How to Build a Human
February 07, 2025 at 03:00AMParabon NanoLabs, a company that focuses on making “breakthrough products” using DNA, sells a phenotyping service to law enforcement agencies. The program, called Snapshot, creates a single composite image, which is marketed as “a tool to generate investigative leads.” (According to Parabon, this system “‘accurately’ predicts not only eye, hair, and skin color, but also face shape.”) But Susan Walsh, a top expert in the field of forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP), says that Parabon’s product was rushed to market and is fundamentally flawed. Walsh and other scientists warn that without independent testing, validation, and peer review, Snapshot isn’t ready for real-world use—and its composites instead reinforce racial stereotypes and encourage the over-surveillance of marginalized communities. For The Intercept, Jordan Smith reports on this technology and examines how it ultimately harms investigations and communities of color.
Through her research, she came to learn that FDP works as she imagined it could: An unknown DNA sample can be parsed for genetic markers related to various traits, like hair or eye color, offering criminal investigators a glimpse into what the owner of the DNA might look like. That, in turn, could be useful information for prioritizing suspects to investigate. If the DNA says a person is likely to have red hair, for example, detectives could bump redheads to the top of their suspect list.
Still, Walsh remains cautious about how she describes what DNA can and cannot tell us about what a person might look like. At present, the idea that DNA can be used to predict facial structure — for example, what a person’s chin might look like — is more science fiction, like her beloved “X-Files,” and less science fact. The human face is a complicated structure defined by both nature (so, DNA) and nurture (like, if you’ve had your nose broken). Like others in her field, Walsh is unsure that research into morphology will ever bear reliable fruit. “We can’t even do a nose right now,” she said.
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from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/02/06/how-to-build-a-human/
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