The rarity of DNA profiles (Q2466467)

This paper deals with a very interesting issue and questions forensic inferences methodologies in current use. Bayes' theorem is used for analysing the so-called paternity index. The single contribution DNA profile is considered, too. A Poisson based model allows identifying a suspect. The author derives that the problem of identifying the correct person in USA is larger than 0.94 but the probability that a profile is wrongly identified is closer to one. A similar analysis is made for genotypes using the co ancestry coefficient. Tables with the matching of two unrelated people, expectation of the number of matching pairs, and identity probabilities of common family relationships are computed. A discussion of the meaning of the results is given. The paper should encourage further studies of DNA data basis for establishing the matching probability because of the impact in forensics.