For clarification, jeffreyrogers correctly states that the HN headline, based on the NYTimes subtitle "A new genetic study suggests that Polynesians made an epic voyage to^ South America 800 years ago", is wrong. As "irrational" points out, an epic journey did occur but we don't know the direction. To^ shouldn't be in the headline. Neither should "from".

The Polynesians are proven navigators but the natural current from Columbia/Ecuador to eastern Polynesia makes the alternative path quite plausible as demonstrated by Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition.