What if Raam is actually your ancestor but you don’t have a single gene from him? What if a mother can fail her own child’s DNA test, identical twins don’t have perfectly identical DNA, and your family tree explodes to the size of the entire world in just a few dozen generations?
This episode dives into the deeply unintuitive world of DNA, ancestry, and heredity where math breaks our common sense and biology refuses to behave the way we expect. We explore real court cases where women were accused of fraud because genetics said they weren’t their own children’s mothers, the strange reality of chimeras, and why being someone’s ancestor doesn’t guarantee you inherit anything from them.
And yes we directly tackle the big question:
Was Raam really your ancestor?
Not as a matter of faith or belief, but using population mathematics, genetic inheritance, and historical constraints. By the end, you’ll know what science can (and cannot) say about that claim and why the answer is far more subtle than a simple yes or no.
Along the way, we bust popular myths about ancestry tests, explain why family trees collapse into each other over time, and show how identity, heritage, and genetics are far more complicated than “who your genes came from.” This isn’t about proving mythology right or wrong. It’s about understanding how science reframes ancient questions and why intuition often gets it wrong.