The ongoing debate on the use of DNA profiles to identify perpetrators
in criminal investigations or fathers in paternity disputes has too
often been conducted with no regard to sound statistical, genetic or
legal reasoning. The contributors to Human Identification: The Use of
DNA Markers all have considerable experience in forensic science,
statistical genetics or jurimetrics, and many of them have had to
explain the scientific issues involved in using DNA profiles to judges
and juries. Although the authors hold differing views on some of the
issues, they have all produced accounts which pay due attention to the,
sometimes troubling, issues of independence of components of the
profiles and of population substructures. The book presents the
considerable evolution of ideas that has occurred since the 1992 Report
of the National Research Council of the U.S.
Audience: Indispensable to forensic scientists, laying out the
concepts to all those with an interest in the use of genetic
information. The chapters and exhaustive bibliography are vital
information for all lawyers who must prosecute or defend DNA cases, and
to judges trying such cases.