Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Unsurprisingly I have less of a problem with this. Pro-innocence folks didn't have much of a problem trashing the Judge at the first trial as setting out to convict regardless of the evidence. Presumably the Judges honesty and objectivity were doubted at least in part because his view of the case and the evidence was impossible to reconcile with your own. Why shouldn't the PMF folks doubt these independent experts?

The references to American law enforcement manuals, rather than Italian ones (I'm basing this on Fiona on PMF, is it true?), about crime scene management isn't what I would have naively expected. Perhaps other things will turn up.

Ah, but criticism of Massei's "reasoning" was based on objective, rational assessment of the sentencing report, whereas (in my view) the PMFers' search for criticism of the DNA report is led by confirmation bias and weak thinking/logic/reasoning. Of course, your retort to that might be "well, you would say that, wouldn't you", but I would say that there's plenty of foundation for my argument.

Take, for example, just two ways in which these issues have been argued by the two "sides".

1) Would you say that Massei is employing good, sound, logical reasoning when he says the following about Capezzali (the alleged "earwitness"): "If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs. Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it."? This is such a breathtaking thing for a man who's supposed to be a seasoned judge to write, that for me it casts doubt on his entire approach to this case.

2) Would you say that it's a fair, objective representation of the independent DNA report to pretend that it (the report) is questioning the underlying validity of low-template number DNA analysis, or that it is "relying" on a comparison with standards/procedures of minor US law enforcement agencies? In reality, the report argues that low-template DNA can only be valid under very strict (and internationally-agreed) protocols - which clearly were completely flouted in this case; and it makes reference to a number of internationally-debated and respected standards/procedures - including the European Crime Scene Management Good Practice Manual (European Network of Forensic Science Institutes), the Interpol Handbook on DNA data Exchange and Practice, and the FBI labs' Handbook of Forensic Services.

See, to me (and many others), the ridiculous "debate" that's currently taking place elsewhere is both specious and inaccurate. What's more, it's primarily being undertaken by people who palpably do not have a decent grasp of the subject they are trying to discuss. Most of the participants in this "debate" (including the most rational person) are approaching the issue from the POV of Knox's/Sollecito's guilt, and the confirmation bias is shining through strong and clear. I don't think that a single one of their "criticisms" of the report has any significant merit - and I think we'll all know that by the time the report has been discussed in court at the end of the month.

I would agree with you entirely that debate and should always be encouraged. But only when it is fair, balanced, objective, rational debate. In my opinion, the "debate" about the report on PMF is nothing of the sort - instead, it's a bunch of people scrabbling to defend their own irrational beliefs. I don't think that any of them could successfully defend a single one of the "criticisms" in an open debating forum. By contrast, I think that all the criticisms of the Massei report are entirely (and demonstrably) defensible in any open forum. That's the difference.

(Oh, and with reference to the highlighted part of your post: as I've alluded to further up in my response, the DNA report makes ample reference to the standards laid down by a variety of major global bodies (including the FBI, Interpol and the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes). If there had been specific Italian procedural manuals, I have no doubt that the report would have referred explicitly to them. But there are no such manuals, and I think that their absence is somewhat instructive in itself. And, incidentally, I find it........interesting........that you hadn't taken the trouble to find all this out for yourself before posting on this very issue. Hmmmmmmmm.)

 

[LondonJohn]

Don't you think it would be more natural for the Italian experts giving their opinion about how the Italian police handled this Italian crime scene to reach for a manual about Italian crime scene procedures, rather North Carolina, Missouri, New Jersey and so on? One of the things that is clear is that different countries have taken different views on LCN DNA - not admissible (with a few exceptions in the US), admissible in a bunch of countries in Europe including the UK, Australia as well I think. Are crime scene procedures different/or the same with different/identical steps taken to avoid contamination? Things would be simpler if they weren't following Italian procedure (which they may well not be), demonstrating that they weren't following Utah police procedure is still meaningful, but not as meaningful. There's the beginnings of an argument there that I hope gets worked through on PMF.

Where is this Italian manual of which you speak?

 

[Draca]

However, what happened is exactly the opposite: Conti and Vecchiotti criticized Stefanoni in pretty much the strongest possible terms. So if you're a guilter, and thought Stefanoni's results were correct, you should find this very confusing. It means the world doesn't work the way you thought it did: either it's possible for independent experts from a prestigious university to deliver a scathing critique of perfectly good work (and thus to be incapable of telling good work from bad), or else Stefanoni's work wasn't so good after all. Either way, you have some belief updating to do. It can't be simultaneously true that (1) an independent scientific review of reliable scientific work will recognize it as reliable scientific work, and (2) Stefanoni's findings are reliable. The only question is: which of those two beliefs rests on a firmer foundation?

I think the one they are going for is not mentioned above. The Forensic Experts are not as qualified as they thought. The experts have made a mistake in finding Stefanoni's work in error and superior forensic experts, that were of the same advanced caliber that Stefanoni herself is, would have confirmed the results. The problem is that Hellmann chose poor quality experts to do the analysis.

 

[katy_did]

Don't you think it would be more natural for the Italian experts giving their opinion about how the Italian police handled this Italian crime scene to reach for a manual about Italian crime scene procedures, rather North Carolina, Missouri, New Jersey and so on?

Not when they were specifically asked by the judge to look at the processing of the evidence in accordance with international standards.

 

[LondonJohn]

The latest piece of flawed "argument" about the DNA report is that the defence experts in the first trial made certain assessments of the evidence (e.g. that only Sollecito's y-haplotype was present), and that these views contradict the new report. I can't decide whether confirmation bias or sheer ignorance is driving this ridiculous position.

Here's why it's ridiculous: the defence experts in the first trial had no access the source data, and in effect had to rely on Stefanoni's competence and objectivity in making their own assessments. It now turns out that Stefanoni's competence (and perhaps also her objectivity) was sadly lacking, and that there were multiple other peaks on the chart that were arbitrarily ignored by Stefanoni (while all those which matched Sollecito were miraculously declared valid). So Conti and Vecchiotti had more information to hand than the defence experts at the time of the first trial. And this additional information (which had been willfully denied to the defence teams in the first trial) enabled Conti/Vecchiotti to make a far better and more accurate assessment of the evidence. It's really not rocket science.

 

[LondonJohn]

I think the one they are going for is not mentioned above. The Forensic Experts are not as qualified as they thought. The experts have made a mistake in finding Stefanoni's work in error and superior forensic experts, that were of the same advanced caliber that Stefanoni herself is, would have confirmed the results. The problem is that Hellmann chose poor quality experts to do the analysis.

Don't forget the one about Conti/Vecchiotti being fusty academics sitting in ivory towers, utterly removed from the reality of tough forensic work on "da streetz"

 

[LondonJohn]

I cannot wait to read this part of the report, because there's something here I simply do not understand the reason for. If Raffaele's DNA is "undoubtedly" present in the Y-haplotype, why on earth would she have to cheat to put a profile together of him? Is it just to hide that there was another male's DNA on the clasp? To hide indications of contamination? Indubitably is a powerful concept, 100% you might even say, thus there should be no need to employ suspect-centered analysis to put together a strong profile.

So, those of you who read Italian and have read the report, is there a quote in which it is definitely stated that the DNA there is (very probably) Raffaele's, irrespective of how it got there?

The issue is this: As Stefanoni reported the DNA results to Massei's courts, the only alleles present corresponded to Sollecito's y-haplotype (incidentally, even this doesn't definitively make a match to Sollecito, it simply indicates that his y-haplotype - which is also present in many others of his ethnic group - is present).

But we now know that there were many other peaks on the chart, which Stefanoni somehow chose to ignore (and not even report). Therefore, we cannot now say with any deree of certainty that Sollecito's y-haplotype was definitely present. The most we can say is that it could have been present, but that since there appears to be mixed haplotype DNA present, some of the peaks corresponding to Sollecito's y-haplotype might actually be contributors to another individual's haplotype.

To go back to the "lottery ticket" analogy: if the winning numbers were 4,7 and 16, and I turned up with a ticket showing just the numbers 4, 7 and 16, then I could claim to have won the lottery. However, if I actually held a ticket which also contained many additional numbers (say, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 16, 18, 20) which were the combination of multiple tickets, then I could no longer claim that one of the tickets exactly corresponded to the winning combination of 4, 7 and 16. The most I could now say is that the "4, 7, 16" winning ticket might have been one of the tickets in my collection.

 

[Kaosium]

thoughtful translation



That is the strongest statement I have seen, I guess it depends how you interpret that passage.

"This is thus a genetic profile derived from a mixture of unidentified biological substances (recall that no investigations were performed to test the hypothesis of exfoliation cells, so this statement has no scientific foundation) whose major component is the DNA of the victim and whose minor component is DNA coming from several individuals who are male (Y haplotype), one of these Y haplotypes corresponding to the Y haplotype of Raffaele Sollecito."

Maybe there's some context missing, or perhaps I'm totally missing something here, but that doesn't seem to imply in the slightest Raffaele's DNA was definitely, or even highly probably on the bra-clasp.

That's just seems to be saying the genetic profile (where you'd get the 'undoubtedly' from with some hyperbole) came from a bunch of organic junk which mainly had Meredith's DNA on it along with a little DNA from several males, one of which shared the y-haplotype with Raffaele. So, how rare is Raffaele's y-haplotype? Here's the list of the most common y-haplotypes in Umbria, what are the odds if there's several males present one of them will share one with Raffaele?

I wonder if there's a problem with the colloquial usage or perhaps translation problems here with definitions amongst y-haplotype, y-haplogroup, y-str haplotype test and y-DoIPutMyselfThroughThis?

 

[Dan O.]

How do you secure a crime scene? Any packing tape will do. Just use a lot of it!

http://i.imgur.com/ZodVV.jpg

It would be more impressive if that tape were put on at the time the scene was sealed instead of over a week later after the door was found open.

 

[shuttlt]

As others have pointed out, they should be troubled by the fact that their advance predictions about the report's contents were falsified.

Here's an appropriate analogy, especially given that this is the JREF forum: they are like a purported psychic who undergoes scientific testing, only to find out that their psychic claims aren't confirmed, and then makes excuses after the fact for why the test wasn't valid.

It doesn't seem to be the same thing to me. They probably did expect it to come back on their side. Normally with such a test of a psychic you get them to admit ahead of time that they can see no reason why the test would fail and agree that failure in the test is their claim having failed. It's a different think to say that any time a psychic's predictions are proved wrong, particularly if they don't claim to be infallible that they have to accept it as proof that their claims are false. Up until this point the pro-guilt side has seemed to me to have a good record on predictions. Pro-innocence people have confidently predicted stuff will happen before now and been proved wrong - I remember a point when Massei was supposedly about to throw the case out.

However, what happened is exactly the opposite: Conti and Vecchiotti criticized Stefanoni in pretty much the strongest possible terms. So if you're a guilter, and thought Stefanoni's results were correct, you should find this very confusing.

I would say that there is some confusion about this on PMF and no coherent explanation for the result. Most of them haven't read the report yet. Doubtless one will develop once it's been translated and gone over and once Steffanoni and Co have had a chance to rebut.

You're right that an analogous dilemma does indeed hold for any innocence believers who were confident that the Massei court would acquit. It can't be simultaneously true that (1') innocent people will be acquitted by a jury, and (2') Knox and Sollecito are innocent. The difference, of course, is that (1') is a much easier belief to give up than its analogue (1).

Point 1 seems wrong to me. None of us have knowledge of whether they are actually innocent. The issue is whether on the basis of the evidence they would convict. Surely in point 1 you are actually saying that the judge and the jury made an unreasonable decision? Isn't the comparison between deciding that Massei is unreasonable/incompetent/working to an agenda/... after the fact and doing the same with these experts.

Your confusion is well-founded. Because as it turns out, it isn't true. On pages 38-39 of the report, Conti and Vecchiotti discuss the recommendations of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes. In particular, on p. 39, they quote from the European Crime Scene Management Good Practice Manual, which is used by...guess who...the Scientific Police Service of Rome. (As well as the Carabinieri.)

I think the claim was that it was US biased, not exclusively US . Anyway, it was a preliminary observation from PMF based on a few pages. If that doesn't pan out I'm sure they'll think of something else.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the qualifications of the experts

I think the one they are going for is not mentioned above. The Forensic Experts are not as qualified as they thought. The experts have made a mistake in finding Stefanoni's work in error and superior forensic experts, that were of the same advanced caliber that Stefanoni herself is, would have confirmed the results. The problem is that Hellmann chose poor quality experts to do the analysis.

Draca and LondonJohn,

I agree that this is the tenor of some of the comments. As an argument, it fails on at least two counts. First, it should have been made months ago if the people making this argument were intellectually honest. Putting it another way, if you think that they are in some way underqualified, that evaluation can and should be made independently of what the report says. Second, Conti and Vecchiotti have both academic credentials and previous experience in criminal trials.

 

[platonov]

Rocket science ? hardly but still above some pay grades

The latest piece of flawed "argument" about the DNA report is that the defence experts in the first trial made certain assessments of the evidence (e.g. that only Sollecito's y-haplotype was present), and that these views contradict the new report. I can't decide whether confirmation bias or sheer ignorance is driving this ridiculous position.

Here's why it's ridiculous: the defence experts in the first trial had no access the source data, and in effect had to rely on Stefanoni's competence and objectivity in making their own assessments. It now turns out that Stefanoni's competence (and perhaps also her objectivity) was sadly lacking, and that there were multiple other peaks on the chart that were arbitrarily ignored by Stefanoni (while all those which matched Sollecito were miraculously declared valid). So Conti and Vecchiotti had more information to hand than the defence experts at the time of the first trial. And this additional information (which had been willfully denied to the defence teams in the first trial) enabled Conti/Vecchiotti to make a far better and more accurate assessment of the evidence. It's really not rocket science.

Ah, an argument with some content. OK.

Unfortunately its complete nonsense [as is your later post] as anyone familiar with Massei's treatment of the defence arguments & Stefanoni's explanations on why her interpretation, which showed a subsequent match for RS' profile, didn't include certain 'spikes' which they (Tagliabracci) identified from the raw data.

See Massei p202-208 & 240-250 (eng trans) for example.

Again this is basic stuff - but not basic enough obviously

 

[Katody Matrass]

The latest piece of flawed "argument" about the DNA report is that the defence experts in the first trial made certain assessments of the evidence (e.g. that only Sollecito's y-haplotype was present), and that these views contradict the new report. I can't decide whether confirmation bias or sheer ignorance is driving this ridiculous position.

Here's why it's ridiculous: the defence experts in the first trial had no access the source data, and in effect had to rely on Stefanoni's competence and objectivity in making their own assessments. It now turns out that Stefanoni's competence (and perhaps also her objectivity) was sadly lacking, and that there were multiple other peaks on the chart that were arbitrarily ignored by Stefanoni (while all those which matched Sollecito were miraculously declared valid). So Conti and Vecchiotti had more information to hand than the defence experts at the time of the first trial. And this additional information (which had been willfully denied to the defence teams in the first trial) enabled Conti/Vecchiotti to make a far better and more accurate assessment of the evidence. It's really not rocket science.

in the CV report there are multiple graphs for the same samples. Some are dated 2008 or 2009 - those likely are the data that Stefi provided to the defence, and some are dated May 2011 - those apparently were provided to the experts after Hellmann lost patience and wrote her a letter.
In the older printouts the scale is used to make the peaks she ignored as insignificant as possible. Those peaks are also not labeled and there is no way to make out their values precisely. No wonder defence cried for the raw data to analyze. The newer graphs have different scale and the peaks are more visible and labeled with values.

Surprisingly it looks like C&V still didn't receive the raw data. Apparently Stefanoni simply printed new electropherograms, scanned them and sent pictures via e-mail!

I wondered why is she so reluctant until Halides wrote that falsifying negative control results is the most popular way of manipulating DNA tests. Stefi claimed that not only she didn't run any controls in case of the bra clasp, but she run the PCR only once! C&V are baffled by this, because the quantification showed she had enough DNA to run the test 2-3 times, as recommended.

It makes me wonder whether it's really the results of the other test runs and the inconvenient negative controls outcome that she's hiding by not releasing the raw data? It could be that the files and logs show that more tests were performed.

I hope that gets clarified in court soon.

 

[shuttlt]

Ah, but criticism of Massei's "reasoning" was based on objective, rational assessment of the sentencing report, whereas (in my view) the PMFers' search for criticism of the DNA report is led by confirmation bias and weak thinking/logic/reasoning. Of course, your retort to that might be "well, you would say that, wouldn't you", but I would say that there's plenty of foundation for my argument.

But it took ages for the sentencing report to be translated. Did the innocence camp sit about in the meantime and say "wow, looks like we might have been wrong"? If that happened, I don't remember it.

1) Would you say that Massei is employing good, sound, logical reasoning when he says the following about Capezzali (the alleged "earwitness"): "If there had not been such a scream, and if Mrs. Capezzali had not actually heard it, then the Court can see no reason why she would have spoken about it."? This is such a breathtaking thing for a man who's supposed to be a seasoned judge to write, that for me it casts doubt on his entire approach to this case.

I'm not about to change subject onto the details of the Massei report and whether he is correct or not or reasonable or not about this that or the other issue.

2) Would you say that it's a fair, objective representation of the independent DNA report to pretend that it (the report) is questioning the underlying validity of low-template number DNA analysis, or that it is "relying" on a comparison with standards/procedures of minor US law enforcement agencies?

I don't think it is fair to contrast the perpective on Massei after many months of looking at the translated report with the situation we have with this new document.

In reality, the report argues that low-template DNA can only be valid under very strict (and internationally-agreed) protocols - which clearly were completely flouted in this case; and it makes reference to a number of internationally-debated and respected standards/procedures - including the European Crime Scene Management Good Practice Manual (European Network of Forensic Science Institutes), the Interpol Handbook on DNA data Exchange and Practice, and the FBI labs' Handbook of Forensic Services.

I have no intention of arguing about the details of this report either. If it is as you say then Stefanoni will have nothing to say in her defence.

See, to me (and many others), the ridiculous "debate" that's currently taking place elsewhere is both specious and inaccurate. What's more, it's primarily being undertaken by people who palpably do not have a decent grasp of the subject they are trying to discuss. Most of the participants in this "debate" (including the most rational person) are approaching the issue from the POV of Knox's/Sollecito's guilt, and the confirmation bias is shining through strong and clear. I don't think that a single one of their "criticisms" of the report has any significant merit - and I think we'll all know that by the time the report has been discussed in court at the end of the month.

I have no idea what the rush is. Perhaps none of the criticisms will come to anything. PMF will, I'm sure, chew it all over regardless.

I would agree with you entirely that debate and should always be encouraged. But only when it is fair, balanced, objective, rational debate. In my opinion, the "debate" about the report on PMF is nothing of the sort - instead, it's a bunch of people scrabbling to defend their own irrational beliefs. I don't think that any of them could successfully defend a single one of the "criticisms" in an open debating forum. By contrast, I think that all the criticisms of the Massei report are entirely (and demonstrably) defensible in any open forum. That's the difference.

A debate that would count as a "win" for either side isn't possible because we can't debate nice. Everybody piles in and the whole thing degenerates.

(Oh, and with reference to the highlighted part of your post: as I've alluded to further up in my response, the DNA report makes ample reference to the standards laid down by a variety of major global bodies (including the FBI, Interpol and the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes). If there had been specific Italian procedural manuals, I have no doubt that the report would have referred explicitly to them. But there are no such manuals, and I think that their absence is somewhat instructive in itself. And, incidentally, I find it........interesting........that you hadn't taken the trouble to find all this out for yourself before posting on this very issue. Hmmmmmmmm.)

I know and knew that it wasn't just local US law enforcement manuals being quoted. I explicitly stated earlier that the claim wasn't that it was exclusively US based references. Fiona mentions at least some of the ones you mentioned above.

 

[komponisto]

[...]It can't be simultaneously true that (1) an independent scientific review of reliable scientific work will recognize it as reliable scientific work, and (2) Stefanoni's findings are reliable.[...]

I think the one they are going for is not mentioned above. The Forensic Experts are not as qualified as they thought. The experts have made a mistake in finding Stefanoni's work in error and superior forensic experts, that were of the same advanced caliber that Stefanoni herself is, would have confirmed the results. The problem is that Hellmann chose poor quality experts to do the analysis.

This counts as a denial of (1). Sufficiently qualified experts in this area must be extremely rare and difficult to come by if you can't find them in the appropriate department of La Sapienza.

 

[platonov]

Crying isn't a good legal strategy.

in the CV report there are multiple graphs for the same samples. Some are dated 2008 or 2009 - those likely are the data that Stefi provided to the defence, and some are dated May 2011 - those apparently were provided to the experts after Hellmann lost patience and wrote her a letter.
In the older printouts the scale is used to make the peaks she ignored as insignificant as possible. Those peaks are also not labeled and there is no way to make out their values precisely. No wonder defence cried for the raw data to analyze. The newer graphs have different scale and the peaks are more visible and labeled with values.

Surprisingly it looks like C&V still didn't receive the raw data. Apparently Stefanoni simply printed new electropherograms, scanned them and sent pictures via e-mail!

I wondered why is she so reluctant until Halides wrote that falsifying negative control results is the most popular way of manipulating DNA tests. Stefi claimed that not only she didn't run any controls in case of the bra clasp, but she run the PCR only once! C&V are baffled by this, because the quantification showed she had enough DNA to run the test 2-3 times, as recommended.

It makes me wonder whether it's really the results of the other test runs and the inconvenient negative controls outcome that she's hiding by not releasing the raw data? It could be that the files and logs show that more tests were performed.

I hope that gets clarified in court soon.

Leaving aside that this is mostly ex-rectum assertions - you don't know what the defence had after Sept 09 [or before] nor what C&V had and thus cant make a comparison - crying obviously isn't a good legal strategy.

Better to file a 'motion' with the court for complete 'discovery' - at appeal stage at least

But to be fair it is possible that C&V had more data than was available to the defence, we shall see (possibly ??) but its a moot point at this stage.
How the court find on C&V's report is what matters now.

 

[Katody Matrass]

you don't know what the defence had after Sept 09 [or before] nor what C&V had and thus cant make a comparison

It appears I have a better idea about it then you

Which orifice of yours gave birth to your assumption that Tagliabracci read anything from the raw data?

 

[Kaosium]

The issue is this: As Stefanoni reported the DNA results to Massei's courts, the only alleles present corresponded to Sollecito's y-haplotype (incidentally, even this doesn't definitively make a match to Sollecito, it simply indicates that his y-haplotype - which is also present in many others of his ethnic group - is present).

Here's where I'm wondering if I've managed to confuse myself. I was thinking of the test they do where they put markers on the Y-chromosome to 'unmask' male DNA, in this case to remove Meredith's alleles so it is easier to read any male DNA present, which she said there was only one of, and it was Raffaele alone.

However when they did the review they found even in order to get that she had to use only the allele's she wanted and throw out the rest as 'stutters' and that turned out to be a lot of extra allele's--more than a dozen--and had to be done without rhyme or reason.

Do I have this right? This is what Massei was talking about when he got to this part:

On this point, it should however be noted that in the memorandum cited above, the frequency of almost 4 subjects in 1000 refers to 8 loci (see page 23). This frequency, therefore, is destined to decrease considerably if compared to 11 loci and even more considerably with reference to all 17 of the loci found, and in fact Dr. Torricelli, at the hearing of June 5, 2009, declared that, with reference to the latest update of the database with a population of 15,956 individuals, if only 11 loci were found and inserted 31 people would be found with the same haplotype as Raffaele Sollecito; whereas, using the 17 loci found, there was nobody found in this database with the same haplotype as Raffaele Sollecito.

Real haplotypes and haplogroups aren't this rare, so I go the impression it was just one of those unmasking tests they do that Massei decided was good enough.

But we now know that there were many other peaks on the chart, which Stefanoni somehow chose to ignore (and not even report). Therefore, we cannot now say with any degree of certainty that Sollecito's y-haplotype was definitely present. The most we can say is that it could have been present, but that since there appears to be mixed haplotype DNA present, some of the peaks corresponding to Sollecito's y-haplotype might actually be contributors to another individual's haplotype.

However in that quote that Rose posted it has the experts saying Raffaele's Y-haplotype was present:


"This is thus a genetic profile derived from a mixture of unidentified biological substances (recall that no investigations were performed to test the hypothesis of exfoliation cells, so this statement has no scientific foundation) whose major component is the DNA of the victim and whose minor component is DNA coming from several individuals who are male (Y haplotype), one of these Y haplotypes corresponding to the Y haplotype of Raffaele Sollecito."
This is something different though, right? Like the one I posted above that shows there's 51 different variations in Umbria? It's not used for identifying suspects, but for genealogy for the most part, to find common ancestors and the like?

To go back to the "lottery ticket" analogy: if the winning numbers were 4,7 and 16, and I turned up with a ticket showing just the numbers 4, 7 and 16, then I could claim to have won the lottery. However, if I actually held a ticket which also contained many additional numbers (say, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 16, 18, 20) which were the combination of multiple tickets, then I could no longer claim that one of the tickets exactly corresponded to the winning combination of 4, 7 and 16. The most I could now say is that the "4, 7, 16" winning ticket might have been one of the tickets in my collection.

I get that part, I'm just wondering if I, Thoughtful and the experts are all thinking about the same thing here. Do you remember how Massei did it around page 300? I got the impression he equivocated shamelessly through it, almost like he was trying confuse people, and now I think I've managed to confuse myself!

 

[LondonJohn]

It appears I have a better idea about it then you

Which orifice of yours gave birth to your assumption that Tagliabracci read anything from the raw data?

Personally, I've decided that life's too short to bother with responses to platonov's tendentious "arguments" any more

 

[RoseMontague]

Personally, I've decided that life's too short to bother with responses to platonov's tendentious "arguments" any more

FBN's choice of this word for her article is interesting. It implies that the experts were predisposed towards an innocence point of view. FBN gives no evidence for this. It is just a baseless accusation.

I would love to see an independent expert appointed by Hellmann take a look at the bathmat print and also Raffaele's computer data.