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Over at StatNews is a story on a recent trend where low cost commercial DNA testing is resulting in a number of White Nationalists taking genetic tests, and sometimes they don't like the results that come back.
The article looks at research on how they respond to the sometimes unexpected results:
[...] In a new study, sociologists Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan examined years' worth of posts on Stormfront to see how members dealt with the news.
[...] About a third of the people posting their results were pleased with what they found. "Pretty damn pure blood," said a user with the username Sloth. But the majority didn't find themselves in that situation. Instead, the community often helped them reject the test, or argue with its results.
Some rejected the tests entirely, saying that an individual's knowledge about his or her own genealogy is better than whatever a genetic test can reveal. [...] Others, he said, responded to unwanted genetic results by saying that those kinds of tests don't matter if you are truly committed to being a white nationalist. Yet others tried to discredit the genetic tests as a Jewish conspiracy "that is trying to confuse true white Americans about their ancestry," Panofsky said.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 18 2017, @03:22PM (3 children)
You raise an interesting point with repercussions for standards of evidence in a court of law. If you can more easily fake video evidence, will it still suffice as proof of a crime? If you can synthesize and plant DNA at the scene of a crime, can it still be used as proof? Will we move to requiring video footage from multiple smartphones to remove 'reasonable doubt,' or will eye witnesses become the deciding factor?
Justice has taken a lot of knocks in the last couple of years with cops murdering blacks and planting evidence and such. What you're positing could pull the rug out from under it entirely.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 18 2017, @03:56PM (2 children)
There are multiple studies that shows that witnesses are extremely unreliable.
So there's not much left. Perhaps correlation?
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 18 2017, @07:11PM (1 child)
Data forensics will become a courtroom staple. Experts will testify as to the veracity of video evidence, and eventually DNA evidence. There are already such experts, of course, but their testimony will adapt to the new challenges. It will be the same as it is now, with different standards.
That is to say, there will be evidence faking and corrupt experts in the future, just as we have now.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @08:07PM
Acting as big brother and meting out arbitrary justice to us all. How many clones do you have left, comrade?