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.
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118 Comments
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.
Ahem. National database. Have the past 48 hours taught us nothing?
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.
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”…
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?
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.
Is Cheltenham Robin actually saying that a national DNA database would not help in the fight against crime?
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Does the DNA database come in before or after the control bracelet to administer electro-shocks when we think anti-social thoughts?
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.
‘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?
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.)
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 ????
I’m no ordinary liberal! 🙂
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.
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.
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.
23 – I’ve deleted that remark, which I shouldn’t have allowed to be published on LDV.
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! 🙂
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.
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.
Also, what Angus said at #30.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
Yesterday was obviously a quiet news day – only three stories about DNA profiling.
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?
“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.
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.
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.
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?
“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”.
Blimey, is that the time? I’ll reply to you guys tomorrow. Promise!
8.35 past your bedtime, eh? 😛 I’m in Wales all weekend, but will check back.
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.
Just a quick question, Angus: how did the police obtain the semen?
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?
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
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!
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.
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 or indirect access to the system would be very large, the chance of this sort of abuse is very high.
Finally, the system itself can be repurposed. Presuming a NUDNAD is introduced to deal with crime as per your initial post, it could be extended to providing data to the NHS (IIRC you yourself suggest this for ultra-personalized treatments), a short step then to private healthcare companies, yet another short step to private health insurance companies, then perhaps to life insurers, then perhaps car insurers. Then perhaps employers in general. Not only does this expand the number of users, hence magnifying the threat of data compromise, but a) could provide data to capitalist companies who are bound to use the data to their finanical advantage, an advantage that does not necessarily correspond with an advantage to Joe Public, b) by tacking bits onto a system, one compromises the architectural purity of the system, adding more bugs and thus allowing more exploits.
So, what are the consequences of other parties getting hold of your DNA data?
You could be denied health/life/car insurance. You could be denied medical treatment on the NHS (eg. if you are fat but don’t have the “make me fat” gene, you’ve clearly gotten fat because you’re lazy, therefore, no treatment until you get off your arse). You could be implicated in a serious crime. You could be discriminated against when trying to get a job (because your genes match a “slacked” pattern, or because you have a short life expectancy), or when standing for public office, or even when voting (no intelligence genes = 1/2 vote?). Honestly, we don’t yet know all of the terrible things that someone could do if they had access to your DNA data, either personally or in an aggregated form, so it is hard to quantify the potential damage that could be done. However, what we do know is that it is impossible to change your DNA, ever, so once your DNA data is compromised, it is compromised forever.
I hope by this point that you are beginning to understand both the likelihood of data compromise (high) and the possible consequences of data compromise (severe).
I would really like you to respond and indicate that you have actually read what I’ve written, and if possible, explain what you think the benefits of a NUDNAD are, and why you think that those benefits outweigh the costs that I have outlined above. Of course, you are very welcome to argue that my analysis is faulty in some manner, but I don’t really think that anything that I’ve written here is particularly contentious.
53. A superb analysis. I would just like to point out to Laurence that for liberals the end cannot necessarily justify the means.
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.
Not really, I was just going off on a tangent. Science is merely a reflection of reality. There’s no point in wishing it away. That’s all.
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.
Not quite. Sometimes the technology does take on a life of its own, but mainly I think that a DNA database will come to pass because that’s what people will demand to protect their real liberty, not merely some philosophical conception of it. The civil liberties agenda has far less resonance with the general public than its principal cheerleaders would have us believe.
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.
Well, behavioural characteristics are transmitted by DNA. There’s no doubt about it.
If you go through the subscription list of the “New Statesman” you will find plenty of people for whom it is highly controversial.
Controversial on scientific or on political grounds?
Throughout all but the last 100 years of human history (stretching back 70,000 years), boys have not had to fight over girls.
70,000 years is not long in evolutionary terms. The business about fighting over girls goes back millions of years.
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.
Well if lawyers don’t like a DNA database, then I think that pretty much clinches the argument.
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.
No, I’m listening, at least with half an ear. But the component that is missing from your argument is time. In the fullness of time, the pace of technological change will put pay to many of your concerns. Which ones and in what ways, I know not. I am merely making a prediction based upon a “Moore’s law” type assessment of where things are heading. I know that I want a DNA database in principle. I also know that there are going to be cock-ups along the way. But the cost-benefit analysis is guaranteed to swing in my direction over time, as DNA technology becomes increasingly cheap and commonplace.
I would just like to point out to Laurence that for liberals the end cannot necessarily justify the means.
Not quite sure what you mean by that but, once again, I have to say that if liberalism entails jailing the innocent and allowing the guilty to go free, then I don’t want to be a liberal.
@54 Tony Hill to that I’d add that compulsion is no panacea for failure.
To diminish the potential for failure and the consequences of that failure through either ignorance, neglect or a complacent belief against the possibility is to set yourself up for it.
Gordon Moore was director of R&D at Fairchild Semiconductor when he published that famous paper – he knew what he was talking about.
When you say “technology will solve these problems” you clearly do not know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry, you just don’t. I know, because you give no examples, potential solutions, even general directions on how technology will “put pay” (I think you mean “paid”) to my concerns.
You say that the cost-benefit analysis will swing in your favour over time, but give no good reason for why that should be the case – cheap DNA processing technology has no bearing on any of the systems-level arguments I presented in #53 (barring mistakes in the DNA lab). Indeed, cheap DNA tech makes taking samples of other people’s DNA really easy for private individuals, allowing all sorts of entertaining possibilities for cheating the system.
I suggest that you learn a hell of a lot more about the topic before you try discussing it with anyone again. Breezily suggesting that “things will be better the future” hardly cements your credibility on this issue.
That’s my final contribution to this thread; honestly, I’m just frustrated that you just don’t seem to get it, and I’m fed up with arguing against such an apparently intellectually bankrupt brick wall.
I’m fed up with arguing against such an apparently intellectually bankrupt brick wall.
How much intellect do we think went into this argument: “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.” Stunning.
That’s my final contribution to this thread.
Oh thank God for that. Maybe next time you’ll employ your real name.
Laurence Boyce wrote:
“Well, behavioural characteristics are transmitted by DNA. There’s no doubt about it.”
A classic example of argument by assertion. The headmaster says so. Therefore it is right.
Let’s just hope no-one notices it’s incoherent. That would spoil the fun.
“70,000 years is not long in evolutionary terms”
But you can turn a wolf into a dog in four generations.
Very useful, though, to be able to rely on species that no longer exist.
“I have to say that if liberalism entails jailing the innocent and allowing the guilty to go free, then I don’t want to be a liberal.”
But you’re quite happy for the state to hang Hanratty, even though he was innocent.
“Oh thank God for that”
But you don’t believe in God!
Leonid Breshnev once referred to the Almighty, in a speech at Alma-Ata. Shortly afterwards, his health deteriorated.
Sorry. Thank “God” for that.
Angus,
Your dog/wolf example rather supports the point you are opposing.
Domestic animals and cattle are more docile than their wild counterparts. They have been bred for this. If behavioural characteristics weren’t transmitted genetically, this breeding wouldn’t work.
Joe Otten wrote:
“Angus,
“Your dog/wolf example rather supports the point you are opposing.
Domestic animals and cattle are more docile than their wild counterparts. They have been bred for this. If behavioural characteristics weren’t transmitted genetically, this breeding wouldn’t work.”
Not necessarily.
Livestock animals are bred primarily for meat and wool production, for docility only secondarily.
There are plenty of examples of species changing behaviour patterns without there being any possibility of natural (or any other kind of) selection having taken place.
Those who walked in the countryside 30 years ago will recall that sheep invariably ran to the other side of the field at the sight of a human. Now, they stand and stare, or even walk towards the human.
Similarly, herons standing along the banks of the Thames are unmoved by humans just a few feet away. In rural areas, a heron will generally depart before the human even gets the chance to see it. This has been so for less than a quarter of a century.
Those who walked in the countryside 30 years ago will recall that sheep invariably ran to the other side of the field at the sight of a human. Now, they stand and stare, or even walk towards the human.
Yes? And then what happens?
Angus,
Do you agree that animals have instincts? Some more than others.
What is an instinct, but a behavioural tendency that is inherited rather than learned?
Joe Otten @ 65:
But how is an instinct transmitted? Show me the MECHANISM.
LB has made two assertions which call for analysis.
(1) He maintains that public opinion is unconcerned about attacks on civil liberties.
On what evidence does LB base this view?
It is of course true that until last week opinion polls were consistent in showing that a majority of people in the UK supported the imposition of compulsory ID cards.
Why was this so?
The answer is quite simple: FEAR. If you can engender a climate of fear in the populace then it is possible to to get people to accept almost any curtailment of their liberties. The media (and especially those outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch) have spent the last 30 years pumping out a daily diet of sensationalist reporting about crime and social breakdown in general, and crimes against children in particular. So it is hardly surprising people think we live in a lawless society where muggers, rapists, paedophiles and terrorists lurk behind every viburnum bush.
You can fool most of the people all of the time, as Abraham Lincoln once observed. Murdoch and his ilk do just that.
(2) Laurence insists that a national DNA database will eliminate most if not all violent crime.
Wrong.
It will be of use only against assailtants who are (1) unknown to their victims, (2) leave a substantial (not a microscopic) tace of themselves, (3) do not dispose of the victim’s body and effects, and (4) do not have an existing criminal record (their DNA is already on file).
So, who would still have got away?
Ian Brady and Fred West, because they disposed of their victims’ bodies and had existing criminal records; Dennis Andrew Nilsen, because he disposed of his victims’ bodies; Dr Harold Shipman and Dr John Bodkin Adams, because they left no trace of themsleves.
And who is left?
Well, Robert Black, who dumped his victims’ bodies by the roadside. But would he have done this had there been a national DNA database?
All in all, then, it looks as if a national DNA database is likely to prove a rather useless crime fighting tool.
Except that it would enable the Police to fit up anyone of their choosing – from Hanratty down to Colin Stagg, Michael Stone and Barry George.
The extent to which people are prepared to tolerate curtailments to their liberties depends not just on the effectiveness of the propaganda pumped out by media outlets serving elite interests.
Thre is also the question of history and culture.
It is far harder to restrict the liberties of say, the Basques, who have a history of living in isolated farms (at least since the Dark Ages), and of having semi-autonomous government, than say, the Russians, who have lived in nucleated villages since the Neolithic, and were subject to the feudal system up until the late 19th century.
A Russian factory worker living in a high-rise in the suburbs of Omsk might accept microchipping with a degree of fatalism. Do it to a farmer in the Baztan Valley and you will have to get past his hunting rifle first.
I’ve moderated the last couple of comments in this thread as things were getting rather heated and personal. Please cool it a little; thanks 🙂
Angus, the mechanisms of inheritance can be found in any biology textbook.
Are you suggesting that instincts, by the definiton I gave, do not exist? If so you have a lot of complex animal behaviour to explain in animals that show little or no capacity for learning.
Joe Otten wrote:
“Angus, the mechanisms of inheritance can be found in any biology textbook.”
Not in any known to me.
Your answer is obfuscatory, of course, because you have surreptitiously shifted your ground from behavioural characteristics to any characteristic.
You have to explain how DNA can transmit BEHAVIOUR, as opposed to physical characteristics.
I am not prepared to listen to taurine ordure. I want to know exactly what happens, stage by stage, action by action.
I suspect the notion is incoherent (in much the same way as trace theories of memory are incoherent), which means you’ll get stuck very quickly.
And that is why people like Laurence bluff as far as they can go then change the subject once they reach the corner.
What is it in one’s brain that makes one a murderer, and how does DNA put it there?
Behavioural characteristics (especially those that cross groups as I have described) are more likely to be transmitted by morphic resonance, as Dr Rupert Sheldrake has demonstrated in his various publications.
I guess that is the conclusion you are trying so desperately to avoid having to accept.
http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html
Oh good grief, morphic resonance, that’s what you’re clinging to. Sorry I gave you so much credit.
Your line about murderers is a straw man, btw. Murder is a crime not an instinct.
You have to explain how DNA can transmit BEHAVIOUR, as opposed to physical characteristics.
It’s all physical in the final analysis. We live in a material world.
What is it in one’s brain that makes one a murderer, and how does DNA put it there?
Not a murderer as such, but rather we’re talking about a predisposition to violence which we all have to a greater or lesser extent. How does DNA put that predisposition there? The same way it puts everything else there. The brain has a highly complex internal structure. It arrives preformatted at birth. It is emphatically not a blank slate.
Laurence Boyce wrote:
“The brain has a highly complex internal structure.”
So complex you don’t even try to explain how it works.
Not good enough.
Say that in an exam and you fail.
You want me to explain how the brain works in a blog comment? Ah well, You win!
Laurence, I have made a post on my blog on this topic, so if you would like to carry on the “debate” (:P) somewhere that won’t delete either of our creative insults, feel free to trot on over. Incidentally, I didn’t see what you wrote in reply to my previous comment that so disturbed Mr. Pack, and I would be amused to 🙂
I think I just said that it would be more to your advantage than mine to employ your real name, and that in any case it was merely an observation, not a criticism as such. My comment wouldn’t have made much sense on its own.
I am a bit slow on the draw on this one but I thought I would add some comments to the comments:
Database fallacies: Someone may have made this point earlier but I think it was beaten down with all the rhetoric flowing. Having a large database of DNA does not necessarily improve detection rates. Consider 4 different database scenarios:
1. No DNA database
2. Database of only convicted criminals
3. Database of those arrested
4. Database of everyone
Common sense would tell you that 1 is the worst and 4 is the best in terms of catching criminals, but maybe not so.
In scenario 1, you immediately have no help from the database, as there isn’t one. The Police would have therefore use other clues to determine suspects and then collect DNA and match it to samples from the crime scene. Not a great scenario but one that would still have comparable detection rates to those of today.
In scenario 2, the police can start with a much more directed search, but the population of people in the database AND able to commit the crime might still be relatively low, after all in comparison to the population the criminal fraternity is quite low and 80,000 of them are currently unable to commit crimes, at least ones outside their HMP’s.
Scenario 3, the current one employed in the UK, has a modest number of people on it, a modest number of free people on it and a large number of free people who have shown some inclination towards crime on it. This leads towards a directed search of a modest database.
Scenario 4, has everyone on it, which immediately seems like a good idea – you have everyone’s DNA so you check the sample from the crime scene and bingo, you have your man, don’t you? The error rate of DNA matching is a contentious area. The numbers vary from one in a billion down to one in a hundred if you include the high chances of human error. But lets be nice to the FSS and take a one-in-a-billion rate. So, in court, up steps the prosecuting barrister and states “M’lud, bright men and women and the jury, This man is the thief! [points an accusatory finger towards the defendant] The DNA found at the crime scene matched HIS. The nice young gentleman from the Forensic Science Service states there is a one-in-a-BILLION chance that the DNA match is wrong!” The jurors look at themselves and think “Well, there are only 60 million people in this country so the chances on this being wrong are negligible. He must have done it. SEND HIM DOWN!!” and off goes the convicted, kicking and screaming, down into the holding cells, professing his innocence and calling for his mother. The barristers, judge and jury all go home with a sense of righteousness after justice was served and a good days work was done. But, as in the Sally Clark case, no-one bothered to call a statistician as an expert witness. If so, he would have pointed out that the FSS error rate is the error rate in the case of a single directed search. If you have one suspect and one sample, the chances of them matching by error are one-in-a-billion here. But because of the massive database we actually have 60 million chances to make that one-in-a-billion error. Therefore the chances of the error occurring in this case (or any given case using a national DNA database) are actually 1 in 17, a scarily small number. Approximately 11 million offences are committed in the UK each year. So if each of those cases were prosecuted on DNA evidence alone, about 650,000 innocent people could be convicted each year.
Obviously this is an imaginary scenario. but it is the opposite “what if?” from Laurence’s. He is essentially saying “what if everyone involved in policing was perfect, could you then have a DNA database?”. I am saying “what if, even if everyone involved in policing was perfect, could you then have a DNA database?”. The answer would be that it doesn’t matter. A large database without direction essentially only amplifies mistakes made previously. The police would only ever use this as a starting point, but as the numbers show, 1 in 17 times this starting point might be wrong. And these numbers are with a low error rate. If the chances of making a mistake were that same as winning the lottery (which we would all consider still a quite low probability, but much greater than one-in-a-billion) you would almost always get the wrong man.
So from the four scenarios which one is best from a crime-fighting point-of view. Well, although it is illiberal, the obvious conclusion is scenario 3, our current policy. It has a limited database so is less susceptible to the error I have pointed out above, and is also directed toward people who have already come in contact with the police so are therefore more likely to have committed the crime in question. It is not necessarily fair but allows the best chance of using DNA to help catch a criminal.
The obvious answer to all of this is that nothing bests good-ol’ fashioned police work. A policeman is going to realise when the DNA fingerprinting has made a mistake, and structure the enquiry accordingly. To me, why not spend the money that you are going to spend on fingerprinting the entire nation and storing all that data on providing more, better trained police.
Your DNA and you: I recently read a good article by Bruce Schneier about identity theft that, although isn’t directly linked, I was reminded of here. Identity theft is a term bandied around a lot now but is actually a misnomer (one that is intended to make you the victim) – your identity is the ONE thing that cannot be stolen from you, you will always be you. Laurence made the point that your DNA is everywhere so is it really yours? Well, the same as with your identity, yes it is yours, it cannot, not ever, be anybody else’s. This gets to the meat and bones of liberty. What I have is mine completely, not yours until I lay claim to it. My identity, information, DNA is always mine, whether it is public or not. You have to ask my permission to have it, not just take it. If the government asked nicely and gave me some concrete incentive then perhaps I would allow them to store some of it to help them. But they don’t. The biggest mistake they have made in the large database schemes.
Genetics: Not my strongest area but I’ll give it a go. Toward the end of these comments the discussion turned towards the old nature/nurture debate. Just a couple of things on that. Some behaviours are innate. The discussion was about a violence gene. There isn’t a violence gene, but a predisposition toward violence could easily be inherited through genes for neurotransmitter production. Essentially an inability to produce enough 5-HT (serotonin) or GABA could be linked to aggression. This could be seen in a gene sequence. Another alternative is genomic imprinting. This is not classical genetics where a chance in base sequencing leads to different protein expression but rather a chance in the gene structure leads to changes in offspring, essentially like an immediate evolution. Changes in the parents environment can lead to almost immediate ‘fitness’ for that environment in the offspring. But over all, the likelihood of using DNA sequencing to determine the exact lifestyle of a person, a la Gattaca, is unlikely. Humans, in particular, are adapted to take as much from our immediate environment as possible.
Because of the massive database we actually have 60 million chances to make that one-in-a-billion error. Therefore the chances of the error occurring in this case are actually 1 in 17.
My point is that these numbers can be made as astronomically large as you like. The one in a billion probability is generated by taking a paltry ten locus points from the human genome. This can and will be extended. It’s only a matter of time.
He is essentially saying “what if everyone involved in policing was perfect, could you then have a DNA database?”
No I am not saying that. The police are not, and never will be, perfect. It’s only the batshit crazy conspiracy theory stuff that I don’t buy into.
Humans, in particular, are adapted to take as much from our immediate environment as possible.
The environment obviously plays a huge role; this is not in doubt. But in general, I think that the powerful effects of our genes are underestimated for at least two reasons. Firstly, genetics as a topic of study is often counter-intuitive; and secondly, because the reality of our human condition is politically unpalatable to many.
So, re-reading your article again it seems what you are saying is thus: in principle, some time in the future, you think that overall the benefits of having a DNA database will outweigh the economic costs of such a system and that it will be so precise due to technological advance that errors would be negligible and that we liberals should swallow our civil liberty worries for the benefit of the nation. Is that correct? It seemed to me that you were also putting up a spirited defence of the police in the comments but perhaps it was just about conspiracy theories so I’ll let that fly. I don’t see myself as a luddite (for instance, haven’t read it fully yet, but I agree that we are simply too politically scared of GM crops) but still have trouble imagining that the error rate in sequencing could ever get to the point that it would then be negligible when combined with a mega-database (I think you would be looking for error rates 5-6 orders of magnitude lower than currently available before the chances of finding false positives was low enough to quash doubt). There are simply to many variables. Moore’s law would work in relation to the economic effects – sequencing will get cheaper, as will storage costs for the database. Security would not get much better and may well get worse as new algorithms become capable of dealing with encryption faster and the possible flaws in encryption methods are exposed. The error rate though, depends on more than simple processing power, most importantly, it requires people at various points along a long chain. People, unfortunately, don’t follow Moore’s law (well, they get cheaper with time perhaps, but certainly not faster!). It is in fact not the technology that scares me, if it was all left to technology then that might be better, but the people involved (no offence meant to any SOCO’s or FSS personnel reading this). But for your hypothesis that because technology will get better, everything will better, then, currently, I simply don’t see it. Technology will get better, but the people using it won’t. If you are taking people out of the loop then error rates might be manageable but then you have to invent something to do their job and suddenly this goes from being a serious discussion of the pros and cons of the database to being nothing more than a science fiction “what if”. Essentially I am saying yes it could be so, but how? If you are convinced then you must have some concrete reason for it?
Beyond those worries, you then have the problem that security problems with the database could make it obsolete. If technology in the future is so super-duper then I am guessing that the bad guys will have some of it as well to do evil with. Could they not just hack into their profiles and change it all “TATA” if they had done something naughty?
On the nature/nurture question, I would genuinely like to know why you think genes have such a large role to play. I’m not saying the don’t, but somewhere you wrote that the brain is preformatted and I would like to know what you mean. True, your brain is ready to go “out of the box” if you’ll excuse the pun but your first years are essentially spent taking in experience to shape your brain into something usable and therefore you are particularly susceptible to your surroundings. Thoughts?
So, re-reading your article again it seems what you are saying is thus: in principle, some time in the future, you think that overall the benefits of having a DNA database will outweigh the economic costs of such a system and that it will be so precise due to technological advance that errors would be negligible and that we liberals should swallow our civil liberty worries for the benefit of the nation.
Not for the benefit of the the nation. The benefit will be to our individual personal liberties about which so many of us bang on about all the time. Just ask Stefan Kiszko. Well, we can’t in fact because he is dead.
It seemed to me that you were also putting up a spirited defence of the police in the comments.
Too right. If Liberal Democrats are seen to attack any front line public service as a whole then we don’t deserve power.
I think you would be looking for error rates 5-6 orders of magnitude lower than currently available before the chances of finding false positives was low enough to quash doubt.
No problem. That’s 5-6 extra locus points.
The error rate though, depends on more than simple processing power, most importantly, it requires people at various points along a long chain.
Why is this any different to any other “error rate”? Just as with “standard” fingerprinting, a genetic fingerprint can be double and treble checked, and should in any case should not comprise the entire case for the prosecution.
But for your hypothesis that because technology will get better, everything will better, then, currently, I simply don’t see it.
Then presumably you are also not able to see the progress which has already been made with the existing DNA database, unimaginable only a generation ago.
Could they not just hack into their profiles and change it all “TATA” if they had done something naughty?
Hmm, good point. Worse still, they could hack into the Pentagon computer system and start a nuclear war. Time to shut down the internet.
Somewhere you wrote that the brain is preformatted and I would like to know what you mean.
The brain is not a lump of grey matter. It has a highly complex internal structure and is split into a variety of different “modules” adapted to perform very specific tasks. A good example is language. Clearly the environment will determine which language you speak: French, German, Japanese. But at a more abstract level, the ability to form and comprehend sentences with a grammatical structure is completely hardwired, which is why we will never ever be able to hold a conversation with a chimpanzee.
Laurence Boyce wrote:
“Not for the benefit of the the nation. The benefit will be to our individual personal liberties about which so many of us bang on about all the time. Just ask Stefan Kiszko. Well, we can’t in fact because he is dead.”
Laurence, your blind faith in the infallibility of the Police is beginning to make you look ridiculous.
(1)
If DNA profiling had existed in 1975, Brian Castree would have buried Lesley Moleseed’s body on the Moors, just as Ian Brady did a decade earlier.
In the same way that rats become immune to rat poison, criminals change and refine their methods in order to take account of technological improvements available to the law enforcement agencies. When fingerprint matching was introduced, burglars started wearing gloves.
(2)
The Police who investigated the murder of Lesley Moleseed knew perfectly well that Stefan Kiszko was innocent. If DNA profiling had existed, they would simply have planted Kiszko’s DNA on Moleseed’s body, and would not have had to rely on a dodgy “confession”.
If Laurence believes the Police can be trusted with a national DNA database, then he needs to have his brain taken out of his skull and examined with a magnifying glass.
Why did Sir Robert Mark find it necessary to compulsorily retire more than a score of senior officers at Scotland Yard when he became Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 1970 (Mark was no liberal, but he was an honest copper)? Why did Operation Countryman (a 1977 investigation of corruption in the Met Police) collapse due to the total non-cooperation of virutally everyone interviewed?
The Police have a history of fitting people up. They fitted up Stefan Kiszko, they fitted up Colin Wallace (to protect their cash-cow, Nicholas Van Hoogstraten), they fitted up the Guildford Four, they fitted up the Birmingham Six. Plus very many others.
Laurence, are you going to volunteer to be the next one?
Laurence Boyce further wrote:
“Too right. If Liberal Democrats are seen to attack any front line public service as a whole then we don’t deserve power.”
Ok. So you would have said the same thing to a German who attacked the Gestapo, or a Russian who criticised the KGB?
Laurence rambles on:
“The brain is not a lump of grey matter. It has a highly complex internal structure and is split into a variety of different “modules” adapted to perform very specific tasks. A good example is language. Clearly the environment will determine which language you speak: French, German, Japanese. But at a more abstract level, the ability to form and comprehend sentences with a grammatical structure is completely hardwired, which is why we will never ever be able to hold a conversation with a chimpanzee.”
Laurence, earlier on in this thread you said that evolutionary changes take millions of years. Human language (in its modern form) has only existed for £70,000 years.
David Icke claims that the people he calls the “Illuminati” are bent on establishing a global fascist state based on mass surveillance and mind control. An exaggeration perhaps, and with elements of fantasy, but all good legends have a foundation in truth. Clearly Laurence is hoping against hope that Icke is right.
When fingerprint matching was introduced, burglars started wearing gloves.
So we should give up on fingerprinting?
If DNA profiling had existed, they would simply have planted Kiszko’s DNA on Molseed’s body, and would not have had to rely on a dodgy “confession.”
Of course.
The Police have a history of fitting people up.
I guess we should just scrap the Police and be done with it.
So you would have said the same thing to a German who attacked the Gestapo?
Do you know, it’s funny you should say that. Only the other day I was chatting away to a nice policewoman in a small room at the Cambridge police station. And there I was thinking to myself: this is just like the Gestapo.
Angus – do you accept that without a DNA database the killer of Lesley Molseed would not now be behind bars – I do not believe that the police set up Stefan – it was incompetence aided and abetted by incompetent defence – led by Waddington – yes later to become Home Sec. Stefan spent years – as a child killer behind bars – because DNA testing was not up to the standards of today – and there was no database which would have led to the real killer
LB wrote:
“Do you know, it’s funny you should say that. Only the other day I was chatting away to a nice policewoman in a small room at the Cambridge police station. And there I was thinking to myself: this is just like the Gestapo.”
Would you have such a rosy view of the Police if you were Barry George or Michael Stone?
Rochdale Cowboy wrote:
“Angus – do you accept that without a DNA database the killer of Lesley Molseed would not now be behind bars – I do not believe that the police set up Stefan – it was incompetence aided and abetted by incompetent defence – led by Waddington – yes later to become Home Sec. Stefan spent years – as a child killer behind bars – because DNA testing was not up to the standards of today – and there was no database which would have led to the real killer”
I’ll take your question in 2 parts:-
(1)
Yes, Brian Castree would have been caught, as indeed he was, without a National DNA database. A DNA sample was taken from Castree as a matter or routine, because he was arrested on a different matter. Many serial killers already have their DNA on file because they have existing criminal records, as did Ian Brady and Fred West. I am not opposed to retaining DNA profiles or fingerprints of convicted criminals or taking samples from those arrested.
It was not DNA profiling that cleared Stefan Kiszko, as I understand it. It was the fact that Kiszko’s semen was fertile (unlike the semen found on the body), which the Crown knew but withheld from the Defence team.
(2)
The evidence against Stefan Kiszko was a fabricated “confession” that was concocted by the Police and signed by Kiszko under duress. This was the usual means of fitting people up prior to the enactment of PACE in 1984 (the legislation that required the Police to tape interviews with suspects).
Like criminals out of uniform, criminals in uniform continue to refine their methods of skulduggery to meet the changing constraints placed upon them.
Sorry, I meant to say “Kiszko’s semen was INfertile”.
Angus – I do agree with what you just said – but the point still remains – if there had been a DNA database Stefan would not have gone to prison and the real killer would have done earlier – surely that would now be the case now we have the technology.
You say that you are against a national database – but agree with convicted criminals DNA being kept – what about when they have served their time? should their DNA be kept or not? If you follow through with your liberal principles their DNA should be destroyed – should we stop them from voting as well?
Would you have such a rosy view of the Police if you were Barry George?
Why do you insist on pointing the finger of blame at the police? Barry George is set for a retrial because it has been considered unsafe to prosecute somebody on the basis of a single particle of gunshot residue. So the principal failure is surely that of the defence and of the court. But you prefer to blame the police. Why? I guess it’s because you know for a certainty that they deliberately introduced the particle into his coat pocket.
Rochdale Cowboy:
I think it unwise to look at a 1975 murder through 2007 spectacles.
If a national DNA database had existed in 1975, it is probable that Castree would have destroyed Lesley Moleseed’s body. Kiszko’s conviction would be unlikely today, not because of DNA profiling, but because formal interviews have to be taped (something that didn’t happen in 1975). If a national DNA database had existed in 1975, the Police could have planted Kiszko’s DNA on Lesely Moleseed’s body had they so wished.
I am not opposed to the retention of DNA profiles of convicted criminals (their fingerprints are already retained). But a national DNA database would be going way too far, with doubtful benefits, and difficulties which are not immediately apparent to those unfamilair with past Police practice.
LB at 88:
No, Laurence. You’ve got it wrong again. The Police waited for over a year after Jill Dando’s murder before they even bothered to question Barry George, even though he lived just round the corner and had a history of stalking women. Why? Because they knew perfectly well that the assassination was carried out by the Serbian Secret Police. The government felt it was unwise to blame Serbia for the killing because they didn’t want to upset the anti-Milosevic opposition, much of which was even more extreme than Milosevic. So the Police wasted public money for over a year, then, in desperation, arrested Barry George.
The killing was carried out by a professional assassin with specialist military training, not a local eccentric with learning difficulties. The firearm was a gun disguised as a mobile phone that fired a single shot, a weapon the Serbian Secret Police was known to use (one of their agents was caught in Austria with such a device).
Some people deserve to live in a fascist dictatorship, Laurence. You are one of them.
LB wrote:
“Barry George is set for a retrial because it has been considered unsafe to prosecute somebody on the basis of a single particle of gunshot residue.”
Wrong, Laurence. The particle of gunshot residue was only one plank of the prosecution case. The other parts will be put to a second jury at the retrial. The point about the particle of gunshot residue is that it was the only “evidence” the Crown produced that had any force in the way it was presented. The fact that Barry George was seen in his own street four hours before the murder means nothing. And his attempt to find an alibi the day after the murder was in all probability motivated by the fact that he was a suspect in the Rachel Nickell murder a few years previously.
Incidentally, John Stalker, one of the best detectives we have ever had, accepts that Jill Dando was murdered by the Serbian Secret Police.
So, once again, Laurence, you prove yourself remarkably sloppy with facts. Indeed, in your efforts to be facetious, you fall flat on your face.
Oh, and Laurence. You have still to explain how Hanratty managed to shoot Michael Gregsten while he was in a hotel in Rhyl. Quite a sticking point, I think.
If a national DNA database had existed in 1975, it is probable that Castree would have destroyed Lesley Molseed’s body.
This is such a ridiculously weak argument that I am amazed you persist with it. Of course Castree would just have “destroyed the body.” Jesus, have you ever actually tried destroying a body? It’s not that easy you know. Oops, forget I said that!
If a national DNA database had existed in 1975, the Police could have planted Kiszko’s DNA on Lesely Moleseed’s body.
Leaving to one side your pathological paranoia of the police, how exactly would they have been able to generate a DNA sample from the database? That is a highly complex and costly undertaking in principle, far more onerous than going from sample to fingerprint.
The Police waited for over a year after Jill Dando’s murder before they even bothered to question Barry George, even though he lived just round the corner and had a history of stalking women. Why? Because they knew perfectly well that the assassination was carried out by the Serbian Secret Police. The government felt it was unwise to blame Serbia for the killing because they didn’t want to upset the anti-Milosevic opposition, much of which was even more extreme than Milosevic. So the Police wasted public money for over a year, then, in desperation, arrested Barry George.
I’m sure you’re right.
Some people deserve to live in a fascist dictatorship, Laurence. You are one of them.
Now there’s a tragic irony if ever there was one. Because I feel that I live in a perfectly free society; whereas you, clearly, are already living under a fascist dictatorship in your own imagination.
Oh, and Laurence. You have still to explain how Hanratty managed to shoot Michael Gregsten while he was in a hotel in Rhyl. Quite a sticking point, I think.
I guess he must have used a gun with a really long barrel.
“This is such a ridiculously weak argument that I am amazed you persist with it. Of course Castree would just have “destroyed the body.” Jesus, have you ever actually tried destroying a body? It’s not that easy you know. Oops, forget I said that!”
Are you really that ignorant, Laurence, or is this just another of your poses?
Do you remeber a guy called Ian Brady, and his ladyfriend, Myra Hindley? What did they do with the bodies of the children they killed? Any guesses, Laurence? I even mentioned it in one of the posts you affect to mock.
“Leaving to one side your pathological paranoia of the police, how exactly would they have been able to generate a DNA sample from the database? That is a highly complex and costly undertaking in principle, far more onerous than going from sample to fingerprint.”
Oh, right. So the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six were guilty? And every single Met police officer co-operated fully with Operation Countryman (which was never needed in the first place)? Your ignorance of recent history astounds me.
You get a sample of someone’s DNA from the person himself or from his immediate surroundings. In Hanratty’s case, they obtained it from a pair of trousers sitting in a box in Lambeth. Anyway, I thought you said we leave our DNA everywhere we go? Oh, I see, we don’t.
“Now there’s a tragic irony if ever there was one. Because I feel that I live in a perfectly free society; whereas you, clearly, are already living under a fascist dictatorship in your own imagination.”
You admit I’m right about Barry George, so presumably it can’t all be my imagination.
“I guess he must have used a gun with a really long barrel.”
It was a .38 Enfield revolver. I know nothing about firearms, so cannot say how long the barrel was, but it must have been short enough for Peter Louis Alphon to get it into Michael Gregsten’s car.
As the facts emerge, it gets harder and harder to maintain that Hanratty was guilty. Unless he had the ability to bilocate.
You get a sample of someone’s DNA from the person himself or from his immediate surroundings.
You’ve just shot yourself in the foot there. Because you have been arguing that a DNA database will enable the police to set people up, but now you are saying that they don’t need the database at all. Make your mind up.
You admit I’m right about Barry George, so presumably it can’t all be my imagination.
No, I don’t. I think it’s conceivable that the police might have felt under a certain amount of pressure to solve such a high profile case. But it is the job of the court to dispassionately weigh up the evidence and reach a judgement. It looks like in this case they may have made a mistake. Or they may not. We’ll see.
As the facts emerge, it gets harder and harder to maintain that Hanratty was guilty. Unless he had the ability to bilocate.
Does morphic resonance allow for that?
“You’ve just shot yourself in the foot there. Because you have been arguing that a DNA database will enable the police to set people up, but now you are saying that they don’t need the database at all. Make your mind up.”
Fraid not. A national DNA database allows the Police to determine the DNA profile of whomever it is they wish to fit up. Having done that, they can then acquire the traces. The logic is quite simple, if you think about it.
“No, I don’t.”
Well, actually you did. But now you have resiled from it.
“I think it’s conceivable that the police might have felt under a certain amount of pressure to solve such a high profile case. But it is the job of the court to dispassionately weigh up the evidence and reach a judgement. It looks like in this case they may have made a mistake. Or they may not. We’ll see.”
If you believe the above, you’ll believe absolutely anything, including the stuff Dawkins, Blackmore and Zwinge spout out.
Well, you appear to believe that Ian Stevenson hypnotised children and that it is possible to mimic the NDE by stimulating parts of the brain, so obviously you ARE capable of believing more or less anything.
“Does morphic resonance allow for that?”
When you first started quoting the likes of Dawkins, Blackmore and Zwinge I thought you knew perfectly well that materialism is hokum. But it rapidly became clear that you are genuinely ignorant of the facts. I guess morphic resonance is one of thise things about which you shoot off your mouth without having a clear idea what it is.
I’ve sussed you, Laurence. You don’t give a monkey’s about any of the issues discussed on this forum. You wind up civil libertarians, Christians, Moslems, whomever, for sport.
(If you want to be taken seriously, avoid split infinitives.)
A national DNA database allows the Police to determine the DNA profile of whomever it is they wish to fit up. Having done that, they can then acquire the traces. The logic is quite simple, if you think about it.
I’m sorry but I’m just too stupid to understand this. I decide that I want to set someone up. Nick Clegg, say. So I look up Nick Clegg in the database, and get his profile. It’s 4839726417653645. So then I go along to a leadership hustings and, sitting in the front row, catch his spit as he is speaking passionately about civil liberties. I then plant this sample at a crime scene. The sample is in due course collected, and finds its way to the testing laboratory where it is matched to Nick Clegg. Obviously. Because it’s his spit. So what was there to be gained from knowing that he was 4839726417653645 in the first place?
If you believe the above, you’ll believe absolutely anything, including the stuff Dawkins, Blackmore and Zwinge spout out.
What – if I believe that the court may, or may not, have made a mistake, then I’ll believe anything? And who the hell is Zwinge?
I guess morphic resonance is one of these things about which you shoot off your mouth without having a clear idea what it is.
You’re not wrong. I have no idea what morphic resonance is. Please explain it in simple terms.
“I’m sorry but I’m just too stupid to understand this. I decide that I want to set someone up. Nick Clegg, say. So I look up Nick Clegg in the database, and get his profile. It’s 4839726417653645. So then I go along to a leadership hustings and, sitting in the front row, catch his spit as he is speaking passionately about civil liberties. I then plant this sample at a crime scene. The sample is in due course collected, and finds its way to the testing laboratory where it is matched to Nick Clegg. Obviously. Because it’s his spit. So what was there to be gained from knowing that he was 4839726417653645 in the first place?”
If Nick Clegg spits at you, then you can be reasonably certain that the spit you collect contains Nick Clegg’s DNA. Sure.
But what if you are a police officer thinking of fitting up some local ne’er do weil for a murder that you are unable to solve? You have his DNA profile, but you need to put traces of it on the murdered girl’s knickers. What do you do? No, you don’t go and confront him. You collect a used condom from his dustbin, or from his toilet waste (MOSSAD reconstituted letters that Uri Geller had torn up and flushed down his lavatory in Tel Aviv). The advantage a national DNA database gives the corrupt police officer is that it allows him to identify his victim’s DNA with certainty (after all, someone else could have had sex in his house the previous night).
No, I think I was a bit OTT in my previous post. You do clearly have deep personal issues with religion based on your childhood experiences. But I cannot understand for the life of me why you have such a down on civil liberties.
The advantage a national DNA database gives the corrupt police officer is that it allows him to identify his victim’s DNA with certainty.
But DNA testing is not done at the police station. It’s done at the forensic lab. You seem to be assuming that the police and the lab are in collusion. But if that is the case, then you don’t need to bother with samples at all. You can just do the whole job with Masonic handshakes.
You do clearly have deep personal issues with religion based on your childhood experiences.
Fundamentally, the only issue I have with religion is simply that the claims of religion are false.
But I cannot understand for the life of me why you have such a down on civil liberties.
I don’t. I like civil liberties. I just happen to think that liberty is more important than civil liberty.
“But DNA testing is not done at the police station. It’s done at the forensic lab.”
Yes, but it you have a national DNA database, the Police will be able to key the name into their computers and up pops the profile.
And they will be able to tell them who owns the profile on the sample they take once they get it back from the lab. If they have taken the wrong DNA, they can chuck away the sample and try again.
Technology is only as good as the people who use it.
A national DNA database would probably be safe in the hands of Robert Mark, John Stalker and Brian Paddick, but definitely not the officers investigated by Operation Countryman or those compulsorily retired by Robert Mark.
As I and many others have reiterated in this thread, a national DNA database would be of only marginal benefit in fighting crime while the potential for abuse is huge.
I would also point out that you are wrong to believe that collusion between Police and expert witnesses never occurs.
Yes, but it you have a national DNA database, the Police will be able to key the name into their computers and up pops the profile.
But why would the police need access to the database? All they do is provide the sample. The lab produces the fingerprint and makes the match. Or perhaps a third agency performs the match for good measure. So if the police were to adopt a “keep trying until we get him” approach, then everyone would know that they have done just that.
My basic point is that any serious abuse of the system would require collusion. But if you have collusion, then you hardly need to bother with real evidence at all. You can just make it all up.
“My basic point is that any serious abuse of the system would require collusion.”
Not necessarily. You provide the sample and get the match, and keep trying till you get the one you want. Or more likely, submit multiple samples from the same location.
“But if you have collusion, then you hardly need to bother with real evidence at all. You can just make it all up.”
Yes, the Police sometimes do make it all up. But there is a difference between a DNA match, which the expert witness says is 1 billion to 1 or whatever, and a prison grass lying through his teeth. The jury is more likely to believe the former than the latter.
And consider the possibility that criminals might plant the DNA of innocent people at crime scenes knowing they will be matched via the national DNA database.
And consider the possibility that criminals might plant the DNA of innocent people at crime scenes knowing they will be matched via the national DNA database.
Ah, now that is a vaguely sensible point.
Hope you had a good weekend.
Laurence, This fisking is truly irritating. This is supposed to be a discussion thread, not a to-and-fro point rebuttal.
I think that because of innate human error and complicity, large databases will continue to have high false positive rates, even if the technology is marvellous. And that this, along with the fact that my DNA does belong to me, I cannot at the moment support a national DNA database. You don’t think this. I want to know why? Really? Not just frivolous answers about the future being wonderful. This is your topic, give me answers, numbers. Make me believe.
Regarding the brain, very little is hardwired. In fact its malleability is what makes it so incredible. There are specialist areas in the brain determined by genetics but the function of these areas can be changed if needs be. And even this functional neuroanatomy is sometimes disputed, including Broca’s area. And for reference, an analogous asymmetry to the human Broca’s area has been cited in great apes. Full language communication in apes might be prohibited by something as simple as lack of specific orofacial muscles and structures and inabilities to control breathing. To both, Laurence and Angus ‘morphic resonance’ Huck, I suggested to both of you to put Kandel’s “Principles of Neural Science” or something similar on your Amazon wish list for Christmas to learn a bit more about the most fascinating structure known to us.
Hope you had a good weekend.
Not too bad. I attended the AGM of the secular Lib Dems. Please join our Facebook group!
Laurence, This fisking is truly irritating. This is supposed to be a discussion thread, not a to-and-fro point rebuttal.
I’m sorry, but I enjoy it.
I cannot at the moment support a national DNA database. You don’t think this. I want to know why? Really? Not just frivolous answers about the future being wonderful. This is your topic, give me answers, numbers.
I don’t think the future will be wonderful. I just believe in making slow steady progress. But I do think there will come a time when it is the opponents of DNA databases who will be required to justify their continued opposition, not those of us in favour. Certainly the arguments will need to be of a higher calibre than, “we can’t have a database because the police are totally corrupt.” I can’t give you hard numbers about the number of criminals who are currently getting away with murder. We just don’t know; that is the point in a sense. But a number of figures in the police and judiciary are now coming out in favour of a universal DNA database, and I don’t happen to believe that they are all part of some Masonic plot.
Regarding the brain, very little is hardwired.
I’m afraid that is totally incorrect.
Full language communication in apes might be prohibited by something as simple as lack of specific orofacial muscles and structures and inabilities to control breathing.
If that were the case, then we might be able to establish communication using some alternative channel. But all attempts at this have failed. Try as hard as we might, the chimps never seem able to make it beyond the chimp stage. Which, when you think about it, is not altogether surprising.
LB wrote:
“Certainly the arguments will need to be of a higher calibre than, “we can’t have a database because the police are totally corrupt.””
A classic case of setting up a straw man. No-one in this thread has said any such thing.
“But a number of figures in the police and judiciary are now coming out in favour of a universal DNA database,”
When has anyone in authority wanted less, not more, power?
“and I don’t happen to believe that they are all part of some Masonic plot.”
Staw man No 2. Getting to be a habit, Laurence.
“I’m afraid that is totally incorrect.”
Two straw men, now an argument by assertion. I should keep a tally.
Any attempt to apply evolutionary theory to historical linguistics is doomed to failure. Human language has moved from being fully ergative and agglutinative to being (almost) fully analytic in the space of 40,000 years. That is in the case of English. A few languages, such as Basque, North and East Caucasian, Burushaski, Yeniseian and Kartvelian are still fully ergative. Chinese, unlike English, moved from being fully ergative to being fully analytic in the space of some 5,000 years. Yet during this 40,000 year period, human physiology has barely changed.
So how could the natural selection of random mutations achieve the alterations in hardwiring of the brain required to produce such radical changes in language in this narrow timescale? Especially when, as you say, evolutionary changes take millions of years?
Are the brains of Basques hardwired differently from those of the Chinese? Basques have little difficulty learning and speaking Spanish and French, languages which are largely analytic. I guess they need some circuits fitted into their skulls to do this.
A classic case of setting up a straw man. No-one in this thread has said any such thing [that the police are totally corrupt].
Well, to be honest it does seem to be your main argument.
When has anyone in authority wanted less, not more, power?
Power to do what exactly? Set people up?
Staw man No 2. Getting to be a habit, Laurence.
That’s right. You’ve never even mentioned the freemasons.
Any attempt to apply evolutionary theory to historical linguistics is doomed to failure.
Language predates history which relies upon the written, not the spoken word. I have no idea when exactly language emerged but, as with everything evolutionary, it will have been imperceptibly gradual.
“Well, to be honest it does seem to be your main argument.”
Actually it isn’t my main argument (or any of my arguments) as you well know. I have said that many police are corrupt, not all police. That is surely an uncontroversial statement of fact.
“Power to do what exactly? Set people up?”
Oh right. People in authority don’t want more power. They would rather give it all up and go and live in Patagonia.
“That’s right. You’ve never even mentioned the freemasons.”
I said two thirds of police officers are Freemasons. That is a statement of fact. Freemasonic membership creates a potential conflict of interest, as I am sure you are aware.
“Language predates history which relies upon the written, not the spoken word. I have no idea when exactly language emerged but, as with everything evolutionary, it will have been imperceptibly gradual.”
Clearly, you know absolutely nothing about historical linguistics.
How about answering my questions, rather than repeating your sweeping assertions?
For instance, how did Chinese move from being fully ergative and agglutinative to being fully analytic in 5,000 years without natural selection altering the brains of the Chinese people?
5,000 years is “imperceptibly gradual”, ofcourse.
I have said that many police are corrupt, not all police. That is surely an uncontroversial statement of fact.
I would say that is controversial, and indeed defamatory.
I said two thirds of police officers are Freemasons. That is a statement of fact.
Really? Prove it.
Clearly, you know absolutely nothing about historical linguistics.
That’s because I’m not that interested in historical linguistics. I’m more interested in language in the context of evolutionary theory. But only a little bit more interested.
How about answering my questions, rather than repeating your sweeping assertions?
If I make a sweeping assertion, it will probably be because the topic is running outside the scope of this blog. Like the time you asked me to explain how the brain works.
* butts in *
DNA testing is generally, at best, with a good quality sample, 99.5% reliable. Given a universal DNA database of the UK population, that means each sample will yield at least 30,000 positive results. Obviously some will be removable on the grounds of being out of the country etc., but that still leaves a metric arseload of follow-up work for the rozzers.
I’m against a DNA database on practical grounds, as well as citizen/state relationship ones.
Dammit, I wish Mat hadn’t made me look at this site.
Jennie, if you read all the above comments (not something I would necessarily recommend), you will see that I have been attempting to argue that, over time, the error can be reduced to as small as we like by taking more sample points. But nobody believed me.
I will admit, Lawrence, that I had a bit of a tl;dr reaction to a lot of this thread. I apologise profusely (and will give you extra pokings on Facebook to make up for it).
Yes, it’s possible that by long and painstaking practise the error rate will get smaller and smaller. I don’t think the potential for cock-ups in the mean time is worth it. Aside from anything else, I have living proof in the shape of a four year old daughter of what happens when you fall into the 0.5% of things that are 99.5% certain to work (in that case, the contraceptive pill).
Yes but she’s lovely, isn’t she? 🙂
LOL yes she is, even though she is being groomed to be a good little subject at a state Church of England School… [/pet bugbear]
Mister Mat says you’re being deliberately provocative and controversial, and you do it all the time.
I admire this trait 😀
Well that’s true, except that I do actually believe all this stuff!
Laurence Boyce wrote:-
“I would say that is controversial, and indeed defamatory.”
What a berk!
Have a look at Brown v D C Thomson & Co 1912 SC 359.
Always an idea to know what you are talking about when you choose to shoot your mouth off.
So first you say that “many police are corrupt,” and then you cite one case from 1912 to back it up. Hmm.
“So first you say that “many police are corrupt,” and then you cite one case from 1912 to back it up. Hmm.”
You obviously haven’t read the case, because it has nothing to do with policemen.
Incidentally, Sir Robert Mark said many police are corrupt, and he was the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. One might have thought he was in a good position to know.
You obviously haven’t read the case, because it has nothing to do with policemen.
Well I don’t actually maintain a full legal library in my house, strange to tell.