Abstract:
Forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) encompasses a set of technologies aimed at predicting phenotypic characteristics from genotypes. Advocates of FDP present it as the future of forensics, with an ultimate goal of producing complete, individualised facial composites based on DNA. With a focus on individuals and promised advances in technology comes the assumption that modern methods are steadily moving away from racial science. Yet in the quantification of physical differences, FDP builds upon some nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientific practices that measured and categorised human variation in terms of race. In this article I complicate the linear temporal approach to scientific progress by building on the notion of the folded object. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in various genetic laboratories, I show how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century anthropological measuring and data-collection practices and statistical averaging techniques are folded into the ordering of measurements of skin color data taken with a spectrophotometer, the analysis of facial shape based on computational landmarks and the collection of iris photographs. Attending to the historicity of FDP facial renderings, I bring into focus how race comes about as a consequence of temporal folds.
摘要:
法医DNA表型(FDP)包括一组旨在从基因型预测表型特征的技术。FDP的拥护者将其视为法医学的未来,最终目标是生产完整的,基于DNA的个性化面部复合材料。随着对个人的关注和对技术进步的承诺,人们假设现代方法正在稳步远离种族科学。然而,在物理差异的量化中,FDP建立在一些19世纪和20世纪的科学实践基础上,这些科学实践根据种族来衡量和分类人类的变化。在本文中,我通过建立在折叠对象的概念上,使科学进步的线性时间方法复杂化。利用在各种遗传实验室进行的人种学实地调查,我展示了19世纪和20世纪初的人类学测量和数据收集实践以及统计平均技术如何被折叠到用分光光度计测量的肤色数据的顺序中,基于计算界标和虹膜照片收集的面部形状分析。关注FDP面部效果图的历史性,我把重点放在种族是如何随着时间的褶皱而产生的。