3 ms·
Unfortunately you are mistaken. The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used i
by eggie 11y ago
Unfortunately you are mistaken. The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used in forensics.
> Two seemingly unrelated individuals—one white and one black—shared the same two markers at nine of the 13 places in the standard DNA profile.
Forensic standards of identity are based on a few _hundred_ base pairs of the three billion in each of our genomes. It is scientifically dishonest to represent this as a conclusive test of identity. The markers are not distributed randomly and large numbers of false positive matches against microsattelite databases are the norm.
If the full genome sequence of an individual were the standard of truth this would not be an issue. It would resolve the problem of mistaken DNA identity entirely! This is the problem the EFF should seek to solve.
Try again.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago>The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used in forensics. This seems like a goal post shift from 'DNA information alone cannot cause harm' to 'sharing of DNA information alone cannot cause harm', with the alone excluding all uses of DNA information. To me would be like arguing that giving everyone a nuclear bomb is not harmful, it is their use of the nuclear bomb that will cause harm. Or to generalize further, the harm is always the fault of the last event in a chain of events, and all events leading up to it cannot be blamed. To make another extreme comparison, violations of the 4th amendment related to searches aren't harmful, it is only the (mis)use of that information that is harmful. That isn't an argument I'm buying.