on the last page) related to Figure 5 and also estimates admixture for the same populations, but with the Neolithic Canaanite/Levantine and Zagros-like componentd distinguished. In that graph the Jewish populations and Arabic-speaking Levantines are both modeled as having significant Levantine admixture (as well as some Zagros-related admixture). I have made some wording changes to better refect the source. Skllagyook (talk) 04:06, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Stop lying, this is exactly what I was describing above about the trolls. The conclusions of the study are even highlighted at the top of it. You are intentionally misstating what the study concludes. Even your direct quote admits the study says that "the great majority of present-day Jewish groups and Levantine Arabic-speaking groups, are consistent with having 50% or more of their ancestry from people related to groups who lived in the Bronze Age Levant and the Chalcolithic Zagros." Notice how it says "and" the Chalcolithic Zagros which you conveniently exclude so that you can push your false narrative. This means that for all we know, along with the authors of the study, hypothetically all Jewish ancestry may come from Chalcolithic Zagros according to that conclusion.

Not only that but you are also attempting to interpret raw data from figures about "admixtures" in the study which is considered "OR". Any population can be modeled with having certain proportions of various admixtures unrelated to their actual ancestry but the results need to be interpreted by the people actually doing the study, not by you. Even the authors of the study didn't arrive to your false conclusions. 69.157.143.2 (talk) 05:35, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

I would ask you please refrain from personal attacks (WP:NPA and WP:AGF) and please be WP:CIVIL. Accusations of "lying" and assumptions of bad faith are not appropriate and are unwarranted. The study seems to be suggesting that the modern populations may have ancestry from both the Bronze Age Levant and the Chacolithic Zagros/Caucasus region. The study finds that Zagros/Caucasus ancestry entered the Levant in the early Bronze Age and increased over time.

In Figure 5, various populations are shown to have 50% or more of a component that represents the Middle East and combines "Megiddo_MLBA" (a Bronze Age Levantine population - see page 1149) and "Iran_ChL" (a population representing the Chacolithic Zagros - see page 1149).

You wrote: "hypothetically all Jewish ancestry may come from Chalcolithic Zagros according to that conclusion."

This does not seem to be their finding. In Figure S4, when the Megiddo and Iran components are distinguished form one another, the Jewish and Arabic-speaking Levantine populations are still modeled as carrying around 50% or more of the Megiddo_MLBA component (as well as some of the Iran component). It is not OR to describe how populations are modeled in the study (as long as one's own interpretations are not added).

In addition, geneticist David Reich, one of the study's authors (and whose lab was responsible for the study), was quoted in an article stating that the study suggests that modern Jewish and Levantine Arab groups have a genetic connection to the Canaan region in ancient times. He said:

“This study suggests there is a deep genetic connection of many Jewish groups today across the Diaspora and many Arab groups to this part of the world thousands of years ago,” says David Reich, a Harvard University geneticist and one of the world’s top experts in the study of ancient DNA."

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-jews-and-arabs-share-genetic-link-to-ancient-canaanites-1.8871073

I do not object to incorporation the phrasing of the study that describes the evidence as consistent with the modern groups as having "50% or more of their ancestry from people related to groups who lived in the Bronze Age Levant and the Chalcolithic Zagros."

(Update:) I have edited the sections follow the study without (have removed) anything that could be seen as added interpretation (and have added a quote from the excerpt I posted above - which includes "...and the Chalcolithic Zagros" - and described the findings of the admixture modeling as found in the study). But if you continue to edit war or cast hostile and accusatory aspersions, I will have to report you. Skllagyook (talk) 06:08, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

To the IP: My most recent edit followed what the study states and did not include OR or added interpretation (I also quoted geneticist David Reich above here where he clarifies what he believes the findings suggest). The study is very much a reliable source authored by several notable resesrchers in the field including Reich. Your opinion (as expressed here ([[9]) that the authors of the study itself designed it to be misleading and that in it they engaged in "in trickery" is your own personal opinion. Allowing such an opionion to influence your editing and treatment of the source and using it to justify removing information is WP:OR. Skllagyook (talk) 16:00, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Again, you are just insisting on pushing false conclusions. Besides that, you don't even understand how genetic research is done. I can model Ethiopians as having proportions of Irish and Chinese admixtures, it's meaningless in the end. The admixtures used in the methodology mean nothing when it comes to actual ancestry and the conclusions. You are just trying to interpret raw data in the study to fit your false narratives which is considered ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Even your most recent edit still shows that you are making false conclusions when saying "The study modeled the aforementioned groups as having ancestry from both ancient populations" because that's not what the study says even though you might want it to say that. The study is saying that the aforementioned groups have ancestry from either one ancient population or the other ancient population or both, which also includes the Bronze Age Caucus region. It seems that the whole point of the study was to muddy the waters and merge two or three completely different ancient populations together so that certain individuals can derive false conclusions that are not actually made. In fact, if the study is supposed to be about Jews and the ancient Levant, the fact that the authors even included any mention of Zagros or Caucus populations in the study already reveals their suspicious intentions. Also, a Haaretz article is not considered genetic research, it's opinion, and even the quote you included further shows that you are again making false conclusions because the researcher said "to this part of the world" immediately after the article was discussing the region in general, which included the Caucus region and North Western Iran. It seems that there is a conspiracy here on this article with the mods being complicit because I'm the one getting the warnings about edit warring rather than the actual user who is edit warring along with pushing false conclusions and "OR". Same experience I've had in the past here. Even my replies on the talk page are being reverted while you all tell me to use the talk page. 69.157.143.2 (talk) 17:06, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

You wrote:

""The study modeled the aforementioned groups as having ancestry from both ancient populations" because that's not what the study says even though you might want it to say that. The study is saying that the aforementioned groups have ancestry from either one ancient population or the other ancient population or both, which also includes the Bronze Age Caucus region."

In figure S4 the populations are modeled as having both Levantine ("Mediddo") and Zagros Chacolithic ("Iran") admixture. I explained this in an earlier comment (you can read above). It is not about what I want it to say but what the source shows. Again, as I asked before, please stop casting aspersions and assuming my motivations.

You wrote: "It seems that the whole point of the study was to muddy the waters and merge two or three completely different ancient populations together so that certain individuals can derive false conclusions that are not actually made.... the fact that the authors even included any mention of Zagros or Caucus populations in the study already reveals their suspicious intentions."

The study included the Zagros because that population was a significant source of ancestry in the Canaanites. I was not arguing that Haaretz is a scholarly publication, but merely showing where they quoted Reich (a major author if the study, whose statement regarding common ancestry in diaspora Jews and Arabs from the region) is relevant. Reich's quote occurs in the context of the article's discussion of Canaan and of "Israel and nearby countries".

And as explained, your personal opinions of the authors' intent is irrevant. The study is a reliable source, not your (or my) personal opinions. Your suspicions of the authors' intentions is not a valid reason to exclude information.

You wrote: "It seems that there is a conspiracy here on this article with the mods being complicit because I'm the one getting the warnings about edit warring rather than the actual user who is edit warring along with pushing false conclusions and "OR"."

You are the one making personal attacks and assuming others' motivations (including now those of the mods). You also continued to push you own preferred edit before reaching consensus despite repeated warnings. Skllagyook (talk) 17:24, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Danien22. Peer reviewers: Danien22. Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Early Israeli Christian Church and synagogue paintings/mosaics portray a white, blonde, dirty blonde, brown & red haired people with an OBVIOUS different genetic make up than what we've been led to believe.

A simple search ends the debate forever. If the geneticists are finding middle eastern descent among peoples claiming to be the Jews of the bible then it's not from the 12 lost tribes but from other Arabic groups. Assuming that Arabic peoples have always dominated the Middle East is like assuming North America was always dominated by white people. 69.207.44.132 (talk) 19:55, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

There are blonde and redheaded Arabs, and there always have been. Rare but not unknown. So this is a non-sequitur. 65.127.236.222 (talk) 17:32, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Misreadings of Raphael Falk, who believed "[g]enetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent"

Israeli geneticist Raphael Falk is cited here, but he was a staunch critic of Jewish population genetics throughout his career. See his 2015 article: Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2014.00462/full

There may be a need to write up a "Controversy" section, delineating the ongoing debates in the field. See also the book "Jew" by Cynthia Baker, chapter on "Birth of the Genomic Jew."Mrmalabi (talk) 18:53, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

We absolutely need a controversy section. And does anyone think this article suffers from fact-bloat? Not to sound conspiratorial, but it sure seems like the few passages in this article that debunk the idea of "Jewish genetic markers" are drowned out and deemphasized by the endless barrage of haplotype lists. And we all know that the first section of the article is the most read. We need to make it clear in the intro that the existence of specifically Jewish genetic markers is highly disputed in the scientific community. Overall, this article seems subtly polemical. 65.127.236.222 (talk) 17:37, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think a "Controversy" section would be the way to go about this since it seems to me like it could invite all sorts of NPOV issues. My personal preference would be to mark the page as Template:Controversial-issues and mark individual controversies or controversial sources accordingly. Of course I'll wait for discussion/consensus for this. As for your fact-bloat concern, I think the issue isn't so much that multiple viewpoints are drowned out but rather the haplotype lists may need to be WP:SPLIT , but given the common theme across the haplotype implications with regards to the topic this may be tough. I definitely don't feel experienced or qualified enough to go about this the right way but I thought I'd pitch my two cents nonetheless. ★Ama ^{TALK CONTRIBS} 18:54, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

DNA Results External links

Should we add a new DNA result section

Iranian Jewish Hebrew DNA results

Iranian/Syrian Jewish Semitic DNA results

Iranian/Turkish Jewish Semitic DNA results

Persian Jewish Semitic DNA results

Ashkenazi showing Greco-Roman DNA results

Ashkenazi showing Italian DNA results

Ashkenazi showing Roman DNA results

Italian Christian showing Italo-Roman DNA results

Lebanese Muslim showing Semitic DNA results

Levantine Muslim showing Semitic DNA results

Palestinian Muslim showing Semitic DNA results Walapo (talk) 01:02, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't thinking adding a list of links to individuals' results from a commercial testing site would be WP:RS. Also, different test sites can have somewhat different results. Anecdotally the same Ashkenazi individual whose results you link above, tested significantly differently on another another site (DNA Genics), albeit in a way closer (roughly 60%/40% Southern European/Middle Eastern) to what most of the dna studies would suggest (On his Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/277347213154481/).Skllagyook (talk) 18:23, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Modern Levantines have Roman admixture, while ancient Levantines do not, hence the Genics showing that for the modern result. However, both sites consistently show Italian as being the majority of Ashkenazi genetics, this is also accepted, undisputed scientific fact.

The close genetic resemblance to Italians accords with the historical presumption that Ashkenazi Jews started their migrations across Europe in Italy and with historical evidence that conversion to Judaism was common in ancient Rome.

New genetic study traces Ashkenazi roots to prehistoric Europe—not the Middle East

Based on accounts such as those of Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, by the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70, as many as 6 million Jews were living in the Roman Empire, but outside Israel, mainly in Italy and Southern Europe. In contrast, only about 500,000 lived in Judea

The Surge of Converts to Judaism in Ancient Rome Walapo (talk) 15:00, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

The first link above, the Zoosman-Diskin study, is not the consensus, and is anyway already included in a WP:DUE and relevant way here. The second and third links are popular media articles that refer to a study (Richard's et al. 2013) arguing for a mostly European origin for Ashkenazi maternal lineages (also included) (which was challenged by the Fernandez 2014 study), and does not conflict with the evidence that most Ashkenazi paternal lineages (and a part of their autosomal admixture) is Middle Eastern nor does it claim to conflict with that, and the study's author states as much despite the articles' somewhat misleading titles. Skllagyook (talk) 17:16, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

You are very confused. The Fernandez 2014 study does not challenge or contradict it, it confirms that Italians, Sardinians, Romans, Ashkenazis, Greeks, Cypriots all come from Anatolian Neolithic Farmers aka early European farmers and related Natufians (8000 B.C. Near Eastern Farmers) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046922/

These early Anatolian farmers later replaced the European hunter-gatherers populations in Europe to a large extent, ultimately becoming the main genetic contribution to current European populations, especially those of the Mediterranean. In addition, their position in this analysis is intermediate between Natufian farmers and Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG).

The spread of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers from Anatolia is around 10,000 years ago. The following old European cultures associated with the spread of wheat farming from Anatolia and into Europe from at least 10,000 years all descend from Anatolian Neolithic Farmers]: Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, Vinca culture, Pelasgians, Minoans, Leleges, Iberians, Nuragic people, Etruscans, Rhaetians, Sicans, Camunni and Basques.

The Greeks, Italians, Cypriots, Basques, Ashkenazis are all descendants of Anatolian Neolithic farmers, and all unsurprisngly genetically cluster with eachother.

These Anatolian Neolithic Farmers descendant groups do not cluster with Semitic populations. These are all known facts. Walapo (talk) 17:55, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I was referring to Fernandez' statements regarding Ashkenazi maternal haplogroup K, Which Richards argues is European but Fernandez proposes may not be. Anyway, the mention of Fernandez was not the main issue raised above. Skllagyook (talk) 18:13, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Again, you do not understand. Since Anatolian group settled in Europe and created old European cultures thousands of years before the arrival of Indo-Europeans, it is considered European. Whether you consider it Anatolian or European is irrelevant, and does not magically turn Italians, Greeks, and Ashkenazis into Semites. Walapo (talk) 18:19, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I mentioned Fernandez in passing. It was not the main issue . Most studies agree that the Ashkenazi have both southern European and Middle Eastern ancestry. Richards et al. argues that their maternal lineages are mostly European (some geneticists agree and some do not - as covered in the aeticle section titled "MtDNA of Ashkenazi Jews") but Richards agrees that their paternal lineages (and a component of overall/autosomal ancestry) are not European. Richards and the other studies are already included in this article. Skllagyook (talk) 18:26, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Great, you still can't differentiate between Anatolian and Semitic peoples. Middle eastern is geographic term that includes Anatolia, Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran etc..

In the case of Ashkenazis and Italians, their middle eastern origin is in Anatolia, and is non-Semitic. Ashkenazis, like Italians and Greeks, originate from Anatolian Neolithic farmers.

Why are you still confusing Anatolian Neolithic Farmers (ANF) from 10,000 years ago with Semites who do not cluster with ANF groups (Italians/Ashkenazis etc.)? Walapo (talk) 18:37, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Those statements aren't in the Richards study and Richard does not claim that. In the second link you posted, Richards is quoted in the second link you posted proposing that the Ashkenazi descended from the inter mixture between European women (hence the maternal lineages) and Middle Eastern men from who migrated to Italy/Europe in late antiquity. A quote from the link:

"One way to reconcile his team's findings with those of other researchers, he says, is to assume that the founders of the male Ashkenazi lineages were indeed originally from the Middle East, but that the maternal line arose in Europe much earlier. The European women then converted to Judaism after male Jews moved into the continent, establishing the Ashkenazi lineages that we see today.

The majority of studies also do not state that thier only Middle Eastern ancestry is from Neolithic Anatolian migrations as you say but rather suggest that they carry a Middle Eastern component that arrived in Europe during the historical era from the Levant. Material added to articles must be explicitly stated in reliable sources (WP:RS). Please see WP:NOR. Skllagyook (talk) 18:53, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Please WP:LISTEN what being said to you. We cannot use individual anecdotical evidence and you own conclusions is WP:OR. Most of the prominent sources that deal with the topic already mentioned in the article in WP:DUE manner. Shrike (talk) 19:08, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Before this goes any further - threads on Reddit are not reliable sources that can be used to establish anything or otherwise provide any kind of utility here. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:54, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Genetic results may be posted anywhere, that does not disqualify them from being reliable sources. Walapo (talk) 17:58, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia has rules regarding what sources are considered reliable. Reddit threads and individials' dna results do not qualify. See WP:RS. Skllagyook (talk) 18:13, 30 July 2022 (UTC)