Opinion: It’s in our DNA
Written by Laurence Boyce on 21st November 2007 – 7:08 pm
Some days it’s great to be a Liberal Democrat. Tuesday, October 30 was just such a day – the day when one person alone was conspicuous by his absence from a state banquet hosted in the sumptuous surroundings of the Buckingham Palace ballroom. Yes, the only politician to take such a principled stand, eschewed the fillet of sole with salmon mousse, noisettes of venison with stuffed tomatoes and braised lettuce, and raspberry shortbread tartlet, all washed down with Puligny-Montrachet, Pichon Lalande, and Bollinger Grande Année 1996 – such was the determination of our very own Vincent Cable not to be seen consorting with a wholly unelected, unaccountable, and profligate royal head of state, (not to mention her curious companion, the Saudi dictator).
But not every day is quite so good as that. So in the first of two articles taking their cue from recent statements made by the leadership contenders, I would like to begin by considering the remarks of Nick Clegg concerning the shocking revelation that some 150,000 children might have found their way onto the national DNA database. “The disturbing and illiberal policy of adding a child’s most personal information to a massive government computer system, simply on the grounds of an accusation, must stop immediately,” says Nick. Well there’s no disagreeing with that I suppose. Storing a DNA profile “simply on the grounds of an accusation” is indeed barmy. No, I tend to think that Lord Justice Sedley had it exactly right when he suggested that the time has come to create a universal DNA database comprising the profiles of every man, woman, and child in Britain.
Answer me this: why is it that when contemplating the prospect of a national DNA database, we are more likely to find Liberal Democrats wringing their hands over “civil liberties,” than we are to hear them extolling the virtues of the most devastating forensic tool ever to be placed in the hands of the police? Only this week, Ronald Castree was finally sent down for the murder of Lesley Molseed, a conviction which sadly came far too late for Stefan Kiszko who died a broken man not long after emerging from sixteen years of wrongful imprisonment. But Castree was only required to supply a sample following his recent arrest on an unrelated charge, later dropped. Under the terms which Nick Clegg and others would like to see in force, whereby the DNA of innocents is never retained, Castree would literally have got away with murder.
Yet examples such as this appear to make little impression upon those who routinely concoct the lamest excuses imaginable for not rolling out this technology to its fullest extent. Typically we are told that DNA evidence is not 100% reliable, or that there is a risk of contamination at the crime scene, as if these were profound or novel insights. Well contamination is always a possibility with any kind of forensic evidence, something which the police are perfectly well aware of. And while the reliability of DNA profiling is already superb, the technology can only improve dramatically over time – because that’s what technology always does. The overall impression conveyed by these objections is that of a neo-Luddite refusal to keep pace with the march of scientific progress.
Extrapolating into the future, Richard Dawkins has estimated that by the year 2050, the cost of sequencing the full set of human DNA will be less than £100 per person. That’s an entire Human Genome Project (present cost around $3 billion) for each and every one of us. So why might we want to do that? The promise is that, one day, treatments and prescriptions will be uniquely tailored to the individual, and that the scope of preventative medicine will be expanded beyond our present imagination. Make no mistake, the technology is on its way and before too long will be hitting us like a train. Notwithstanding the combined exertions of all the tedious civil libertarians in the world, the result could be nothing less than a total transformation in global healthcare.
Liberal Democrats ought to be highlighting the genuine hazards and ethical dilemmas brought about by the genetic revolution, not appearing to act merely as an obstacle to human progress – progress which, in the fields of forensic and medical science, is coming our way whether we like it or not. Unless we engage constructively in the debate, we may simply find ourselves excluded altogether while others take all the key decisions. So please could we hear a little more enthusiasm for the amazing power of this extraordinary molecule? And please join me again shortly, when I shall be giving Chris Huhne a hard time over GM crops!
* Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member, and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice.
Posted in Op-eds
21st November 2007 at 7:30 pm
Blimey Laurence, I never thought I would find myself agreeing with you, but yes, the pros of having a national DNA database from birth and not one where random groups of people are on, is something that we should seriously look at as a party.
My gut reaction when I first heard of this proposal was to take the civil liberties line, however, I think that I am now broadly a luke warm supporter of the idea.
21st November 2007 at 7:41 pm
Ahem. National database. Have the past 48 hours taught us nothing?
21st November 2007 at 8:15 pm
The two halves of this article don’t seem to me to be particularly well connected. Obviously there are tremendous potential medical benefits to personal DNA sequencing (though my distant memories of reading ‘Brave New World’ suggest that, like with all technologies, there are going to be consequences that we cannot necessarily forsee and which will change society in ways that we don’t like). I don’t see how that connects though to Laurence’s proposal that the State should have a proprietorial right to its citizens’ DNA. I would have thought, Laurence, with your attitude towards the Royal Family, that the idea that you are anyone’s subject would be as anathema to you as it is to me: I am a citizen, not a subject; not the Queen’s subject, not the Government’s subject, and no one has a right to know everything about me.
21st November 2007 at 8:36 pm
Er, Laurence, did you actually write this today or some time last week and it just appeared today? It seems a truly odd day to propose trusting the state with even more of our personal data (and presumably this information is even more personal: you can change your bank account and even your name, but though not much of a biologist I’m guessing that changing your DNA is a bit more of a challenge!).
Also I enjoyed the joke in Laurence’s byline: “Laurence Boyce is a Lib Dem member and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice”. Occasional? Occasional? Laurence? Here? There are entire threads of comments on here written by him! Of course it should have been the other way round: “Laurence Boyce is a devotee of Lib Dem Voice and occasional Lib Dem member”…
21st November 2007 at 10:15 pm
Spot on. As liberals it has been the easy line to oppose a national database of DNA - we need to have a big debate about this serious issue. I have always been against having to carry an ID card but in favour of creating a national database for DNA. I represent the ward where Lesley Molseed lived and where Stefan and his mother lived - and without the DNA database - Castree would not be behind bars. How many lives would be saved / rapes not committed if we had a database? Surely we have a duty to protect the vulnerable and let individuals have the liberty to enjoy life without the threat of violent crime?
21st November 2007 at 10:17 pm
2) Ahem. National database. Have the past 48 hours taught us nothing?
Yes they have taught us that you can’t cost cut at government departments and leave junior staff to do responsible roles.
It hasn’t taught us whether a national DNA database from birth would be an advantage or disadvantage in the fight against crime and as an aid to the medical profession.
21st November 2007 at 10:25 pm
Is Cheltenham Robin actually saying that a national DNA database would not help in the fight against crime?
21st November 2007 at 10:43 pm
No I am saying that I think it would help in the fight against crime.
My own view (not necessarily those of the party in general) is that the pros could outway the cons.
21st November 2007 at 11:07 pm
Rochdale Cowboy writes: “How many lives would be saved / rapes not committed if we had a database?”
Answer: NONE.
When fingerprint technology became available to law enforcement agencies, criminals started wearing gloves.
Now that DNA profiling is available, they not only wear gloves, they make sure they clean up the crime scene and dispose of the body.
Has the crime clear-up rate improved since the development of DNA profiling? Anyone?
There are four key issues here:
(1) Now that it is possible to extract minute samples of DNA it is difficult to be sure how those samples got where they are. A wodge of semen in a rape victim’s vagina is one thing, microscopic specks in a car boot is quite another.
(2) DNA profiling is as accurate as the honesty of the Police, many of whom are corrupt (Robert Mark compulsorily retired half of Scotland Yard, but still he only scratched the surface), and two-thirds of whom are Freemasons.
In the case of James Hanratty, who was fitted up by a Freemasonic businessman with the aid of corrupt police officers, and hanged in Bedford Prison in 1962, some time after 1999 police officers placed a public hair from Hanratty’s underpants and semen from his trousers on Valerie Storie’s knickers to make it look as though Hanratty actually had been guilty. (There would not have been any trace of Storie’s assailant on those knickers, anyway, because Peter Louis Alphon, when he raped Storie, would have pulled them down to her ankles.)
Now, if the Police are prepared to plant DNA in order to protect the reputations of colleagues now dead, and the blushes of a Freemason then in his nineties, how far would they be willing to go to “solve” a modern crime, or cover up crimes committed by the state, or the rich and powerful (like the killers of Dr David Kelly)?
DNA should be treated like any other kind of scientific evidence - with care.
(3) Our DNA is our property. I object most strongly to having to surrender it to the state. I am not the property of the state, nor is any part of me.
(4) How far do we go? ID cards? A national DNA database? Satellite surveillance of motor vehicles? Micro-chipping of the population?
The arguments Laurence uses are the very same arguments that Hitler, Stalin and Mao deployed to defend their brutal, invasive, totalitarian policies. It was all for the benefit of the people, no honest, upright person had anything to fear from it, those who insisted on human freedom were enemies of the people.
Just you wait. When microchipping comes along, Laurence will be feeding us exactly the same bull manure. We can eliminate child abduction, extirpate such wicked things as trunacy and underage drinking, we can even stop teenage boys masturbating if we feel like it.
21st November 2007 at 11:15 pm
“rapes not committed if we had a database?”
Not a lot of evidence of DNA profiling preventing rape or making it easier to get a conviction.
I remember a student union debate in 1989 when it was argued that compulsory DNA profiling would end rape as a crime.
DNA can’t do anything about proving consent.
22nd November 2007 at 1:34 am
Hi guys! Just got back from the Cambridge hustings. Thanks for the support Cheltenham Robin and Rochdale Cowboy! Glad I’m not the only one. Just time for a few responses:
Laurence, did you actually write this today or some time last week and it just appeared today? It seems a truly odd day to propose trusting the state with even more of our personal data.
I submitted the article on Friday. I reckon Stephen released it now just to make me look a prat!
Seriously though, I don’t really see what has changed in the last few days. The only lesson to be drawn from the previous 48 hours is that the present government is a bunch of incompetent numpties. And we knew that anyway. It’s really a very strange argument to say that following the loss of 25 million child benefit records, we should put pay to DNA databases and ID cards. A more coherent argument surely, would be to propose that we should put an end to child benefit. Needless to say, nobody is arguing for that!
Surely we have a duty to protect the vulnerable and let individuals have the liberty to enjoy life without the threat of violent crime?
Yes. Obviously. So why is the debate always so grossly unbalanced?
In the case of James Hanratty, who was fitted up by a Freemasonic businessman with the aid of corrupt police officers, and hanged in Bedford Prison in 1962, some time after 1999 police officers placed a pubic hair from Hanratty’s underpants and semen from his trousers on Valerie Storie’s knickers to make it look as though Hanratty actually had been guilty. (There would not have been any trace of Storie’s assailant on those knickers, anyway, because Peter Louis Alphon, when he raped Storie, would have pulled them down to her ankles.)
We love you Angus!
Our DNA is our property.
That’s a peculiar thing to say. DNA is not really an object as such; it’s more information. And moreover it’s information which we liberally disburse all about us wherever we go. I think it’s a bit of a category error to say that we can actually own our DNA. Do we therefore also own much of the DNA of our closest relatives? Remember that we are here for the benefit of our DNA, not the other way round. If anything, our DNA owns us.
The arguments Laurence uses are the very same arguments that Hitler, Stalin and Mao deployed to defend their brutal, invasive, totalitarian policies.
Godwin’s law never fails!
When micro-chipping comes along, Laurence will be feeding us exactly the same bull manure.
No, I think micro-chipping would be a step to far. But it’s worth pointing out that many of us choose to be micro-chipped voluntarily. We do this by carrying around mobile phones which are routinely used to track movements in the case of a serious crime.
22nd November 2007 at 4:08 am
So let me get this straight.
Lawrence, you’re claiming that it’s liberal for the govt to collect a full genetic profile of every citizen of the UK by force if necessary because you believe that it could be a useful tool in preventing crime.
So many things to say here, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Suffice to say your default position is that where something is not explicitly private, then it must be entirely at the discretion and use of the state. More traditionally outside of these heated leadership debates, people considering themselves “liberal” might consider such statist, totalitarian and anti-self ownership positions fundamentally repulsive.
22nd November 2007 at 8:44 am
Does the DNA database come in before or after the control bracelet to administer electro-shocks when we think anti-social thoughts?
22nd November 2007 at 9:22 am
Laurence Boyce wrote: “I think it’s a bit of a category error to say that we can actually own our DNA.”
If you think information is incapable of being property, then perhaps you should consult the judgment of the House of Lords in Boardman v Phipps.
If your doctor starts selling your medical records to the News of the World, that’s OK. Medical records aren’t property, so there’s no breach of trust.
And Laurence, what do you have to say to the people who saw Hanratty in Rhyl on the night Peter Louis Alphon shot Michael Gregsten, plus the shopkeeper who met him in Liverpool earlier in the day?
If we have a national DNA database, the Police can fit up anyone they like. No need to line up 9 prison grasses (as they did in Michael Stone’s case) and let them get away with arson attacks (as they did Damian Daley). Just plant the DNA, and you can get a jury to convict anyone you like. Even you, Laurence. But perhaps your faith in the incorruptibility of the Police is such that little things like that don’t worry you.
22nd November 2007 at 10:12 am
‘Under the terms which Nick Clegg and others would like to see in force, whereby the DNA of innocents is never retained, Castree would literally have got away with murder.’
Is that right? I thought Castree’s DNA could still have been taken and matched against the database. Isn’t the policy simply that if the person is innocent then their records are not stored forever?
22nd November 2007 at 10:40 am
Laurence, you’re claiming that it’s liberal for the government to collect a full genetic profile of every citizen of the UK by force if necessary because you believe that it could be a useful tool in preventing crime.
No, I’m claiming that, in the future, a full DNA profile will be taken at birth for medical reasons. The same information will doubtless be used for crime prevention. By then, libertarian paranoia will be very much in decline, and few will think of opposing the scheme as the benefits will massively outweigh the costs.
Does the DNA database come in before or after the control bracelet to administer electro-shocks when we think anti-social thoughts?
Before. It comes in at birth. We’ve got to get over this idea that our DNA actually belongs to us in any meaningful sense.
If you think information is incapable of being property, then perhaps you should consult the judgment of the House of Lords in Boardman v Phipps.
No, we can definitely own information. But whose information is it exactly? Some of our DNA dates back to the Cambrian explosion. And if the information is so personal and sensitive, then why do we liberally spread it all over the place? There’s a thing called reality we have to contend with here.
But perhaps your faith in the incorruptibility of the Police is such that little things like that don’t worry you.
Hmm. I’ve just been talking to a nice Police Constable on the phone. I have to say that she sounded more like she might offer me tea and muffins than set me up for a crime I didn’t commit. But maybe I’m just being a bit naïve.
Is that right? I thought Castree’s DNA could still have been taken and matched against the database.
Basically if Castree had never been brought in on another case, he would never have given a sample and would never have been caught. Conversely, with a universal DNA database in place, he would have been caught right at the outset and an innocent man would never have spent sixteen years in prison. (I’m talking in the abstract here; the technology was not ready in time to save Stefan Kiszko. But it’s ready now.)
22nd November 2007 at 10:51 am
Laurence Boyce wrote: “Basically if Castree had never been brought in on another case, he would never have given a sample and would never have been caught. Conversely, with a universal DNA database in place, he would have been caught right at the outset and an innocent man would never have spent sixteen years in prison. (I’m talking in the abstract here; the technology was not ready in time to save Stefan Kiszko. But it’s ready now.)”
Possibly. But supposing Brian Castree had been a Freemason, a police-officer or a relative of a police-officer. Would the Police have prosecuted him, had any of those scenarios been true?
What would there be to stop the Police in such circumstances planting the DNA of some petty criminal or anyone they considered expendible on the victim’s body?
You would have incontrovertible “proof” that the innocent man is guilty, without the need for a single prison grass.
22nd November 2007 at 11:05 am
But supposing Brian Castree had been a Freemason . . .
Hmm. You’ve got a point there.
What would there be to stop the Police in such circumstances planting the DNA of some petty criminal or anyone they considered expendable on the victim’s body?
The law?
22nd November 2007 at 11:21 am
Laurence, one would have to be sure that not only the government introducing a national DNA database was reliable, honest, upstanding and competent, but further, that every single future government and civil servant with access to the system was the same. How can you possibly justify that belief?
Make no mistake, the cock-up of the last few days was not a one-off - HMRC had already sent the data on a previous occasion, luckily without getting lost that time.
The fact is that large central data stores are a single point of weakness both to lapses and deliberate attack. A national DNA database would almost certainly be misused and abused by some of the people with access to it.
Furthermore, illiberal governments can and do, as we saw the last time we had ID cards in the UK, “feature creep” such stores of information into whatever purpose they like. Yell “terrorism” and suddenly the police and MI5 will be using the DNA database for all sorts of exciting adventures into jackbooted illiberalism.
22nd November 2007 at 11:23 am
Also, to #18: THE LAW??? Just like the law has successfully stopped all murders ever, all smoking of cannabis, speeding, copying CDs, lying in the House of Commons about the circumstances leading up to major government cockups? Selling peerages? Shooting innocent men 17 times in the head and then covering up the circumstances surrounding it?
Exactly which brand of crack are you smoking?
22nd November 2007 at 11:26 am
Finally, (and okay, I’m going a bit mental on this one, but I am struggling to find all the words to describe how gobsmackingly ridiculous I find Laurence’s proposal) “examples such as Castree” are abnormal. Intensely abnormal. That’s why we notice them, that’s why they get on the news. Making policy on the basis of abnormal examples rather than on the basis of normal examples is a really stupid thing to do.
22nd November 2007 at 11:32 am
The law?
Indeed.
Except I recall an interview with the late Lord Denning shortly after his retirement in which he was asked what he would do as a judge if presented with proof that an innocent person had been convicted and sent to prison.
“Tear it up,” was Denning’s reply.
22nd November 2007 at 12:32 pm
sorry to change tack, but going back to the start of the original article -
“tea towel on his head”
er, did I really read that comment from a Liberal ????
22nd November 2007 at 12:34 pm
I’m no ordinary liberal!
22nd November 2007 at 12:39 pm
Laurence, one would have to be sure that not only the government introducing a national DNA database was reliable, honest, upstanding and competent, but further, that every single future government and civil servant with access to the system was the same.
No one would not have to be sure of all that. On that basis, we would simply have to shut down government altogether.
THE LAW??? Just like the law has successfully stopped all murders ever, all smoking of cannabis, speeding, copying CDs, lying in the House of Commons about the circumstances leading up to major government cock-ups? Selling peerages? Shooting innocent men 17 times in the head and then covering up the circumstances surrounding it?
You’re making my point. The law is, in a sense, the only thing preventing us from committing all manner of felonies. Are you saying that the rule of law, by itself, is inadequate? Now that surely is a short trip to totalitarianism.
Finally, “examples such as Castree” are abnormal. Intensely abnormal. That’s why we notice them, that’s why they get on the news. Making policy on the basis of abnormal examples rather than on the basis of normal examples is a really stupid thing to do.
What on earth are you on about? Examples of successful convictions on the basis of DNA evidence are now a routine occurrence. Castree just happened to be in the news last week. The examples we do not notice are rather the innumerable crimes which are currently and needlessly going undetected. Not to mention all those who are wrongly imprisoned at present. There is a massive cost to all this self-indulgent libertarian paranoia.
22nd November 2007 at 1:07 pm
Laurence Boyce wrote: “The law is, in a sense, the only thing preventing us from committing all manner of felonies.”
Wrong. The law by itself prevents nothing. Laws are only effective to the extent that they can be enforced. Currently, the Police, senior Freemasons, rich and powerful people generally, and the state itself, enjoy de facto immunity from criminal prosecution.
Denning made that perfectly clear in relation to the Police.
That isn’t libertarian paranoia, Laurence. Those are the recorded words of the former Master of the Rolls (and a Law Lord before that).
The state cannot be trusted with a national DNA database, even if some people think they should have it in the first place.
And Laurence. You have used the terms “rule of law” and “forensic evidence” incorrectly. Best to check these out before you sound off.
By the way, James Anderton, the former Chief Constbale of Greater Manchester, was an enthusiastic advocate of a national fingerprint database.
Anderton described gays as “swirling around in a cesspit of their own creation”, and said juvenile offenders should be “flogged until they cry for mercy”. He also claimed to be able to speak to God.
22nd November 2007 at 1:49 pm
The law by itself prevents nothing. Laws are only effective to the extent that they can be enforced. Currently, the Police, senior Freemasons, rich and powerful people generally, and the state itself, enjoy de facto immunity from criminal prosecution.
Well if that were the case (and I think I speak for many in detecting no small amount of exaggeration in that assertion), then we would need to deal with the problem on its own terms. It really doesn’t help to systematically conflate these issues.
The state cannot be trusted with a national DNA database, even if some people think they should have it in the first place.
So can the state be trusted to hold our tax details then? Or what about child benefit information? Should we scrap child benefit after the recent fiasco? Followed by income tax? Or perhaps just scrap government altogether?
You have used the terms “rule of law” and “forensic evidence” incorrectly.
Oh, I’m sorry.
By the way, James Anderton, the former Chief Constbale of Greater Manchester, was an enthusiastic advocate of a national fingerprint database.
Yes, well he was such a pinhead that he probably thought that God had designed DNA for the express purpose of catching criminals.
22nd November 2007 at 1:51 pm
23 - I’ve deleted that remark, which I shouldn’t have allowed to be published on LDV.
22nd November 2007 at 2:05 pm
Eh? Why ever not? I would have thought that tea-towel jokes were just fine. Especially in respect of one who is the oppressor, not the oppressed. Now you’ve gone and killed the punch line. I know, let’s have a little competition. Can anyone improve upon, “not to mention not to mention her curious companion, the Saudi dictator”? All suggestions welcome, the more facetious the better!
22nd November 2007 at 3:16 pm
Laurence Boyce wrote: “Well if that were the case (and I think I speak for many in detecting no small amount of exaggeration in that assertion), then we would need to deal with the problem on its own terms.”
In 1973 a Brighton antique dealer was found dead in the River Arun. It just so happened that this gentleman had been involved in a dispute about money with Mr Nicholas Francis Marcel Van Hoogstraten (an amazing coincidence if ever there was one).
So what happened? Well, a local government officer by the name of Colin Wallace was arrested, charged with murder and convicted. Some years later, his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal.
Now, it so happens that not one of the many hundreds of complaints made to Sussex Police about Nicholas Van Hoogstraten and his henchmen (since his realease from prison in 1972) has ever resulted in a prosecution.
And none of this should surprise us, if we consider the case of Mr Charles Ridge, the former Chief Constable of Brighton, who was acquitted of charges relating to alleged involvement in armed robberies, but was nonethelss subject to withering critcism by the trial judge.
So, Laurence, in the light of what I have just told you, would you entrust you DNA to Sussex Police?
“So can the state be trusted to hold our tax details then? Or what about child benefit information? Should we scrap child benefit after the recent fiasco? Followed by income tax? Or perhaps just scrap government altogether?”
Laurence, you make the same mistake as the neo-Hegelian philosopher, Dr Roger Scruton, who deployed a very similar argument to defend the death penalty.
He said it doesn’t matter if a few people are hanged by mistake, because it is so overwhelmingly important that the guilty are put to death. We don’t close down hospitals because a few people die as a result of medical negligence, he said rhetorically.
Right. Spot the difference. Medicine is necessary. Hanging people isn’t. Medicine saves lives. Hanging, gassing and electrocuting people doesn’t.
And the same goes for your argument, Laurence. No, we can’t trust the state with our tax records, but taxation is necessary if we are to have public services. A national DNA database, by contrast, is unlikely to have any equivalent impact.
Enoch Powell opposed to death penalty because it is an “avoidable brutality”. A national DNA database would be an avoidable boost to the invasive power of the state.
22nd November 2007 at 3:48 pm
No one would not have to be sure of all that. On that basis, we would simply have to shut down government altogether.
Don’t be ridiculous. It is perfectly possible to maintain a healthy distrust of government while still actually having one. This is a question of risk versus reward: the risk of government or any of its employees or contractors losing, leaking, corrupting, deleting, stealing, selling, misusing or abusing records in a national DNA database far outweigh, in my view, the fairly small benefits to be had in terms of crime detection.
That’s without even considering the monetary cost (£100 per person? So £6bn then?) that could be spent on other projects that could be more beneficial to the public, and without considering the illiberality of obliging every person in the country to hand over their personal information to the state. Or the potential for the system to creep into other uses. One deranged nutter with an assault rifle making a mess in central London, and there’ll be cries to use the DNA database to detect potential murderers before they strike. Is there a gene for murder? Would you like to be locked up or discriminated against your whole life on the basis of having it? How about a cash-strapped government selling DNA data to insurance companies? Would you like your health / car / life insurance premiums to be based on a corporate reading of your DNA?
The law is, in a sense, the only thing preventing us from committing all manner of felonies.
I don’t think I am making your point. The law provides deterrent and audit capabilities, it does not actually physically prevent anyone from committing crimes, which is - duh - why so many get committed and go unsolved. The law explicitly would not prevent a police officer from fitting someone up if se thought se could get away with it, and providing them with the means to do so seems like a bad idea. This is not the only possible abuse of a national DNA database - selling records as above to insurance companies or other interested third parties, deleting people from the database to “zero” them (no need for police to investigate properly - just sweep for DNA! Until someone is missing from the database!), adding people in for fraudulent purposes…
Examples of successful convictions on the basis of DNA evidence are now a routine occurrence. Castree just happened to be in the news last week. The examples we do not notice are rather the innumerable crimes which are currently and needlessly going undetected. Not to mention all those who are wrongly imprisoned at present. There is a massive cost to all this self-indulgent libertarian paranoia.
Of course Castree is abnormal - he was finally caught and sentenced 30 years after the offence. That simply does not happen every day. If he had committed the offence today, we simply don’t know whether he would have been caught by his DNA or not.
Do you have any numbers on those “innumerable” crimes, via the BCS or anyone else? How many criminals are we missing out on convicting due to lack of DNA evidence? What is the current and projected future false positive and false negative rates? The police’s DNA test labs have been slated recently. I don’t see how you can be “pro” DNA database without presenting these sorts of figures.
22nd November 2007 at 3:50 pm
Also, what Angus said at #30.
22nd November 2007 at 10:21 pm
No, we can’t trust the state with our tax records, but taxation is necessary if we are to have public services. A national DNA database, by contrast, is unlikely to have any equivalent impact.
Er . . . it’s already making a major impact.
This is a question of risk versus reward . . .
Indeed. Though you wouldn’t necessarily know it given the general level of debate surrounding this topic.
. . . the risk of government or any of its employees or contractors losing, leaking, corrupting, deleting, stealing, selling, misusing or abusing records in a national DNA database far outweigh, in my view, the fairly small benefits to be had in terms of crime detection.
Small benefits? Like when a serial killer gets going, we might have the opportunity of nailing him after the first murder, instead of the seventeenth? Small benefits?
That’s without even considering the monetary cost (£100 per person? So £6bn then?) that could be spent on other projects that could be more beneficial to the public . . .
DNA technology is going to save money, not cost money.
Is there a gene for murder?
A predisposition towards violence is indeed genetic. This is a terrific “hot button” topic which can generate a hundred comments with consummate ease!
The law explicitly would not prevent a police officer from fitting someone up if he thought he could get away with it . . .
Yes, obviously.
. . . and providing them with the means to do so seems like a bad idea.
Hmm, you’ve got a point there. We’d better take away their guns too, don’t you think?
Of course Castree is abnormal - he was finally caught and sentenced 30 years after the offence.
Yes, all thanks to deoxyribonucleic acid! Isn’t it wonderful?!
Do you have any numbers on those “innumerable” crimes, via the BCS or anyone else?
Well according to Tony McNulty, DNA evidence has helped police to solve around 20,000 crimes a year. But I guess he’s all part of the great conspiracy.
How many criminals are we missing out on convicting due to lack of DNA evidence? What is the current and projected future false positive and false negative rates? The police’s DNA test labs have been slated recently. I don’t see how you can be “pro” DNA database without presenting these sorts of figures.
The technology is set to improve, and improve dramatically. You may try to do a King Canute if you wish, in holding back the tide of progress, but my guess is that you will end up looking as silly as those who claimed, at the advent of the railways, that travelling at speeds above 30 mph would lead to irreparable brain damage.
22nd November 2007 at 11:53 pm
Well I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding of things is you should never convict anyone on any single piece of evidence, however convincing it is in theory. There are just too many possible sources of human error. So if you wanted to convict someone on DNA, you would need some other reason to think they had committed the crime. So why not just put all suspects on a database for the duration of an investigation, and then destroy it afterwards?
There’s also the pure numbers problem; with 60 million people on a database, even if there’s only 1 in 20 million chance of an error that’s still a one in three chance of catching an innocent man. Technology will make DNA screening cheaper, but will it make it more reliable? After all, my computer is a lot faster than any computers around 20 years ago, but it’s probably just as likely to crash.
Aren’t the Freemasons just a glorified middle aged drinking society nowadays?
23rd November 2007 at 12:25 am
If my memory serves me right (and it does in this case), none of the victims of Dennis Andrew Nilsen and Fred West was discovered until their respective killing sprees had been halted. A national DNA database would have succeeded in catching neither killer, because both concealed the bodies of their victims so effectively that it was several years before any was found.
DNA technology has only succeeded in catching criminals who were unaware of the technology when they committed their crimes. Modern murderers and rapists are more likely to destroy their victims’ bodies, by burial in some recondite location, by fire, acid, or by whatever means. And rapists and paedophiles may well take to killing their victims rather than allow their DNA to be detected. So there is actually a serious danger that a national DNA database will put us at GREATER risk (women in particular).
The notion that Laurence is trying to peddle here, that DNA profiling is a magic panacea that will free the human race from violent crime, is a complete chimaera.
Criminals, as they have throughout history, will adapt to meet new challenges.
No DNA was found on the remains of Amanda Dowler, probably because the soft parts had been eaten by foxes. Yes, I know the Polish couple who found her. They even invited me to go mushroom picking in the woods once. I said at the time she was in a wood in Hampshire, and listed several likely candidates, but not the one where she was actually found. Still, I did say the killer had driven down the M3 and had used Fleet Services (the body was found close to the latter). So Hercules Poirot didn’t have to be that bright after all.
The government says identity cards are about protecting us from terrorism, crime and benefit fraud. They are nothing of the sort. They are the first step on the slippery road to a police state.
The government says road pricing is about reducing fuel consumption and protecting the environment. Baloney. It is all about satellite surveillance of motor vehicles. Bureaucrats and spooks watching us every time we go out in our cars.
When, ultimately, microchipping comes, we will be told that we need it to prevent child abduction, to stop young people exercising their fundamental human right to drink alcohol, and to ensure that under 18s are forced to submit to “education”, etc. It will all be about preventing crime and bullying unpopular minorities, just like ID cards.
By that stage, of course, we will be little short of robots and will have lost our capacity to think.
Someone did predict all this nearly 20 years ago, and if he hadn’t been sidetracked by lizards, more of us might realise he was right.
23rd November 2007 at 12:29 am
Well I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding of things is you should never convict anyone on any single piece of evidence, however convincing it is in theory.
Oh absolutely, I think that’s one thing on which we can all agree. But DNA has the power to lead us straight to where we should be looking.
There’s also the pure numbers problem; with 60 million people on a database, even if there’s only 1 in 20 million chance of an error that’s still a one in three chance of catching an innocent man. Technology will make DNA screening cheaper, but will it make it more reliable?
In principle, it’s easy. To increase reliability, just up the number of locus points tested.
Aren’t the Freemasons just a glorified middle aged drinking society nowadays?
Please don’t say that. There’s a whole industry devoted to the idea that they’re a shadowy international conspiracy. People’s jobs are at risk!
23rd November 2007 at 12:49 am
The notion that Laurence is trying to peddle here, that DNA profiling is a magic panacea that will free the human race from violent crime, is a complete chimera.
No, there’s no silver bullet. To argue otherwise would be to mimic those who would have us believe that DNA profiling is an unmitigated evil.
Criminals, as they have throughout history, will adapt to meet new challenges.
So we give up?
No DNA was found on the remains of Amanda Dowler, probably because the soft parts had been eaten by foxes. Yes, I know the Polish couple who found her. They even invited me to go mushroom picking in the woods once.
I don’t know how others feel, but I prefer the ejaculation stories.
Someone did predict all this nearly 20 years ago, and if he hadn’t been sidetracked by lizards, more of us might realise he was right.
But fortunately he did get sidetracked by lizards, so we may now all appreciate to the full what a brainless moron he really is.
23rd November 2007 at 6:28 am
Yesterday was obviously a quiet news day – only three stories about DNA profiling.
23rd November 2007 at 9:38 am
Laurence Boyce wrote: “I don’t know how others feel, but I prefer the ejaculation stories.”
Actually, they did invite me to go mushroom picking in the woods. And Amanda Dowler’s body actually was eaten by foxes. So wrong again, Laurence.
What Laurence assumes is that the Police, and the powerful elites they support, actually want to eliminate crime.
Might they not consider that crime (which affects mostly poor people) performs a useful social control function? It makes people more willing to accept curtailments of their liberties, such as ID cards and a national DNA database.
Why else, I ask you, has Rupert Murdoch spent the last 30 years filling his newspapers with sensationalist reporting? On crime in general, but with a particular emphasis on crimes against children?
A third of property crime is committed by recreational drug users. Legalise drugs, and all such crime would evaporate overnight.
So why doesn’t the state do just that? Legalise all recreational drugs? Might it not be useful to elites to maintain a marginalised underclass that everyone fears?
Now, David Icke sees all this, while Laurence sits in Cambridge talking like a press officer for the Police Federation. Who is the brainless moron, Laurence?
23rd November 2007 at 11:43 am
“Already making an impact”… so just like extending detention to 90 days, do we really need to extend the DNA database to every single person in the UK? How many more crimes would this solve, that’s the question - not how many the system is currently solving.
“Small benefits?”… Yes. Small benefits. You choose again a most abnormal data point - serial killers are really rare. What value 16 lives per year, and can we save 16 lives per year more easily by spending the money on speed cameras, etc?
“DNA technology is going to save money, not cost money.”… Oh, well that’s alright then. I’m totally convinced by your high quality of argumentation. Prove it.
“A predisposition towards violence is indeed genetic. This is a terrific “hot button” topic which can generate a hundred comments with consummate ease!”… and yet you don’t address my serious comment that by storing everyone’s DNA, it is a short hop to discriminating against people based on their DNA.
“We’d better take away their guns too, don’t you think?”… not a bad idea, actually. Gun crime is really low in this country, and of course there will always be the occasional incident that you’ll need to call the SAS or SO19 for, but general arming of police officers? No thanks. Not because they shoot the wrong people on purpose, but because they do it by accident, and that’s bad enough.
“Of course Castree is abnormal” - “Yes, all thanks to [DNA]“… but abnormal. To say that everyone in the UK should be on a database in order to solve this one crime is ridiculous. I just don’t believe that you have seriously weighed the potential pitfalls of a DNA database against the benefits. Your reply here has not engaged with a single substantive point about the potential for misuse, abuse or scope creep.
“DNA evidence has helped police to solve around 20,000 crimes a year. But I guess he’s all part of the great conspiracy.”… I don’t believe in a great conspiracy - when did I suggest that I did? - I just want to know how many more crimes you think a universal DNA database will “help” solve, and whether that’s a) cost effective and b) worth the non-monetary costs of a DNA database that I have outlined several times now.
“The technology is set to improve … [ad hominem]“… Your assertion that a national universal DNA database is “progress” is just that: an assertion. We’ve already had ID cards in this country once and withdrawn them on the basis of police abuse. I’ve no reason to believe that another national database is progress in any sense.
Further, you again completely fail to address the questions of a) number of criminal convictions missed due to lack of DNA, b) the quality of DNA testing now and in the future, except for a woolly platitude that “it’ll get better” - really? Because government departments have gotten so much more efficient, effective and honest in the last twenty years, right?
Basically, I don’t believe that you’ve given this issue the intensely serious thought that it requires. If you have, I believe that you have spectacularly failed to demonstrate that thinking on this thread.
23rd November 2007 at 2:41 pm
Actually, they did invite me to go mushroom picking in the woods. And Amanda Dowler’s body actually was eaten by foxes. So wrong again, Laurence.
You misunderstand Angus. I wouldn’t dream of contradicting you on matters about which you clearly take such an intense interest. No, I am quite sure that Amanda’s body was eaten by foxes. Indeed if I were a fox, that’s exactly what I would do too.
What Laurence assumes is that the Police, and the powerful elites they support, actually want to eliminate crime. Might they not consider that crime performs a useful social control function? It makes people more willing to accept curtailments of their liberties, such as ID cards and a national DNA database. Why else, I ask you, has Rupert Murdoch spent the last 30 years filling his newspapers with sensationalist reporting? On crime in general, but with a particular emphasis on crimes against children? A third of property crime is committed by recreational drug users. Legalise drugs, and all such crime would evaporate overnight. So why doesn’t the state do just that? Legalise all recreational drugs? Might it not be useful to elites to maintain a marginalised underclass that everyone fears?
Yes I accept all that, but what I really want to know is where does the third secret of Fatima fit into all of this?
Now, David Icke sees all this, while Laurence sits in Cambridge talking like a press officer for the Police Federation. Who is the brainless moron, Laurence?
Well actually I pride myself on being a bit of a moron, but I don’t think I could claim be in the same league as David Icke. For he perceives a level of intentionality in the affairs of man which I fear simply does not exist. It’s much the same trap that religious folk fall into when they perceive a hidden “purpose” to life, the universe, and everything.
23rd November 2007 at 2:53 pm
Do we really need to extend the DNA database to every single person in the UK?
Ideally, yes. Then it’s one murder with DNA left at the scene of the crime, and we’ve got him.
How many more crimes would this solve?
Loads I should think, and the deterrent effect would prevent an even greater number.
“DNA technology is going to save money, not cost money.” . . . Oh, well that’s alright then. I’m totally convinced by your high quality of argumentation. Prove it.
Well the medical stuff is gazing well into the future. But once again it’s the preventative effect which could pay real dividends.
Your reply here has not engaged with a single substantive point about the potential for misuse, abuse or scope creep.
No, but you see there’s a reason for that. It’s because I’m not totally paranoid. I don’t see the state as some great malevolent entity. I see the state as being elected of the people. We live in a democracy. L’état c’est nous! It’s up to us to ensure that the appropriate controls are in place. Now go on. Tell me that we don’t live in a democracy any more.
You again completely fail to address the questions of a) number of criminal convictions missed due to lack of DNA . . .
Well of course there is a sense in which we don’t know what we’re missing.
. . . b) the quality of DNA testing now and in the future, except for a woolly platitude that “it’ll get better.”
I’ve already explained that by increasing the number of locus points tested, the chances of a false match can be made vanishingly small. That is to say, more vanishingly small than they are already.
Basically, I don’t believe that you’ve given this issue the intensely serious thought that it requires. If you have, I believe that you have spectacularly failed to demonstrate that thinking on this thread.
Look, it’s going to happen whether we like it or not. If we just nay say, then we won’t even get our genuine concerns addressed.
23rd November 2007 at 3:13 pm
Laurence Boyce wrote: “Look, it’s going to happen whether we like it or not. If we just nay say, then we won’t even get our genuine concerns addressed.”
Like nuclear weapons. Every rogue state is going to get them whether we like it or not.
Except unlike nuclear physicists, geneticists are notoriously unscientific in their penchant for making wild and exaggerated claims.
For instance, the notion that behavioural (as opposed to physical) characteristics can be transmitted by DNA. Basically, they think Joe Public is too stupid to spot the very real conceptual difficulties involved.
Then we have the scientist who claimed he had uncovered a “gay gene”, and the one who says blondes will die out in 200 years. And don’t forget the story that got into even serious newspapers that Israel is developing a biological weapon that only kills Gentiles.
So, if Dawkins, or anyone else, tells me he has found a “murderer’s gene”, I will challenge him to show me the mechanism which enables this gene to make someone a murderer.
But careful here. A bit of politics creeps in. Many of Dawkins’s most ardent supporters are Marxists who insist that human intelligence is exclusively a product of environment. Genes have nothing to do with it, they insist.
The average IQ in Surrey is higher than the average IQ in Wigan, but leftists tell us this is because Surrey is full of nice leafy suburbs, Wigan isn’t.
Now, Laurence. Take a deep breath and compose yourself. Here’s your opportunity to invite a lynch mob to your house.
Do you believe that some races are more intelligent than others?
23rd November 2007 at 6:05 pm
“it’s one murder with DNA left at the scene of the crime, and we’ve got him.”… Bzzt. Wrong. DNA at the scene of the crime simply indicates that that person was at the scene of the crime. Most murderers and rapists know their victims - of course their DNA will be at the scene of the crime. That’s why I want to know how many more crimes a universal database will help solve compared to the way crimes are currently investigated:
“How many more crimes would this solve?” / “Loads I should think”… Again, your skilful wit and wisdom astonish me. “Loads”, eh? Oh, well, I’m totally convinced. I take back everything I’ve said. Oh, wait.
“once again it’s the preventative effect which could pay real dividends.”… any studies to back you up on that? How many fewer crimes will there be due to a universal database? Let me guess: “loads”? Is that number peer-reviewed?
“We live in a democracy”… Of course we do. There are two reasons why this is utterly irrelevant:
1. Democracy does not imply competence on any level. Misuse of the contents of a DNA database is virtually inevitable, given a long enough timescale, even under the best of circumstances. A government IT project is not what I would call the best of circumstances. They are consistently poorly specced, poorly developed, poorly managed, poorly maintained and poorly audited. The chance of data leakage, loss or corruption simply by accident is huge.
Furthermore, there is an additional incompetence weak point in a DNA database because the DNA has to be processed in a lab. Let’s hope no-one’s samples get mixed up, or someone types something wrong into their computer there, etc.
Furthermore, well-meaning politicians might introduce laws that are simply loopy, like the restriction on liquids in hand luggage on aeroplanes.
2. Democracy does not imply an absence of maliciousness anywhere in the system. Another politician might deliberately introduce a bad law if se thought it would win them popularity with the majority, and the minorities be damned.
Staff with access to the DNA database could abuse the data in manners that I’ve previously described. It is literally impossible to do this if the database simply doesn’t exist.
Further, those with access to the staff can socially engineer them into data abuse. Police involved in a coverup, spouses with grudges, and so on.
“there is a sense in which we don’t know what we’re missing”… And you’ve never heard of the British Crime Survey, right, or any other measures of “real crime” as opposed to “detected crime”? If you haven’t, then IMHO you have zero credibility on this issue as of now.
“the chances of a false match can be made vanishingly small”… perhaps from a technical point of view (apart from eg. twins, of which none ever commit crime, of course) but you can still have mixups in the DNA testing lab, you can still get collisions in the data, and of course there is still the large possibility of the database simply containing bad data anyway. Considering how large the database is, it seems like there will still be at least tens and possibly hundreds (or more) of bad matches every year.
“it’s going to happen whether we like it or not”… Er, or it could not happen, like we’re fighting to stop ID cards. You haven’t put forward any genuine concerns, I’ve been doing that. You’ve just been cheerleading for something that is a lot more complicated and has a lot more weak points than you make it sound like it does. If you have genuine concerns, you certainly didn’t highlight them in your piece, aside from saying “we should be more enthusiastic about a DNA database, despite our concerns”.
23rd November 2007 at 8:35 pm
Blimey, is that the time? I’ll reply to you guys tomorrow. Promise!
24th November 2007 at 12:06 am
8.35 past your bedtime, eh?
I’m in Wales all weekend, but will check back.
24th November 2007 at 12:24 am
Laurence, in his usual diplomatic fashion, calls David Icke a “brainless moron” because his claims imply that elites act with a common purpose (I hope I am representing your view correctly, Laurence).
Now, David has undoubtedly said some balmy things. But has he ever come up within a scenario quite as loopy as the following?
A burglar, who spends most of his spare time playing pinball machines in the warmth and bustle of Soho, decides to go to the dogs in Slough one night. Now, what does he do once the race is over? Take the train back to London? Er, no. He wanders off, on foot, in the direction of Maidenhead. About five miles into the gloom and cold of an early 60s night, he turns down a little country lane that leads nowhere in particular, and runs alongside the muddy construction works of the new M4. And yes, this unsuccessful petty tea leaf, he takes a gun! Yes, a handgun is exactly the thing you take with you when you visit a country lane on foot at 9 o’clock at night! Then he chances upon a parked car. And by a truly amazing coincidence, one of the two occupants of this car just happens to have a wife who is coveted by one of his fences, who just happens to be a senior Freemason!
And all the time he is doing this, he is sitting in a hotel bedroom 200 miles away in Rhyl!
I tell this fairy tale for the simple reason that Laurence, the arch rationalist and excoriator of tall stories, believes it with a passion.
And yes. According to the Police, a pubic hair and traces of semen belonging to Hanratty were found on Valerie Storie’s knickers. Well, of course they were. The Police put them there!
Let he who is without blemish call David Icke a brainless moron.
24th November 2007 at 10:25 am
Just a quick question, Angus: how did the police obtain the semen?
24th November 2007 at 11:44 am
No 48:
A few days before he was arrested, Hanratty had sex with a woman called Gladys Deacon in his car on Brockley Hill (many of his burglaries were carried out in Stanmore, just down the road). Hanratty practiced coitus interruptus and ejaculated over his trousers. He then placed those trousers, unlaundered, in a suitcase, which he handed over to the Police on his arrest.
All the Police had to do, post 1996, was remove traces of the semen from Hanratty’s trousers and place them on Valerie Storie’s knickers.
All the exhibits from the case had been sitting in a box together for 30 years, so there could have been cross-contamination in any event.
My source is “Hanratty: The Final Verdict”, by Bob Woffinden, at page 135:
“They drove back to London. After having a drink and a sandwich in Piccadilly, he took Gladys to what was, for him, always the main attraction, a funfair; he took her to Battersea. They left about midnight. He drove her back to North London, and parked just off Brockley Hill in Stanmore. They had sex in the car, though it must have been a more than usually messy business. Hanratty ended up with semen stains down his trousers. It was after one in the morning when he dropped her home.”
I should apologise for the error I made when I first raised this on LDV. I said that this incident had taken place in Kenton (where Hanratty’s family lived). In fact, it was on Brockley Hill, site of the Roman mutatio recorded as Sulloniacae on the Antonine Itinerary.
Now a couple of questions for Laurence:
(1) Do you believe in the bullet that turns at 180 degrees? (The type fired by Lee Harvey Oswald?)
(2) Do you belive that avaiation fuel is capable of defying gravity? Jesus couldn’t do this, you tell us. So what about the kerosene that is alleged to have sat, knee-deep, inside the world Trade Centre for one and a half hours?
24th November 2007 at 3:18 pm
Most murderers and rapists know their victims - of course their DNA will be at the scene of the crime.
Hmm, I see your point. We’d only be catching criminals who are not known to their victims. Hardly seems worth it really.
“once again it’s the preventative effect which could pay real dividends.”… any studies to back you up on that? How many fewer crimes will there be due to a universal database?
Hang on, I was talking about the medical stuff at that point. There’s a medical DNA database and a criminal DNA database, or perhaps they’re the same thing, it’s all up to us really. In healthcare, prevention is always way cheaper than cure.
Staff with access to the DNA database could abuse the data in manners that I’ve previously described. It is literally impossible to do this if the database simply doesn’t exist.
The other thing it is literally impossible to do if the database doesn’t exist, is to catch a criminal in cases where DNA provides the only available lead.
Further, those with access to the staff can socially engineer them into data abuse. Police involved in a cover-up, spouses with grudges, and so on.
Is there nothing I can do to prevent you from conflating these issues?
If you haven’t, then IMHO you have zero credibility on this issue as of now.
That’s fine.
. . . but you can still have mixups in the DNA testing lab.
Yes, obviously.
Er, or it could not happen, like we’re fighting to stop ID cards.
Yes, well that’s another complete waste of time. I mean I’m fairly insecure, but I’m not so insecure that I am going to feel totally violated by having to carry around a plastic card in addition to the half a dozen I have already. Can’t we all just get over ourselves?
If you have genuine concerns, you certainly didn’t highlight them in your piece.
Well I was trying to make the positive case. Sure, I can imagine cock-ups and spiralling costs. But in time, they will be far outweighed by the benefits. It’s only a question of when, not if. We need to prepare for this constructively
24th November 2007 at 4:16 pm
Like nuclear weapons. Every rogue state is going to get them whether we like it or not.
Nuclear weapons are often cited as an example of the evils of scientific progress, but I don’t see it that way at all. Science merely reflects reality. Without nuclear energy, there would be no stars, no Sun, and no life on Earth. So it seems silly wishing that nuclear energy did not exist, or that we hadn’t discovered it. I’m glad we discovered how to make nuclear weapons, but I fervently hope that they will never be let off again. In fact I rather regret the two that were let off over Japan, usually on the glib justification that, “it ended the war.”
Except unlike nuclear physicists, geneticists are notoriously unscientific in their penchant for making wild and exaggerated claims.
He says, making a wild and exaggerated claim.
For instance, the notion that behavioural (as opposed to physical) characteristics can be transmitted by DNA.
Well of course behaviour is genetic; surely this is no longer controversial. The easiest way to think about this is to consider dogs. Dogs can be bred to have wildly different behaviours, by a process of artificial selection which is just natural selection speeded up a bit. Some are extremely docile, while others will rip your throat out given half a chance. Once we understand this and accept that it entirely down to genetics, we merely have to make the transition from dog to human. But at this point, human vanity kicks in big time, and most people find that they just can’t get beyond, “We’re not dogs; dogs lick their balls; humans are different from dogs.”
So, if Dawkins, or anyone else, tells me he has found a “murderer’s gene”, I will challenge him to show me the mechanism which enables this gene to make someone a murderer.
I’m not sure about a murderer’s gene, but there is certainly a gene for violent behaviour. (We have to be a bit careful when talking about genes “for” something, as it’s not quite as simple as that, but I’ll let that pass for now.) The mechanism for transmission is generally that of fighting over mates – think of male deer during the rut. In fact most violence fundamentally boils down to fighting over girls, which incidentally is why girls are generally far less aggressive than boys (and so much better company too).
Many of Dawkins’s most ardent supporters are Marxists who insist that human intelligence is exclusively a product of environment.
Eh? You mean his opponents surely? Dawkins doesn’t generally hang out with the Marxists. I suppose John Maynard Smith was one exception.
Do you believe that some races are more intelligent than others?
It would be nothing short of amazing if average IQ did not vary across racial categories, or indeed any other category you might care to think of. But I do not believe the differences are significant, and even if they were, they would never provide any justification for discrimination (which, to be clear, should be defined as the act of treating an individual according to the average properties of a group). People get hung up about race because it is highly visible I suppose, and an obvious source of tension. But the real gap which can never be bridged is in fact that between the sexes. Boys and girls are radically different, by a whole chromosome no less, which is why we frequently have the greatest difficulty making any sense of each other.
A few days before he was arrested, Hanratty had sex with a woman called Gladys Deacon in his car on Brockley Hill. Hanratty practiced coitus interruptus and ejaculated over his trousers. He then placed those trousers, unlaundered, in a suitcase, which he handed over to the Police on his arrest.
More! More!
24th November 2007 at 11:21 pm
Laurence Boyce wrote: “Nuclear weapons are often cited as an example of the evils of scientific progress, but I don’t see it that way at all. Science merely reflects reality. Without nuclear energy, there would be no stars, no Sun, and no life on Earth. So it seems silly wishing that nuclear energy did not exist, or that we hadn’t discovered it. I’m glad we discovered how to make nuclear weapons, but I fervently hope that they will never be let off again.”
I didn’t say nuclear weapons are an example of the evils of scientific progress, as you well know. Set up a straw man and knock him down. We are all familiar with that technique.
YOU are arguing that the technology for mass surveillance exists, so it is inevitable that it will be used, whether we like it or not; ergo, it is futile to try to prevent it being used.
I countered that the same argument can be deployed to defend nuclear proliferation. And (apparently) you have no answer to that; other than to paint me as some kind of green Luddite, which is ridiculous.
Human beings have the capacity to control technology. It isn’t easy (considering how many powerful people out there want to misuse it), but it can be done.
“He says, making a wild and exaggerated claim.”
I hear the sound of pots and kettles whistling.
You must admit, Laurence, it’s a bit rich for someone who misuses the terms “forensic evidence” and “rule of law” to pontificate about criminal evidence and criminal justice.
“Well of course behaviour is genetic;”
Another slight of hand.
I didn’t say behaviour is not genetic (an imprecise and misleading agglomeration of words I would never dream of using), I said that the notion that behavioural characteristics are transmitted by DNA may be incoherent; two totally different things.
Of course behavioural characteristics are passed from parent to child. The issue is how that happens. More than one mechanism is possible.
“surely this is no longer controversial”
If you go through the subscription list of the “New Statesman” you will find plenty of people for whom it is highly controversial.
“(We have to be a bit careful when talking about genes “for” something, as it’s not quite as simple as that, but I’ll let that pass for now.)”
If the notion that behavioural characteristics can be transmitted by DNA isn’t incoherent, then it is unlikely you would find yourself forced to supply a ducking and diving answer.
What is really dangerous, of course, is that someone like Dawkins might claim to have identified a “violence” gene, and that as a consequence all those who have it are subjected to indefinite detention. You will not doubt say this would be a thoroughly good thing or at least shrug your shoulders and categorise it as an inevitable consequence of a technology we cannot uninvent.
“In fact most violence fundamentally boils down to fighting over girls,”
Right, so there are no violent homosexuals. Dennis Andrew Nilsen, all is forgiven.
Throughout all but the last 100 years of human history (stretching back 70,000 years), boys have not had to fight over girls. Unions between males and females were arranged (and still are in many parts of the world). A fact which those academic charlatans calling themselves “evolutionary psychologists” conveniently ignore.
“More! More!”
I know you’re being facetious, Laurence, but the ingenuous among us might take this as a sign that you are willing to question your blind faith in the fundamental benevolence and benign nature of powerful elites.
Laurence, you have asserted (with ever increasing vehemence and confidence) that a national DNA database is both inevitable and capable of solving most if not all violent crime. But you have adduced no evidence to support these propositions other than the assertions of loud-mouthed politicians and police chiefs.
How many lawyers support a national DNA database? How many academic criminologists do? Very few, I suspect, but maybe you can put me right on that.
Plenty of lawyers with criminal justice knowledge view this site. It would be nice if some of them would add their comments.
25th November 2007 at 7:18 pm
Laurence, you just aren’t engaging with what I have to say. It’s like the words I’m writing are going through some sort of magic filter before they reach you that edits out anything to do with cost/benefit analysis and risk versus reward. My general case, to discard the point-by-point replies that are increasingly becoming irrelevant to the original topic (if you would like me to reply like that, I am quite happy to, I’m just trying to keep the debate going forward sensibly), is that the risks associated with a national universal DNA database (”NUDNAD”?) outweigh the costs. Your argument is, I presume, that the benefits outweight the risks.
However, from my perspective at least, I am providing concrete reasons and examples for why I think that a NUDNAD is a bad idea and what really pains me is that it doesn’t seem like you are really listening.
Let me try again:
Systems of any size incorporate (at least) two kinds of hazard - safety hazards and security hazards. The former is to do with accidents and incompetence (broadly speaking, “misuse”), the latter to do with hostile action (”abuse”). Larger systems are more likely to contain either kind of hazard because the complexity of the system is unavoidably larger than in a smaller system; there are more bits to go wrong. Larger systems also tend to have greater penalties for a hazard manifesting (this is called a “fault”), because larger systems tend to hold more data or carry out more important tasks.
A NUDNAD is a large, complex system. It is not just a database, really, but also all of the infrastructure to support that:
One needs a mechanism for capturing each person’s DNA reliably, and ensuring that it gets passed to the right part of the system and saved into the database. That mechanism needs to account not only for newborns, but also naturalized citizens, illegal immigrants, criminal foreigners and so on. Each of these different paths into the database can feed the database bad data, either through misuse or abuse. Consider: DNA samples could get mixed up by accident or on purpose: when initially taken, in transit to the processing lab, at the lab, or in transit to the database.
One needs a mechanism for maintaining data, for taking people off who eg. die or leave the country, for making corrections or additions due to mixups as above, archiving old records, making copies for auditing purposes and so on. This mechanism can be misused or abused in many ways, which I mentioned above - entering spurious data, removing rows, accidentally leaking all the records when taken for auditing, etc.
One needs a mechanism for retrieving data from the database. That means providing access to every agency that will be using the data, either directly (eg. uid/pwd and a web app) or indirectly (all requests go through a few “junior officials”). This access can be gamed in a number of ways - social engineering, malicious requests, requests for incorrect records (eg planting evidence) and so on. Because the number of people with direct