A discovery leads to questions about whether the odds of people sharing genetic profiles are sometimes higher than portrayed. Calling the finding meaningless, the FBI has sought to block such inquiry.
State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona's DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles.
The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.
The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white.
What troubles me most is the FBI trying to block people from finding out how accurate DNA "matches" really are. If I am accused of a crime, and an FBI guy says "his DNA was found", that's pretty much a slam dunk "guilty" verdict.
People see these CSI episodes and think that DNA is an all knowing, unblinking piece of evidence, and what's worse, is that they are saying the odds are 1 in 113 billion. That makes everyone think that, "well there's 6 billion people in the world, this must be the guy".
It's extremely troubling that the FBI would seek to suppress this kind of information that the public deserves to know.
Travis
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