Boston Globe Botches Math Correction on Elizabeth Warren DNA Test Story

The Boston Globe botched its math correction in its defense of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA)  debunked claim of American Indian ancestry.

On Monday, the far-left outlet published the results of Warren’s DNA test, something she has been under pressure to take after her repeated claims to be part Cherokee were debunked. President Trump regularly uses Warren’s false claim of Indian ancestry to ridicule the Senator, and now that she is eyeing a 2020 presidential run, she is hoping to clear this up.

Unfortunately for Warren, the DNA test only proved she shares no more American Indian heritage than the average white American.

The Globe, however, and reporter Annie Linskey (pictured) published the story as a vindication of Warren’s longstanding claim she is part Cherokee.

The Globe also fumbled the math.

At first, the Globe reported that Warren could be anywhere between 1/32 and 1/512 Native American, which was a massive math error in Warren’s favor.

If the DNA test is correct, the truth is that Warren lands somewhere between 1/64 and 1/1024.

UPDATE: The Globe corrected its lower estimate sometime before 10:20 AM, when readers noticed the update. Nearly four hours later, it has similarly corrected the math on its sixth-generation figure from 1/32 to 1/64 — which puts Warren’s most optimistic claim to Native ancestry below 2 percent of her DNA.

CORRECTION: “Due to a math error, a story about Elizabeth Warren misstated the ancestry percentage of a potential 10th generation relative. It should be 1/1,024.”https://t.co/RQq7Kz0n1D

— Mike Bastasch (@MikeBastasch) October 15, 2018

Boston Globe issues another correction on the Warren story: She is “between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American.” https://t.co/km3p4z5ycO

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 15, 2018

The correction originally read:

Correction: Due to a math error, a story about Elizabeth Warren misstated the ancestry percentage of a potential 10th generation relative. It should be 1/1,024.

And now it has been updated to:

Correction: Due to a math error, a story about Elizabeth Warren misstated the ancestry percentage of a potential 6th to 10th generation relative. The generational range based on the ancestor that the report identified suggests she’s between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American.

Soon after the story went live, Linskey herself pushed back against critics demanding a “simple math” update of the inaccurate 1/32 figure. Nearly 5 hours later, the Globe ruled against Linskey’s defense that Warren is “generation zero” in the calculation.

If the probable ancestor is 6 to 10 generations back, as the expert estimated, Warren would be 1/64 to 1/1024. This is simple math. Please correct @BostonGlobe @AnnieLinskey.

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 15, 2018

She’s generation zero.

— Annie Linskey (@AnnieLinskey) October 15, 2018

Even if you use the Globe’s half-correct numbers, this puts Warren  between .09 and 1.6 percent Native American, when, according to the New York Times, “researchers found that European-Americans had genomes that were on average 98.6 percent European, .19 percent African, and .18 Native American.”

In other words, as Breitbart’s Joel Pollak summarizes, this “falls within Warren’s reported range, and suggests she may be no more Native American than the average white American.

The DNA test also offers no proof that Warren is in any part Cherokee.

Warren has dined out on her Cherokee heritage for decades.

Between 1987 and 1995, Warren identified as Cherokee at two law schools where she taught, including Harvard. At the time, a Fordham Law Review article described Warren as Harvard’s “first woman of color.” This DNA test proves she is not.

Warren has also declared, without any evidence, that her parents were forced to elope due to the racial discrimination her mother faced over her Indian ancestry. Documents and contemporaneous news articles, however, appear to show Warren’s parents got married in a local church ceremony.

What’s more, even if the DNA test is correct and even if the Globe’s original reporting was correct, Warren has zero claim to declare herself a Cherokee, a person of color, or an American Indian.

She is nowhere near the required percentages to be recognized by any Indian tribe.

This piece has been updated now that the Globe corrected the other half of its math error.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.