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I'm more concerned about the impact on forensics, how these large banks of information will inevitably leak and compound upon developments in the creation of ar

I'm more concerned about the impact on forensics, how these large banks of information will inevitably leak and compound upon developments in the creation of artificial DNA. DNA evidence is considered infallible within the justice system, should it be? Here's a paper from 2009. [1] Around the same time the paper was published, the author was quoted in a NYT article [2] (again, nearly a decade ago) saying, "“You can just engineer a crime scene, any biology undergraduate could perform this.”" Think about how much this field developed within the past decade. Here [3] is another paper from the end of last year about looking at methylation signatures on DNA to profile the person it belongs to. Imagine the possibility of finding badly degraded DNA at a crime scene and still being able to say, "whoever did this, they have this skin color, they're within this age range, they're a smoker, and they have frequent exposure to this particular industrial chemical." Minority report wasn't imaginative enough. I'm concerned about this being used politically, I think it's possible with enough money and motivation. I think our courts are too addicted to open-and-shut convictions to reevaluate the validity of DNA evidence going forward. [1]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsigen.2009.06.009 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsigen.2009.06.009 [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html [3]: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-017-1373-1 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-017-1373-1

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> our courts are too addicted to open-and-shut convictions to reevaluate the validity of DNA evidence going forward Have you ever served on a jury? These questions are deeply contemplated in selection, presentation and deliberation. If the evidence could have been falsified, a jury neutral to that argument will hear the defense’s case.
- mchannon 8y ago
  Having had a jury, there are way too many things wrong with that thought to know where to begin. Let's start with jury selection. If a venireman (that's somebody in the jury pool) has anything objectionable known about themselves to either side, one or both sides will strike them. This leaves juries with muppets (in the sense of people who will never themselves make the history books) and the occasional stealth. Juries aren't neutral to anything. The expert the state hires goes up and says, yup, DNA matches. Defendant probably doesn't get an expert even if he's certain he needs one. And that's only if the judge allows it, which is often not the case. Half of the jurors are already pissed off at the defendant because that's how people are- he decided to protest his innocence and now I have to miss a week of work for less than minimum wage. DNA unfortunately is all too often junk science, because in the instances where the forensic lab technician isn't adulterating the tests intentionally, they can be doing so unintentionally. The DNA you're not looking for can often get in the way. This is without Chimerism, and other recently discovered genetic oddities muddying things up further. One need only look at Milgram's experiment to know how most jury trials go.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Jurors are people, and people are fallible. This is one of my favourite stories about juries The jurors who used a Ouija board to find a murderer guilty https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-08/ouija-board-juror-misbehaviour-murder-trials/9734868 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-08/ouija-board-juror-mis...
- paulgrant999 8y ago
  What are you joking? They strike anyone with a brain or domain-level knowledge (until they run out of strikes). You never see the totality of the evidence; just what the judge "allows in" (that isn't prejudicial to the prosecutors case). You don't know what the punishments are; half the time you aren't instructed on lesser offences; and most of the time you never even get to see the actual laws, or more importantly, case law. if you think sitting on a jury (as it stands today) qualifies you to render any sort of judgement on the "evidence", you are woefully mistaken. You are a puppet. A fop. Anything but "the last bulwark against state tyranny". The appearance of justice, is the only thing Courts give a shit about. You are part of that appearance. A show, for the uneducated to think they still have a functioning legal system.
  - dang 8y ago
    We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> our courts are too addicted to open-and-shut convictions to reevaluate the validity of DNA evidence going forward Have you ever served on a jury? These questions are deeply contemplated in selection, presentation and deliberation. If the evidence could have been falsified, a jury neutral to that argument will hear the defense’s case.

mchannon 8y ago
Having had a jury, there are way too many things wrong with that thought to know where to begin. Let's start with jury selection. If a venireman (that's somebody in the jury pool) has anything objectionable known about themselves to either side, one or both sides will strike them. This leaves juries with muppets (in the sense of people who will never themselves make the history books) and the occasional stealth. Juries aren't neutral to anything. The expert the state hires goes up and says, yup, DNA matches. Defendant probably doesn't get an expert even if he's certain he needs one. And that's only if the judge allows it, which is often not the case. Half of the jurors are already pissed off at the defendant because that's how people are- he decided to protest his innocence and now I have to miss a week of work for less than minimum wage. DNA unfortunately is all too often junk science, because in the instances where the forensic lab technician isn't adulterating the tests intentionally, they can be doing so unintentionally. The DNA you're not looking for can often get in the way. This is without Chimerism, and other recently discovered genetic oddities muddying things up further. One need only look at Milgram's experiment to know how most jury trials go.
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Jurors are people, and people are fallible. This is one of my favourite stories about juries The jurors who used a Ouija board to find a murderer guilty https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-08/ouija-board-juror-misbehaviour-murder-trials/9734868 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-08/ouija-board-juror-mis...
paulgrant999 8y ago
What are you joking? They strike anyone with a brain or domain-level knowledge (until they run out of strikes). You never see the totality of the evidence; just what the judge "allows in" (that isn't prejudicial to the prosecutors case). You don't know what the punishments are; half the time you aren't instructed on lesser offences; and most of the time you never even get to see the actual laws, or more importantly, case law. if you think sitting on a jury (as it stands today) qualifies you to render any sort of judgement on the "evidence", you are woefully mistaken. You are a puppet. A fop. Anything but "the last bulwark against state tyranny". The appearance of justice, is the only thing Courts give a shit about. You are part of that appearance. A show, for the uneducated to think they still have a functioning legal system.
- dang 8y ago
  We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html