DNA profiling, by another name?
Time to teach more science to the world, for oh, so many reasons. Today, I learned that the police in Calgary hired a U.S. biotech firm to assist in a murder case. The request, specifically, was to prepare a portrait of one of the parents of the victim, using DNA. And the firm complied, with a wonderful portrait of a young woman. Could this be the bleeding edge of technology?
Hardly. In fact, according to researchers in the field, the chance of the portrait actually fitting the individual are akin to using one of those fancy apps on your smartphone. In particular, the one that matches you to a famous movie star, based on such scientific profiling as “the number of letters in your name”. In other words, total hooey.
The lab charged $3600 USD, which with inflation factored in puts this in the ballpark of those computer dating matches we did in high school. The ones created using Hollerith cards.
Moving right along, now that the day’s foolish story has been noted. South of here, the president figures that if we were to provide the top 20% of candidates (on the shooting range, I imagine) from the staff of every school with a concealed weapon, we could nip these school shootings “in the bud”. Hmm. Foolish story of the day? I guess I “jumped the gun”, if you will permit me to wax even sillier. Of course, the rapid-fire right thinks this is just the answer to their problem. Permit me to don my body armour and then disagree.
