[HN Gopher] A kids' novel inspired me to simulate a gene drive o...
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       A kids' novel inspired me to simulate a gene drive on 86M genealogy
       profiles
        
       Author : popcalc
       Score  : 49 points
       Date   : 2024-03-03 15:38 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (worthdoingbadly.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (worthdoingbadly.com)
        
       | baq wrote:
       | > For example, take the simple family tree above. If I'm person
       | 28 on this family tree, and I'm making a genealogy, I would care
       | about my own ancestors, but I might not care much about my
       | ancestors' siblings (my aunts and uncles) and their descendants.
       | So most of the family tree won't be present in a genealogy
       | database
       | 
       | Or, the data is correct and a lot of lines of people just die out
       | without offspring.
        
         | yorwba wrote:
         | Or most people can't trace their lineage all the way back to
         | 1809 and some ancestors just spawn into existence (or descend
         | parthenogenetically from a single parent) at a later date.
         | 
         | Maybe those missing ancestors could be imputed by sampling a
         | random other individual with known parents born in the same
         | year.
        
           | dhosek wrote:
           | I think that's likely it. One should instead build the tree
           | backwards starting with the most recent members of the
           | database and then find their earliest known ancestors. These
           | can then be assigned the magic trait based on the likelihood
           | of it being present based on their birth year cohort (or more
           | reasonably birth decade or some other larger bucket).
        
         | gwern wrote:
         | No, that can't explain his result showing the witch gene going
         | extinct despite, by stipulation, zero fitness impact on
         | individuals but 100% transmission. Because the human population
         | did grow over that time, so every deadend must have been
         | balanced out by even more children by the non-deadends. And
         | since he starts at hefty fractions like '1% of the entire
         | population' (and goes up to 20%), we should be well beyond any
         | issues of very small number effects or gambler's ruin.
         | 
         | There has to be something wrong with either the data or code.
         | (It almost looks like a sign error!)
        
       | 082349872349872 wrote:
       | > _because nobody wants to read fancode._
       | 
       | for large enough values of nobody (nopony?), anyway.
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-03 23:00 UTC)