Truth Machine: The Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting - Softcover

Lynch, Michael; Cole, Simon A.; McNally, Ruth; Jordan, Kathleen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226498077 ISBN 13: 9780226498072

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2011

Synopsis

DNA profiling—commonly known as DNA fingerprinting—is often heralded as unassailable criminal evidence, a veritable “truth machine” that can overturn convictions based on eyewitness testimony, confessions, and other forms of forensic evidence. But DNA evidence is far from infallible. Truth Machine traces the controversial history of DNA fingerprinting by looking at court cases in the United States and United Kingdom beginning in the mid-1980s, when the practice was invented, and continuing until the present. Ultimately, Truth Machine presents compelling evidence of the obstacles and opportunities at the intersection of science, technology, sociology, and law.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Lynch is professor in the science and technology studies department at Cornell University. Simon A. Cole is the author of Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification. Ruth McNally is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics at Lancaster University. Kathleen Jordan has a PhD in sociology from Boston University and is currently a student at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226498077
• ISBN 13: 9780226498072
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 414