CVK
The Buffalo News reports on an ongoing investigation to locate a serial rapist in Buffalo. What’s problematic is that the police are partially relying on a DNA test that determines the suspect’s supposed racial make-up:

A Florida company, DNAPrint Genomics, has determined that the local rapist is 51 percent European (white), 30 percent Native American, 13 percent sub-Saharan African and 6 percent East Asian.

“We have identified sequences of DNA that are more prevalent in people from one continent than another,” the company’s Web site explains. Using complex statistical formulas, the test determines the relative percentages of any DNA sample’s biogeographical ancestry groups.

The percentages of the bike-path rapist don’t necessarily mean he looks multiracial.

“Genetically, he could favor any of the ethnic groups,” Mann said. “However he looks, the influences of his ethnic and racial background are going to be present.”

As you all know, many geneticists agree that race has no biological basis. Yes, DNA can tell you something about the continents of a person’s ancestry, but that’s not the same thing as “race.” An October 10, 2004 article in the New York Times magazine pointed out the problematic issues surrounding DNAPrint Genomics:

For some, this would be a story of science advancing police work. But for [others], the forensic use of genetic markers raises troubling questions. Can a DNA screen of a person’s blood or hair really tell you anything more than where his ancestors probably came from? Would it lead to witch hunts based on some uncertain appraisal of skin color? Would it be used, wrongly, to give a patina of scientific authority to group prejudices?