Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1994

Abstract

Throughout her useful paper on DNA identification, Professor Roeder properly attends to both theory and practice. Thus she acknowledges the theoretical soundness of certain criticisms that have been made of the standard paradigm used to evaluate DNA random match probabilities but argues that in practice these criticisms matter little. I am thinking here of the arguments that those cautioning against overweighing DNA evidence have made regarding the undeniable existence of population substructure and its potential implications for independence assumptions supporting the application of the product rule and for the use of convenience samples, such as data garnered from no more than a few local blood banks, to generate estimated allele frequencies for all Caucasians or African-Americans or Mexican-Americans living in the United States. Like Professor Roeder, I believe that these theoretically sound objections have, to date, been shown to be relatively unimportant in practice.

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