The University of Wisconsin anthropologist John Hawks can’t figure out why deCODE’s CEO publicized the company’s analysis of James Watson’s DNA. The analysis showed, in the words of the New York Times report, that Watson’s DNA “has 16 times the number of genes considered to be of African origin than the average white European does — about the same amount of African DNA that would show up if one great-grandparent were African, said Kari Stefansson, the chief executive of deCODE Genetics of Iceland, which did the analysis.”

The analysis doesn’t surprise Hawks — “ultimately, everyone’s ancestry is mixed,” he writes. “No, I find it strange that the leader of one of the major genetics firms in the world is cheerily showing one of the worst possible abuses of personal genomics, in the most high-profile way possible! I find it just flabbergasting,” says Hawks.

“The entire reason why many people think public genomics is a bad idea revolves around privacy and informed consent,” he writes. “People want to believe that their genes won’t be used against them — that information about risk alleles won’t be used to deny employment or insurance, for example. Information about one’s ancestry clearly falls in that category: most people want to keep such information private. . . .

“I mean, what is the purpose really of spreading a news story that Watson may be 1/16 African, without adding the context of how common this degree of genetic mixture has been in American history in particular, and between populations generally? . . .

“Maybe this is a play to discredit public genomics and advance the idea of some kind of data security system. From Stefansson’s quotes, it seems possible he is trying to make his company look good and other ideas, like George Church’s sequencing project, look bad.

“But somehow I doubt it was that closely thought out. Probably their zeal to ‘get’ Watson carried them away, to the detriment of the field.”

The argument is more detailed and there are other good links there. Worth a look.