[evan_au (OP)]

I had my DNA tested, as I was interested in where my ancestors came from. No particular surprises for me, but my wife found a Portuguese link that she didn't expect.

Have you had your DNA tested? Were there any surprises?

Could DNA testing help overcome some of the current social tensions around artificial distinctions of race?
See: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/white-nationalists-are-flocking-to-genetic-ancestry-tests-with-surprising-results/

[chris]

Nice idea, but I doubt it. For a start, to carry out and interpret one of those tests you need a brain. The people with the problem you are seeking to solve are often intellectually bereft.

Also, to take two different examples, there are Irish people who have spent years at loggerheads yet are extremely closely related but set apart by culture and religion; and Muslim fundamentalists don't seem to care who they kill, including themselves.

[smart]

A new study found that oxytocin administration can be helpful to reduce xenophobia. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170814162334.htm

Muslim fundamentalists don't seem to care who they kill, including themselves.

It is forbidden to commit murder in the Quran. Real muslims do not kill people.

[alancalverd]

There is no cure for race hatred because it isn't a disease or even an anomaly. Like religion, it's a tool used by scum to convince people of lesser intelligence to give them power or political influence. You can easily persuade half the population (those of less than average wit) to hate anyone "different", as long as you define the difference. It's easiest if the difference is visible, and experiments have shown  how schoolkids can be made to despise and attack their classmates with blue eyes. It's a bit more subtle if the difference is one of behavior, and of course the height of sophistication is persuading grown men to throw stones at children because you think their parents may have attended a particular church. If you get that right, you will be invited to form a fatuous but well paid "powersharing government" in Northern Ireland.

Islamic extremism has found another twist. You tell a kid that he is different from all his mates, and has a duty to a bunch of ignorant savages on the other side of the world, who he will never meet, to kill people at random. Cui bono? Well, somebody somewhere is making money out of this, it sells newspapers, and it keeps the oil price high. The cure, of course, is not to give such acts any media prominence at all, to restrict the word "terrorism" to acts with a clear political objective, and to invade restore democracy to Saudi Arabia. Around 10 people are killed on Britain's roads every day anyway, plus about 2 intentional homicides, so the actual impact of islamic morons is negligible.     

[chris]

It is forbidden to commit murder in the Quran. Real muslims do not kill people.

This is just not true; it's full of instructions to kill people, just like the old testament of the Bible is similarly full of death and destruction. And, just to be clear, the penalty for apostasy in islam is death.

People need to get away from these archaic, misguided religious relics and practise an interpretation of their religions that is fit for the 21st Century. Not one that embraces and avails itself of all of the trappings of modern life while imposing primitive cultural values that went out of date with the Ark, but one that is flexible and in step with modern times...

[chris]

so the actual impact of islamic morons is negligible.

Not when I'm stuck in a 2 hour security queue at airport check-in it isn't...

[Bored chemist]

so the actual impact of islamic morons is negligible.

Not when I'm stuck in a 2 hour security queue at airport check-in it isn't...

That's got nothing to do with security and a lot to do with being "seen to do something".

In order for DNA testing to change people's minds about stuff they would need to be educated enough to understand the results.

It would be easier to educate them to the point where they recognised that humanity started out in Africa and, if you go back far enough, all our ancestors were (1) black, and (2) the same bunch of people.

[chris]

That's got nothing to do with security and a lot to do with being "seen to do something".

That's a bit unfair: they do find stuff: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/01/manchester-airport-security-boss-put-seized-pipe-bomb-in-pocket-court-told

(but then do, admittedly, pop devices into their pockets from time to time )

The place that is the biggest joke is Dubai. You get off an aeroplane (having been scrutinised to within an inch of your life getting on to it in the first place; then you go through security and get scanned again; then you board your connecting flight and go through the whole rigmarole again. I hate the place and actively try to avoid flying through there now...

That said, daft ruling of the decade award must go to Heathrow airport security; I was flying with a work colleague to Australia a few years back and she had one or two toiletries too many to fit inside the obligatory see-through bag. So the security officer invited her to choose which extra item she wanted to discard.

"Well, I was going to blow up the plane with these explosives, but as they don't fit into the bag, I'll ditch the bottle with the bomb-liquid in it and just take my toothpaste..." Honestly...

Then, more recently, my wife was travelling with our daughter who'd just been stung by a wasp and was swiftly swelling up. She bought a bottle of antihistamine (piriton) in the airport concourse chemist. She was denied through security with the medicine, even though she administered some of it to our daughter in front of the officer.

The whole thing makes me sick and I actively avoid flying whenever I can now. I absolutely hate the experience. But we need to treat everyone like a potential terrorist, of course, lest we offend anyone by profiling them...

[alancalverd]

Not just Heathrow.

At LAX a few years back the boss was told she couldn't take her half-used hair gunk on board because it was in two bottles each larger than 100 ml. So we went back to the pharmacy and bought two 100 ml bottles, into which we decanted the  remaining 90 ml of gloop. "No problem". Now we are on the airside with the gloop, but it would be nice to have it in dispenser bottles. So I asked "can I go back and collect the two empty bottles?" "No problem".

Somewhere in Scotland. Bloke in front of me handed two small bottles to the "security" man saying "these are homeopathic remedies and must not be x-rayed". No problem. They were handled with all the respect  due to magic potions (or nitroglycerine) and given back to him after the mandatory body grope. How do I know it was contraband? Because homeopathic liquids are not yellow!

Northern England "executive terminal". I put my bag on the x-ray conveyor. Woman says "Are you the pilot?" "Yes" "We don't search aircrew. Please take your bag and walk around the building to the aircrew gate, Sir." It's starting to rain. "Can't you just let me through the building?" "No, we have to search everyone who comes through here." On the way out I see a toilet marked "staff". "Can I use your toilet?" "No. It's reserved for staff but we can't use it because it is landside so we have to be searched  to get back to the office, so there has to be two people on duty but we are only allocated one for the executive terminal." "So what do I do?"  "Once you have passed through the gate, follow the signs to the main terminal and use the Arrivals toilet. It's about half a mile, Sir." "Can I get a ride?" "Only direct to the aircraft, not via the toilet." (For those in need, I discovered that there's a loo in the emergency helicopter hangar). 

English Midlands. "I know you are the pilots because I checked you in, you have the keys to the aircraft, and I am going to drive you to it, but first I have to search you to make sure you won't hijack or damage your own plane, Sir."

But at least I don't have to stand in a queue of early-morning drunks and snarling infants, most days.