Reply #5: I am not a biologist but

[Liberal Classic]

Just because the results of fingerprinting or profiling is of little use to research scientists is no reason not to be concerned about the manner in which they are used by law enforcement.

DNA fingerprinting or profiling is when a small number of areas on the genome that are known to vary widely among the human population are sequenced. These areas contain seemingly random sequences of basepairs that are inherited from the parents, though it is not fully understood what the areas are for. In profiling or fingerprinting, these areas are analyzed to count the number of times a given sequence of basepairs repeats itself. Because these areas are passed down identically from the parents they are also useful in determining paternity. So, a child will not have all of the same repeating sequences a parent has, but the child will have some of the same repeating sequences as a parent has. Among people who are not related, the probablility that two people will have the same sequence repeating the same number of times is very small, but not zero.