The Rise and Fall of BritainsDNA: A Tale of Misleading Claims, Media Manipulation and Threats to Academic Freedom
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Genetic Ancestry Testing
2.1. Ancestry Inference
2.2. BritainsDNA Company History
2.3. BritainsDNA’s Tests
“… your YDNA marker is HUNTER-GATHERER and your earliest ancestors reached Britain some time between 4000BC and 3000BC.
Your Y chromosome group, which tracks your paternal lineage, is R1b-M269. It is very common in Western Europe and also has outliers as far east as the Uigher peoples of Western China and in India and Russia.
Your Hunter-Gatherer ancestors crossed from Europe to Britain after the end of the last ice age but long before that they had undertaken a much more hazardous journey from Africa across the Red Sea into the Middle East. From there people fanned out east into Asia and Australasia and west into Europe …
When the development of farming began to spread, R1b-M269 multiplied and moved into every corner of Europe. By c3000BC it had certainly reached Britain and Ireland. And what directly caused populations to expand rapidly was the invention of porridge”.
3. Our Interactions with BritainsDNA
- That any statement, written or otherwise, which you make in relation to our client’s organisation will not suggest that their work, or the statements and opinions of Mr Moffat, are in any way fraudulent, dishonest or disingenuous.
- That you will not report or state as a matter of undisputed fact that our clients’ science is ‘wrong’ or untrue. Clearly you disagree with their approach but the basis of that disagreement is a matter of interpretation. Our clients accept that change and reinterpretation are part of the nature of scientific enquiry. But the issues of which you complain are currently issues of opinion and not matters of absolute fact, correct or incorrect.
- That you will not report anything inaccurate or misleading in relation to the funding of our client’s business, when you have no basis or knowledge of how the business was started or has been funded historically.
“The remark in the interview about a subsidy … The sentiment was that many people were working for free to get the effort off the ground and had made investments from our own funds. There is no further subsidy”.
4. The Role of the Universities
5. The Role of the Media
5.1. Newspaper, Broadcast and Online Coverage
“According to Moffat, Conti’s DNA marker reveals his male lineage is Saracen in origin. His ancestors settled in Italy around the 10th century before one of them, Giovanni Buonaparte, settled in Corsica and founded the family branch that produced Napoleon … He [Conti] is clearly a close relative of Napoleon. Only DNA could have told that story”.
5.2. Analysis of the Press Coverage
5.3. TV and Radio Coverage
The S4C series DNA Cymru will set out to answer the questions by using DNA samples from the people of Wales today. The series is part of an exciting project Cymru DNA Wales set up in a partnership between S4C, CymruDNAWales, Trinity Mirror—publishers of the Western Mail and the Daily Post—and production company Green Bay Media.
6. Countering the Bad Science
“…the choice of guests is a matter of editorial discretion and does not fall within the remit of the ECU. In practice that means I can consider whether what was said during the broadcast met the BBC’s editorial standards but not whether the programme ought to have invited him [Alistair Moffat] to participate.
You have also raised the issue of Mr Moffat’s appearances across the BBC over a number of years. Again, this falls outside our remit—we are limited to considering specific items broadcast or published by the BBC and are not able to investigate claims of editorial breaches over time and across output”.
7. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
AJT | Adrian Timpson |
DAK | Debbie Kennett |
DJB | David Balding |
MGT | Mark Thomas |
MC1R | melanocortin 1 receptor |
MRCA | most recent common ancestor |
mtDNA | mitochondrial DNA |
SNP | single nucleotide polymorphism |
STR | short tandem repeat |
UCL | University College London |
Y-chr | Y-chromosome |
Y-DNA | Y-chromosome DNA |
Appendix A. Websites
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Searched Domain | Online Newspaper | Number of DNA Articles | Number Mentioning BritainsDNA | Number Mentioning any other DNA Ancestry Company |
---|---|---|---|---|
www.telegraph.co.uk | The Telegraph | 241 | 3 | 4 |
www.independent.co.uk | The Independent | 146 | 0 | 2 |
www.theguardian.com | The Guardian | 269 | 3 | 12 |
www.scotsman.com | The Scotsman | 24 | 13 | 1 |
www.walesonline.co.uk | WalesOnline | 20 | 11 | 1 |
Date | Radio Station | Programme |
---|---|---|
2 March 2011 | BBC Radio 4 | Today programme with James Naughtie |
1 June 2011 | BBC Radio 4 | Today programme with James Naughtie |
7 November 2011 | BBC Radio Scotland | Tom Morton |
8 December 2011 | BBC Radio Scotland | MacAulay and Co |
1 March 2012 | BBC Radio Scotland | MacAulay and Co |
17 April 2012 | BBC Radio Scotland | MacAulay and Co |
9 July 2012 | BBC Radio 4 | Today programme with James Naughtie |
11 July 2012 | BBC Radio Scotland | Tom Morton |
30 August 2012 | BBC Radio 2 | Jeremy Vine |
26 September 2012 | BBC Radio Scotland | Tom Morton |
7 November 2012 | BBC Radio Scotland | Tom Morton |
8 November 2012 | BBC Three Counties Radio | Roberto Perrone |
9 November 2012 | BBC Radio Scotland | Call Kaye |
25 March 2013 | BBC Radio Scotland | John Beattie Programme |
6 March 2014 | BBC local radio | Mark Forrest Show |
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Kennett, D.A.; Timpson, A.; Balding, D.J.; Thomas, M.G. The Rise and Fall of BritainsDNA: A Tale of Misleading Claims, Media Manipulation and Threats to Academic Freedom. Genealogy 2018, 2, 47. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy2040047
Kennett DA, Timpson A, Balding DJ, Thomas MG. The Rise and Fall of BritainsDNA: A Tale of Misleading Claims, Media Manipulation and Threats to Academic Freedom. Genealogy. 2018; 2(4):47. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy2040047
Chicago/Turabian StyleKennett, Debbie A, Adrian Timpson, David J. Balding, and Mark G. Thomas. 2018. "The Rise and Fall of BritainsDNA: A Tale of Misleading Claims, Media Manipulation and Threats to Academic Freedom" Genealogy 2, no. 4: 47. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy2040047