The two main points: genomic data is not as medically useful as family history. What will be discovered is going to do very weird things to political correctness.
I found the article to be unnecessarily patronizing. The idea that the general public can't handle the truth on any number of subjects is simple arrogance. Wasn't it revealed that McCain and Obama shared common ancestry way back? How is it possibly even shocking that yes, there is "mis-attributed paternity and covert mating between classes, castes, regions and ethnicities"?
Take this, one of the final and most bizarre statements: "If the shift from GWAS to sequencing studies finds evidence of such politically awkward and morally perplexing facts, we can expect the usual range of ideological reactions, including nationalistic retro-racism from conservatives and outraged denial from blank-slate liberals."
I agree with you - it'll be a blow to political correctness, but I'm guessing there won't be the "nationalistic retro-racism" the author seems to hype - at least no more so than exists now. But even for political correctness, there will always be those who will deny that differences exist in the face of evidence (just as in the case of "nationalistic retro-racism") as the recent gender studies skirmishes show.
The two main points: genomic data is not as medically useful as family history. What will be discovered is going to do very weird things to political correctness.
Steve Murphy has loudly been expounding about the family history meme for years now. http://thegenesherpa.blogspot.com/