DNA On Record..
Discussion
cal72 said:
TuxRacer said:
Why would it have to be in your area? If the DNA says you were in Outer Mongolia, that's where you were!
Haha. Then thats when DNA would be proven not to be 99.9% acurate.Say you robbed a bank in america and used my DNA and i was here working at that same time i would have had a strong alibi to prove it wasn't me then the whole DNA process would have to be looked at again and with that reasonable doubt could not be used in a court.
cal72 said:
Marf said:
cal72 said:
Speed cameras..not botherd i stay at speed limits.
DNA.And how many people get away with rape,murder etc etc etc.
Best go and volunteer your DNA then chap. Off you pop. DNA.And how many people get away with rape,murder etc etc etc.
k me even i would beleive myself gulity. until then !Ok, it's a little paranoid and a small stretch of the imagination, but you can see very quickly how a suspect identified because of a DNA "match" could quite quickly find themselves in the cacky with no great explanation. And all because the computer said you were there.
As mentioned DNA profiling is almost 100% efficient.
What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
cal72 said:
Marf said:
cal72 said:
Speed cameras..not botherd i stay at speed limits.
DNA.And how many people get away with rape,murder etc etc etc.
Best go and volunteer your DNA then chap. Off you pop. DNA.And how many people get away with rape,murder etc etc etc.
k me even i would beleive myself gulity. until then !G_T said:
As mentioned DNA profiling is almost 100% efficient.
What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
You need to define innocent. What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
While searching for recent news reports about the DNA database I came across this gem:
http://www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk/news/Gokar...
"A MAN who attempted to drive a go-kart from Scarborough to Bridlington in darkness while holding a small torch has been ordered to complete a thinking skills course."
http://www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk/news/Gokar...
"A MAN who attempted to drive a go-kart from Scarborough to Bridlington in darkness while holding a small torch has been ordered to complete a thinking skills course."
Sheets Tabuer said:
Things I have learnt from my experience:
Never ever intervene in anything you see in the street.
Never ever help the police.
Yes I am sodding bitter.
I think I'm going to try and get mine removed from the database since they never charged me for anything and I was never convicted of anything. That makes me pretty innocent in law terms. Never ever intervene in anything you see in the street.
Never ever help the police.
Yes I am sodding bitter.
You should do the same. I might make a thread in the law forum with copies of the letters too.
At the very least I get to waste some police time.
G_T said:
As mentioned DNA profiling is almost 100% efficient.
What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
DNA does tell the whole truth, but only if the evidence holds the full DNA, this is rare, very rare.What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
In any crime scene there is contamination and so broken samples are taken and PCR'd [replicated exponentially] and even these suffer from contamination by the PCR process itself, the result is NOT the whole truth and never can be.
So the courts are fed statistics and that is where the mistakes are made.
Pretend you are the accused, in the dock and the Forensic Scientist tells the court that samples from the scene of the crime show that you were not there as being 150,000-1 against [PCR regularly gives that sort of figure or thereabouts] so that is pretty damning isn't it!
150,000 to 1 the DNA says so [with an error of 5% either way] to a juror facing a defendant that has no clue as to his whereabouts on the 12th March 2010 at 7PM [could all of you tell me exactly where you were on that date and time, I doubt it.] this is strong evidence against you isn't it, but the crime happened in Bristol and you live in Birmingham and you claim never to have been in Bristol for 10 or more years. But you are unable to prove it.
A reasonable person [juror] would assume that in all likelihood the police have their man, you can't account for yourself on the day, you were caught out by a smart brief who said [disarmingly] that you lied in saying you had not been to Bristol in the time you swore on oath because you passed through the town on your way to a holiday in Exeter just last year and stopped at the Bristol Services for a snack/break.
You're dead in the water.
But there's a problem with this, those seemingly insurmountable odds are nothing of the kind, because there are 10 people in the Bristol area alone who share your DNA to that level and there will 45 in Manchester and in the UK as a whole there will be a further 200 people that will match the sample in the court evidence.
Suddenly we have gone from 150,000-1 against you not being the killer to a less than 1% chance that you are and it is the latter fact that is the real truth of the matter.
Even if the court is told that the odds are 1,000,000, to 1 there are still 45 people out there who would show the same profile match and old enough to kill.
Now everyone in the law will know that it would be rare to go to court [at least in the last 5 or so years] on such flimsy DNA evidence, so lets spice this up a bit...
A second piece of evidence is found, lets say it was a bit of soil and forensically you can match soil very well indeed and this particular soil came from an area in Birmingham near to or by a canal and you live about 3 miles from a canal in Birmingham [almost all the population does in that area, but that is not mentioned] this is now pretty damning isn't it, you must have done it, the jury are again fed the odds and they call a statistician and he says that with all things accounted for it is only likely that 1 in 8000 residents of Birmingham would have visited Bristol on any average day.
So even if you had a Jury smart enough to see the fallacy of the 150,000 to 1 odds given wrongly the further 8000-1 odds cancel that out, the jury has to find you guilty.
Even reading this the odds are stacked against you are they...
Well no they're not, not at all.
If your DNA sample had been found on the soil sample then you are very probably guilty, but it wasn't so we have to obey Bayes theorem and the two bits of evidence seen only in that light.
So, you may be 1 0f 250 people who could make a DNA match and there is NO connection at all to you and that bit of soil, none whatsoever it makes no difference to the case at all, it is a Red Herring.
Places, odds and materials changed.
I enjoyed my time on Jury service, it was enlightening.
100% efficient, yeah maybe, but does it hold a real truth more than a percieved one? Not even vaguely.
And then the lab gets procedure wrong or (it happens) labels wrong.
The people doing the actual 'test' which will be a form of electrophoresis are not going to be Harvard post-docs but lab coats who are competent certainly - most of the time - but the impression in general discussion is that this is some kind of infallibility test on guilt when the type and quality of the DNA sample available can limit the accuracy of the test before it's even started. You wonder if Courts have the type of test and its limitations and implications eplained fully, and if so, whether the relevance is fully appreciated. As per PP's post, there will be several people who match a test result at the level of the test who will never be traced in an enquiry since it would be necessary to test everybody.
Which is where the thread started, and no, testing everybody is not a good idea as the law of unintended consequences will arrive at the due moment and even after that some civil servant will leave a few disks on the 1650 from Waterloo.
The people doing the actual 'test' which will be a form of electrophoresis are not going to be Harvard post-docs but lab coats who are competent certainly - most of the time - but the impression in general discussion is that this is some kind of infallibility test on guilt when the type and quality of the DNA sample available can limit the accuracy of the test before it's even started. You wonder if Courts have the type of test and its limitations and implications eplained fully, and if so, whether the relevance is fully appreciated. As per PP's post, there will be several people who match a test result at the level of the test who will never be traced in an enquiry since it would be necessary to test everybody.
Which is where the thread started, and no, testing everybody is not a good idea as the law of unintended consequences will arrive at the due moment and even after that some civil servant will leave a few disks on the 1650 from Waterloo.
I would like to add one further matter regarding my post above, the guy in the dock had voluntarily given his DNA during his time at University/college/further education as part of a research project.
For his trouble he spent a fair bit of time in custody, lost his job and was probably 'scarred' in some way by what had happened over the previous year.
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear eh!
For his trouble he spent a fair bit of time in custody, lost his job and was probably 'scarred' in some way by what had happened over the previous year.
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear eh!
It makes for lazy policing, and this is a dig from policy level braid up to the former incompetent nulab Home Office incumbents, not street cops.
Don't try to prevent too much crime (hard work consuming lots of BiB hours = resources) don't investigate too much (very hard work consuming loads of BiB hours = resources) just arrest arrest arrest on any flimsy but passable excuse in order to get DNA samples and let the lab rats get to it...after a few more rapes they might get a sample that imperfect procedure shows a match of whatever quality to somebody, what do the details matter as the Courts will believe it. Sorted - the national DNA database by stealth was increased bit by bit and somebody got done.
With a bit more prevention and a lot more investigation they might actually get the right person almost all of the time. There is the point that DNA can also establish innocence, but many other far-reaching problems can't be excused on that basis.
Don't try to prevent too much crime (hard work consuming lots of BiB hours = resources) don't investigate too much (very hard work consuming loads of BiB hours = resources) just arrest arrest arrest on any flimsy but passable excuse in order to get DNA samples and let the lab rats get to it...after a few more rapes they might get a sample that imperfect procedure shows a match of whatever quality to somebody, what do the details matter as the Courts will believe it. Sorted - the national DNA database by stealth was increased bit by bit and somebody got done.
With a bit more prevention and a lot more investigation they might actually get the right person almost all of the time. There is the point that DNA can also establish innocence, but many other far-reaching problems can't be excused on that basis.
Political Pain said:
G_T said:
As mentioned DNA profiling is almost 100% efficient.
What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
DNA does tell the whole truth, but only if the evidence holds the full DNA, this is rare, very rare.What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
PCR does make mistakes and that's why it's done multiple times. The error is then reduced to an insignificant number. You don't replicate a single strand of DNA an infinite number of times then assume it's consistent!
The technology is sound and statistically a very accurate means of securing a truthful conviction. People are just frightened by new technology because they're misled by people like you!
turbobloke said:
And then the lab gets procedure wrong or (it happens) labels wrong.
The people doing the actual 'test' which will be a form of electrophoresis are not going to be Harvard post-docs but lab coats who are competent certainly - most of the time - but the impression in general discussion is that this is some kind of infallibility test on guilt when the type and quality of the DNA sample available can limit the accuracy of the test before it's even started. You wonder if Courts have the type of test and its limitations and implications eplained fully, and if so, whether the relevance is fully appreciated. As per PP's post, there will be several people who match a test result at the level of the test who will never be traced in an enquiry since it would be necessary to test everybody.
Which is where the thread started, and no, testing everybody is not a good idea as the law of unintended consequences will arrive at the due moment and even after that some civil servant will leave a few disks on the 1650 from Waterloo.
Electrophoresis is the method not the name of the test... It's been rather a long time since I've done it but It's a "Southern Blot" test I think..The people doing the actual 'test' which will be a form of electrophoresis are not going to be Harvard post-docs but lab coats who are competent certainly - most of the time - but the impression in general discussion is that this is some kind of infallibility test on guilt when the type and quality of the DNA sample available can limit the accuracy of the test before it's even started. You wonder if Courts have the type of test and its limitations and implications eplained fully, and if so, whether the relevance is fully appreciated. As per PP's post, there will be several people who match a test result at the level of the test who will never be traced in an enquiry since it would be necessary to test everybody.
Which is where the thread started, and no, testing everybody is not a good idea as the law of unintended consequences will arrive at the due moment and even after that some civil servant will leave a few disks on the 1650 from Waterloo.
As I've said it's in the millions, I actually think it's hypothetically in the 100s of billions and you don't need to test everybody. Just the accused vs the sample.
You can argue it anyway you like but statistically speaking it is far more accurate than traditional techniques. The greater the accuracy the safer you are as an innocent man.
G_T said:
Political Pain said:
G_T said:
As mentioned DNA profiling is almost 100% efficient.
What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
DNA does tell the whole truth, but only if the evidence holds the full DNA, this is rare, very rare.What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
PCR does make mistakes and that's why it's done multiple times. The error is then reduced to an insignificant number. You don't replicate a single strand of DNA an infinite number of times then assume it's consistent!
The technology is sound and statistically a very accurate means of securing a truthful conviction. People are just frightened by new technology because they're misled by people like you!
People are not necessarily frightened by new technology, more so by the people (incompetents) who may use it!
G_T said:
Political Pain said:
G_T said:
As mentioned DNA profiling is almost 100% efficient.
What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
DNA does tell the whole truth, but only if the evidence holds the full DNA, this is rare, very rare.What isn't even close is stories told to police and the use of pictures and line up's etc. which rely on memory which is proven to unreliable!
As an innocent person you're far safer using DNA to secure a conviction than other methods, despite how you may feel it's a scientific fact.
Your brain and memory is easily corrupted. DNA always tells the truth.
I don't agree with innocent people being on a database though...
PCR does make mistakes and that's why it's done multiple times. The error is then reduced to an insignificant number. You don't replicate a single strand of DNA an infinite number of times then assume it's consistent!
The technology is sound and statistically a very accurate means of securing a truthful conviction. People are just frightened by new technology because they're misled by people like you!
In other words you can get it wrong repeatedly, compounding the error made in the first instance.
That is just one fault, there are dozens, from incorrect procedure at the sample stage, to lab errors, to even the standard of the computer program used to analyse the results, then add to that general ignorance as in the example I have outlined in my original post and although the 'technology' is fairly sound, it is prone to horrendous errors from the get go.
Your 'faith' is your own concern, my 'faith' is in human error [I encounter it every day without fail] and this system is no less [perhaps more] prone to a simple element going wrong than is the entire Apollo 13 mission to the moon.
You keep your faith, I'll keep mine.
G_T said:
turbobloke said:
And then the lab gets procedure wrong or (it happens) labels wrong.
The people doing the actual 'test' which will be a form of electrophoresis are not going to be Harvard post-docs but lab coats who are competent certainly - most of the time - but the impression in general discussion is that this is some kind of infallibility test on guilt when the type and quality of the DNA sample available can limit the accuracy of the test before it's even started. You wonder if Courts have the type of test and its limitations and implications eplained fully, and if so, whether the relevance is fully appreciated. As per PP's post, there will be several people who match a test result at the level of the test who will never be traced in an enquiry since it would be necessary to test everybody.
Which is where the thread started, and no, testing everybody is not a good idea as the law of unintended consequences will arrive at the due moment and even after that some civil servant will leave a few disks on the 1650 from Waterloo.
Electrophoresis is the method not the name of the test... It's been rather a long time since I've done it but It's a "Southern Blot" test I think..The people doing the actual 'test' which will be a form of electrophoresis are not going to be Harvard post-docs but lab coats who are competent certainly - most of the time - but the impression in general discussion is that this is some kind of infallibility test on guilt when the type and quality of the DNA sample available can limit the accuracy of the test before it's even started. You wonder if Courts have the type of test and its limitations and implications eplained fully, and if so, whether the relevance is fully appreciated. As per PP's post, there will be several people who match a test result at the level of the test who will never be traced in an enquiry since it would be necessary to test everybody.
Which is where the thread started, and no, testing everybody is not a good idea as the law of unintended consequences will arrive at the due moment and even after that some civil servant will leave a few disks on the 1650 from Waterloo.
As I've said it's in the millions, I actually think it's hypothetically in the 100s of billions and you don't need to test everybody. Just the accused vs the sample.
You can argue it anyway you like but statistically speaking it is far more accurate than traditional techniques. The greater the accuracy the safer you are as an innocent man.
Just becasue you said before it's in the millions doesn't make it so, you appear not to be differentiating between types of test or sample quality. A paternity test, bearing in mind obvious ethnic aspects, can have a false match probability of about 1 in 100000. Or it can be less vague. At least a negative result is conclusive.
The idea of considering accused vs sample alone is way off the mark as a sole basis of determination since there are a number of individuals who will match but will never be contacted without total coverage of the population. Then there's the nature and quality of the sample. In a Court, DNA evidence can only determine innocence with certainty, not guilt.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/20/local/me-d...
When DNA from such clues as blood or skin cells matches a suspect's genetic profile, it can seal his fate with a jury, even in the absence of other evidence.
Which shows that lawyers are manipulative or jurors need educating, or both, and for sure there are people including on this thread suffering from the 'CSI Effect'.
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff