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The Osama DNA thread

000063 said:
Point for you. I went back and found the source, an ABC News story from shortly after OBL's death. I had trouble finding it, but I did find one about "multiple relatives". Then I found this.

http://www.chromosomechronicles.com/2011/05/13/osamas-dna-and-its-limitations/

If that's correct, they couldn't have ID'd him exactly, but they could confirm that his sister was the sibling to the person they shot and took the sample from. Unless there's another male bin Laden family member living with Osama's wife and kids in an Al-Qaeda owned compound, it's pretty conclusive.

Also, I found this article about a cute poodle. I don't know how.
Click to expand...

LOL article on the poodle... very very funny.

You are mentioning the points that I feel are relevant. The 99.99% claims that I have read that were published on May 2... is more observation related versus DNA but the inference of assurances was based on DNA... the probability of IDing him (through DNA) was more remote than 99.99%.
 
McHrozni said:
That's true, siblings can have extremely different profiles and it is very difficult to establish the relationship using DNA to a high probability.

That said, 99,9% isn't a very high probability for DNA matches at all. I believe the FBI standard is a match of 1 in 600,000,000 (~99,99999983%) - double US population - to claim DNA came from that individual using DNA alone. Some countries have even stricter standards. In this case, it could require an even higher probability match.

That said, he wasn't identified based on DNA alone, so this argument is moot. The chance that someone other than him, of his age, would live in that compound and share his DNA is essetially zero.

McHrozni
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Saying the argument is moot is not accurate. Only 25% of the DNA will be common with half siblings unless a parent is involved. Observation was the only other technique that was mentioned as verification. I do recall his wife saying that man shot was Osama, with that being said, many times on this site it is said that Terrorists don't always tell the truth, I would imagine that this still holds true with this woman.

I don't really doubt that Osama is dead and gone, what I challenge is the 99.99% quantifiable accuracy.
 
McHrozni said:
Identification of maternal half-siblings would be enhanced using mtDNA, whereas identification of fathernal half-brothers could be assisted using the Y-chromosome profile.

Other cases would be very difficult to establish to a meaningful degree, unless they shared an extremely rare marker, which is possible though, obviously, rare.

McHrozni
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Agreed
 
I don't really doubt that Osama is dead and gone, what I challenge is the 99.99% quantifiable accuracy.
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You're wrong there. Since we know which alleles he had (they were profiled), and their frequencies (from studies that are constantly made and updated) and the alleles his sister had (she too was profiled), it is possible to calculate the likelihood of a family relationship. It's something done quite commonly all over the world, and 99,9% isn't unlikely at all. It's not even a very good match, as I mentioned before. Full profile match for a paternity test is to the order of 10^40 (as opposed to 10^3, here) or more.

McHrozni
 
McHrozni said:
You're wrong there. Since we know which alleles he had (they were profiled), and their frequencies (from studies that are constantly made and updated) and the alleles his sister had (she too was profiled), it is possible to calculate the likelihood of a family relationship. It's something done quite commonly all over the world, and 99,9% isn't unlikely at all. It's not even a very good match, as I mentioned before. Full profile match for a paternity test is to the order of 10^40 (as opposed to 10^3, here) or more.

McHrozni
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I find this interesting... can you direct me to additional information? The reason why I ask is that my background is in Graph Theory which should be reasonably compatible with the process you are describing but without the sample size and the relationships between the observable data... I am handicapped. thx
 
ladmo said:
I find this interesting... can you direct me to additional information? The reason why I ask is that my background is in Graph Theory which should be reasonably compatible with the process you are describing but without the sample size and the relationships between the observable data... I am handicapped. thx
Click to expand...

John Butler is one of the prime authorities on the subject, this slide show is based on his work:
http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/terry/Classes/s246.2006/Week2/Stat246Week2Lec2.pdf

Statistical analysis starts at slide 61. You get the basics on the topics from it, it seems like a good place to start.
He also wrote a few textbooks on the subject, which I can't replicate here :)
You may also want to look for Peter Gill and his work, if you want to look deeper that is.

Truth to be told, this is my least favorite part of the subject. I know how it works, but not in great detail :)

McHrozni
 
McHrozni said:
You're wrong there. Since we know which alleles he had (they were profiled), and their frequencies (from studies that are constantly made and updated) and the alleles his sister had (she too was profiled), it is possible to calculate the likelihood of a family relationship. It's something done quite commonly all over the world, and 99,9% isn't unlikely at all. It's not even a very good match, as I mentioned before. Full profile match for a paternity test is to the order of 10^40 (as opposed to 10^3, here) or more.

McHrozni
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I should have posted the link that had me thinking. Seeing that this says it can't get as high as 99.9... I agree with you that it is just picking out gnat **** out of pepper. No matter how you shake it, the probability should be fairly high.

http://www.libraryjunction.net/blogs/osama-bin-laden-how-dna-identified-his-body
 
ladmo said:
I should have posted the link that had me thinking. Seeing that this says it can't get as high as 99.9... I agree with you that it is just picking out gnat **** out of pepper. No matter how you shake it, the probability should be fairly high.

http://www.libraryjunction.net/blogs/osama-bin-laden-how-dna-identified-his-body
Click to expand...

The article seems to have the gist well, parallel family relationships are very difficult to establish and a good match will be hard to confirm in the absence of especially rare markers (which do happen from time to time). Vertical relationships are much easier to determine.

However, this:
The provenance of the DNA used in the comparison is unknown, as is the nature of the test itself. However, it is likely that forensic scientists analysing bin Laden's DNA used the polymerase chain reaction to amplify between 13 and 16 key regions called short tandem repeats (STRs), then compared the pattern of these with the same STRs from that of his relatives.

may well be false. Examining only 13-16 loci (regions) would be fairly few given the situation. They could've easily used several different kits, to combine more loci, and obtain a better match.

McHrozni
 
McHrozni said:
The article seems to have the gist well, parallel family relationships are very difficult to establish and a good match will be hard to confirm in the absence of especially rare markers (which do happen from time to time). Vertical relationships are much easier to determine.

However, this:
The provenance of the DNA used in the comparison is unknown, as is the nature of the test itself. However, it is likely that forensic scientists analysing bin Laden's DNA used the polymerase chain reaction to amplify between 13 and 16 key regions called short tandem repeats (STRs), then compared the pattern of these with the same STRs from that of his relatives.

may well be false. Examining only 13-16 loci (regions) would be fairly few given the situation. They could've easily used several different kits, to combine more loci, and obtain a better match.

McHrozni
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I appreciate the tutelage.
 
dafydd said:
His half brother has or had a perfume on the market.
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Found them, but I must say the marketing is in poor taste:

"Femme Fatale - those close to you will be blown away"

"Jihadique - for that special Taliban in your life"

"Kalashnikov pour Homme" couldn't be used due to copyright problems and "Chamel No. 911" was seen as passing off.
 
Grassy Knowlington said:
Found them, but I must say the marketing is in poor taste:

"Femme Fatale - those close to you will be blown away"

"Jihadique - for that special Taliban in your life"

"Kalashnikov pour Homme" couldn't be used due to copyright problems and "Chamel No. 911" was seen as passing off.
Click to expand...

"Wear Bin Laden aftershave and have an explosive effect on women."
 
Make your evening go with a bang with Bin Laden's new Semtex deo stick. You'll be in paradise.
 
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