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Wow, this actually makes me pretty impressed with 23andme. Yeah, ok, maybe their analysis front-end is borked, but hell, the science seems pretty sound if he wa

by kevrone 13y ago

Wow, this actually makes me pretty impressed with 23andme. Yeah, ok, maybe their analysis front-end is borked, but hell, the science seems pretty sound if he was able to get the "right" answer from the original sample.

aaronem 13y ago
About what percentage, would you say, of 23andme's clients are both equipped and inclined to educate themselves in bioinformatics, to the degree OP did, to the extent required to replicate 23andme's sequence analysis and identify errors in their results?
- sachdevap 13y ago
  About what percentage, would you say, of individuals paying income tax are both equipped and inclined to understand all the subtleties of income tax returns? Yet people do pay income taxes and do not look into the possibility of extra amounts paid most often. Only individuals who really care, are willing to dig deep into it. In my opinion, people who use this service are going to use it because they are genuinely curious about their future health and if it leads to a few false positive, I could live with that and get it checked elsewhere for confirmation.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    It's interesting you should choose taxes in particular for your analogy; by trivial extension, you cast 23andme as someone who operates as a tax accountant not merely in ignorance, but in outright defiance, of the professional licensure requirements of the field. Libertarian-utopian notions of needless regulatory immurement aside, such requirements exist for reasons amply evident in a study of their origins; in short, without a licensure requirement in such a highly specific and technical realm, incompetents and charlatans of every stripe abound, to the ultimate and severe detriment of all those who would seek the advice of genuine professionals in the field.
- kevrone 13y ago
  No I get what you're saying. I'm not suggesting that the burden is somehow on the customer to figure out their genome, what I'm saying is that the problem described in the blog is not because of some inherent fuzziness in the science, but just a problem with the web-app. All systems have bugs, even the ones which lives depend on. It's cool that the author was able to bring the issue to 23AM's attention, but it's also cool that they were able to correct it.

by kevrone 13y ago

aaronem 13y ago

About what percentage, would you say, of 23andme's clients are both equipped and inclined to educate themselves in bioinformatics, to the degree OP did, to the extent required to replicate 23andme's sequence analysis and identify errors in their results?

sachdevap 13y ago
About what percentage, would you say, of individuals paying income tax are both equipped and inclined to understand all the subtleties of income tax returns? Yet people do pay income taxes and do not look into the possibility of extra amounts paid most often. Only individuals who really care, are willing to dig deep into it. In my opinion, people who use this service are going to use it because they are genuinely curious about their future health and if it leads to a few false positive, I could live with that and get it checked elsewhere for confirmation.
- aaronem 13y ago
  It's interesting you should choose taxes in particular for your analogy; by trivial extension, you cast 23andme as someone who operates as a tax accountant not merely in ignorance, but in outright defiance, of the professional licensure requirements of the field. Libertarian-utopian notions of needless regulatory immurement aside, such requirements exist for reasons amply evident in a study of their origins; in short, without a licensure requirement in such a highly specific and technical realm, incompetents and charlatans of every stripe abound, to the ultimate and severe detriment of all those who would seek the advice of genuine professionals in the field.
kevrone 13y ago
No I get what you're saying. I'm not suggesting that the burden is somehow on the customer to figure out their genome, what I'm saying is that the problem described in the blog is not because of some inherent fuzziness in the science, but just a problem with the web-app. All systems have bugs, even the ones which lives depend on. It's cool that the author was able to bring the issue to 23AM's attention, but it's also cool that they were able to correct it.