Hundreds of Errors in DNA Databases: What Do They Mean?

The other day, the New York Times reported that "[t]he Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a review of a national DNA database, has id...

The Signal, the Noise, and the Errors

Published in September 2012, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver soon reached The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. Amaz...

Tres Mal Errors with DNA Evidence

A story in the Denver Post (Gurman 2014) begins with the disturbing news that A malfunction in a DNA processing machine led to the scrambli...

Breathalyzers and Beyond: The Unintuitive Meanings of "Measurement Error" and "True Values" in the 2009 NRC Report on Forensic Science

Five years ago, the National Research Council released its eagerly awaited and repeatedly postponed report on "Strengthening Forensic ...

Forensic Science’s Latest Proof of Uniqueness

A federally funded study on the "Determination of Unique Fracture Patterns in Glass and Glassy Polymers" affirms that fracture-pat...

Error on Error: The Washington 23

Frequently cited in warnings on the risks of errors in DNA typing is a 2004 article prepared by unnamed staff of the Seattle Post-Intelligen...

Error on Error: Quashing Brian Kelly's Conviction

Are there any errors in DNA testing? Are there any errors that produce false positives? Do DNA databases generate any false leads? Do false ...