Human genetics should move away from using genetic ancestry group labels as sample descriptors (e.g. "European ancestry"), and towards using more readily interpretable statements about genetic similarity (and relatedness) 1/n
Statements about genetic similarity are a more accurate description of what popgen methods provide, & usually near equivalent in terms of the information they contain, but carry far less baggage in terms of their implicit depiction of the structure of human groups. 2/n
Pop. & anthro. genomics are more directly concerned with understanding history through reconstructing various aspects of genetic ancestors, & combined with breakthroughs in ancient DNA and ancestral recombination graphs are gaining a much finer-grained view of human history 3/n
But this is largely distinct from providing the field of HG w. useful genetic sample descriptors. Most HG research cares about matching for genetic similarity, not a vague sense of who a person's ancestors were, when making a set of comparisons or assembling a set of controls 4/n
HG also use genetic similarity measures to group or control for environmental factors, in such cases need to be clear that such correlations could result from both genetic and environmental causes rather than relying on the idea of βgenetic ancestryβ to telegraph that idea. 5/n
These issues have long been present in human genetics, and have frequently been commented on in past, but with the rapidly increasing breadth of HG sampling we should move towards descriptors that better acknowledge the continuous nature of genetic variation across humans. 6/n
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