Radio Review: The Business of Genetic Ancestry

'Genetics is messy and history is foggy. We are a species that is mobile and horny.' That is how Adam Rutherford quite accurately sums up the quest for understanding the human story in his documentary for BBC Radio 4, The Business of Genetic Ancestry.

Rutherford (no relation to Ernest Rutherford, the atom-splitting father of nuclear physics) is a journalist and geneticist who has taken extensive and hilarious exception to what he and many others see as the exploitative nature of genetic ancestry testing. Companies will, for a decent wodge of cash, unravel strands of DNA from a vial of your spit, compare them to other people's spit, and figure whom you might be related to. You could find previously unknown half-siblings or cousins - a powerful tool indeed - but this isn't where the problem lies. Some companies make claims about your 'deep' ancestry, churning out evocative and provocative results showing how you are a Celtic Viking Saracen...