DNA Identification

What is DNA identification?  Well I have been trying to figure that out.  I have been reading lots of books about DNA identification and have found that DNA identification is just that, genetic identification!  Each person has a separate DNA identification that identifies them to the police. The police use DNA identification to catch you when you’ve killed or raped some one. You have no idea how much DNA is needed for forensic identification, which is the science that is behind such hit TV shows as CSI and LAW AND ORDER.  Folks, without DNA identification we would not have these stellar television shows, so that’s why DNA is needed for forensic identification, right? (There is more where this came from … )

An increasing number of TV programs are including efforts by private investigators and detectives to attain a proper DNA identification. Sometimes that identification involves a recent murder; sometimes it involves a “cold case.” In either instance the TV viewer normally gets only brief and fleeting glimpses of the sort of laboratory work that must go into the making of that DNA identification. That lab work calls for performance of a long and tedious process, a process that would make for “boring TV.”  That process is explained in the following article. The writer has previously worked in a molecular biology laboratory. (There is more where this came from … )

Genetic racial identification DNA testing incorporates a number of different tests. The paternity of a child is determined by use of Y chromosome haplotypes. The maternity of the child becomes revealed through an examination of mitochondrial DNA. The paired procedures with the long name—genetic racial identification DNA testing—my not have a very long life. Everyday the world seems to get smaller. Everyday the world experiences more and more cases of intermarriage. Everyday the once important racial lines seem to become more blurred. Thus the world must witness a daily decline in the clarity of meaning provided by any testing procedure, including those that uncover a subject’s racial identity. (There is more where this came from … )

Some people think that DNA identification requires the analysis of the all of the DNA found in a sample that comes from a crime scene. That would be a formidable task. Any person’s DNA has at least 3 billion different letters. The process of DNA identification does not look at all of those letters. It looks at only 10% of them, those that molecular biologists have found to exhibit tell-tale differences from one human to the next. An analysis of that small 10% gives legal experts all of the information they need to know. If that amazes you, then read more below. (There is more where this came from … )

Between 1892, when law enforcement officials first chose to use fingerprinting, and the late 20th Century, the population of the world increased greatly. That increase caused a decline in the reliance on fingerprinting. It also caused a rise in the interest in DNA identification. Scientists had shown that DNA identification proved more useful than fingerprinting. It offered law enforcement officials with a better way to identify the perpetrators of a crime. Once the public had finally come to understand the techniques that are used to carry out a DNA analysis, such analyses had become an accepted part of the judicial process.

(There is more where this came from … )