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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2003-06 > 1055549700


From: "John F. Chandler" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] DNA Print
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 20:15 EDT
In-Reply-To: jwcoats@htc.net message <3EE93D21.7010701@htc.net> of Thu, 12 Jun 2003 20:55:25 -0600


John wrote:
> I'm watching Tony Frudakis as I write. These authorities are taking his
> test as infalible. Charles, you and John should take note.
> John Coats

Charles has already given an excellent description of the differences
between the needs of forensic and genealogical testing. The DNAprint
test is definitely a good forensic tool, and they have been very
thorough in validating it for that purpose -- such things as testing
samples containing two persons' blood mixed together (e.g., a victim
and a criminal) or a sample of mouse blood. They have also done many
trials to show that they can identify the majority ethnicity in blind
tests. What they haven't done is come up with trials to show that they
can give accurate readings on a finer scale. That is one reason why
they were so quick to take up my suggestion of a trial based on tweaking
the reference frequencies. Unfortunately, they seem to have dropped the
ball before completing the most revealing parts of the experiment. Tony
told me he thought Zach had done more than just the one part, and he
promised to send me the rest of the trial results two weeks ago. So
far, nothing.

John Chandler

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