DNA Testing?

September 29th, 2005

Filed under: General, Medicine

From an Associated Press article:

Police said last week that DNA evidence suggested the killer was a white man who smoked Camel Turkish Gold cigarettes.

How did this ever slip by the repoter, let alone the editor? It’s no wonder people in the United States have trouble with science when this article by a mainstream news organization tells readers that DNA testing can not only identify a person’s race (false) but also their cigarette preference (so very very false).

7 Responses to “ DNA Testing? ”

  1. David Oakes
    September 29th, 2005 at 3:38 pm

    I am assuming that the DNA was found on a cigarette.

    But yeah, DNA “suggesting” white, and the suggestion that DNA could indicate either of these things by itself, definitely Bad Science. (Saddly, it is Good Entertainment, and Comforting News to think that all crimes can be solved in 42 minutes by “DNA” and a CSI agent. So even if it hadn’t slipped past the Editor, I am quite sure it would have been passed anyway.)

  2. Scott
    September 29th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
    Official Comment

    I can just see it now:
    “OK MR. Jones, according to your DNA sample we can tell that you’re a left-handed Southern Baptist, though you only go to church on Christmas Eve and Easter. You have a preference for tall brunettes and the San Francisco 49ers. You also cry at chick flicks.”

  3. David Oakes
    September 29th, 2005 at 5:13 pm

    I saw claims not too different, back when they were just starting to map the human genome. And not just from the press, or the Marketing department of some BioTech start-up either. Like a lot of other scientific disciplines, there is a small cadre of biologists who have a great deal of faith in Objectivist Reductionism, and are quite sure that all questions can be answered by their field if they look hard enough.

    (My personal feeling is that we will be able to confirm most of those facts, with statistical degrees of certainty, by correlating with some standard demographics. But we are never going to find a tiny little picture of Joe Montana encoded in base pairs, no. And while cigarette smoking may indeed have a genetic component, anyone who can tell you the brand name is selling you something.)

  4. bob
    September 29th, 2005 at 5:37 pm

    My favourite was the news anchor who suggested if they found Saddam they could be sure it wasn’t one of his doubles by comparing his DNA to that of his son-in-law.

  5. Scott
    September 29th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
    Official Comment

    Sounds like the Simpsons in the second part of “Who Shot Mr. Burns?”

    Marge: The police have such a strong case against Homer. Mr. Burns said he did it, they have Homer’s DNA –
    Lisa: They have Simpson DNA! It could have come from any of us, except you, since you’re a Bouvier.
    Marge: No! No, no, when I took your father’s name, I took everything that came with it — including DNA.
    Lisa: [rolling eyes] OK, Mom.

  6. M
    September 30th, 2005 at 11:36 am

    Me to Bob’s news anchor, “What part of -in-law do you not understand?”.

  7. John Nowak
    September 30th, 2005 at 9:50 pm

    Anyone ever hear something in a news story that was actually right? I did, once; it was an NPR bit during the first Gulf War which pointed out that since the Americans were moving M-1s into the area, they probably intended to attack.

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