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fuzzygondola t1_ir6jbbz wrote

Reply to comment by dexable in See lifelike facial reconstructions of a medieval Scottish woman, priest and bishop by unheated1

Can we really not accurately detect "obvious features" like skin tone of a person based on the DNA? It's baffling to me. Those 30 predicted faces seem to have features randomly from all over the world.

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dexable t1_ir6rdhn wrote

This does kind of get to the point of the exhibit. The researcher gave the press of the higher percentages to the press to give a more "potentially accurate" model. However most of the sculptures were created to showcase all the possibilities. Meaning there was a small chance that Chelsea could have looked like some of those but it was still there.

Skin tone is an interesting one, we would think it is simple but it is not. To use myself as an example my skin tone shade is closer to my mother's: light than my father's: medium-dark. However the undertone of my skin tone matches my father's golden undertones versus my mother's pink undertones. Which means the more of a tan I have the more I look like my dad to people. I also have my mother's eye shape but my father's eye color. My mother's hair color but my father's hair texture pattern.

I could go on but the point is that genes can really express themselves in a lot of varying ways.

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dr_king_papa t1_itfffu1 wrote

Hmm, I feel something is off here. I saw this exhibit and maybe I didn't read all the details, but from what I remember, it was made by an artist, not a scientist. From the presentation, it seemed to suggest that the path from DNA to appearance has quite a bit of variance. If it is really so random, why do identical twins not display the same sort of variance in appearance? Yes, of course, any outcome is possible, but if it's astronomically unlikely, what's the point of highlighting it? Maybe I'm missing something?

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dexable t1_itgm0ph wrote

Science requires one to cast aside ones prejudices and have an open mind to come to new understanding. Identical twins have more than just DNA in common. Look up some studies on identical twins if you are interested.

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dr_king_papa t1_ithf50h wrote

Good science, and indeed rational thought, involves a prior belief (what one might call a prejudice), which is updated to form a posterior in the face of new evidence. The stronger the prior, the stronger the evidence needs to be to overcome that prior. I have not seen any new evidence, but I am open to integrating it if it is presented.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary_evidence

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dexable t1_ithgrqt wrote

Strong words from someone who clearly didn't click on the original link and watch a 5 minute video.

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