I am in a CSI class and my teacher said if I found this out I could get extra credit. Could you give me a link also....thanks
2006-09-01 12:35:36 · 6 answers · asked by Cara Arlene 5 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
I'll do better then that - I'll give you a quote! This is from Dr Harold Cummins (co-author of the book "Finger Prints, Palms, and Soles") given before the 44th Annual Conference of the International Association for Identification in 1959:
"There is no question about there being racial differences. The racial differences, insofar as I have been able to find them, are only statistical. For example, you probably never printed any Australian aborigines, did you? Or any Pygmies from Central Africa? Or any Bushmen from Africa? I mention those groups only because they show so concretely the kind of difference that can be made out. The incidence of whorls in the Australian aborigines is 75% of all patterns. There is no group that we know of that has so many whorls. On the other hand, if we study some of the groups of Central Africa, like the Bushmen, the Pygmies, we find the incidence of whorls drops down to maybe 15%, 16% or 18%. Now, that is a great contrast. And there are similar difference in other features, the kinds of patternings of the palm, the tendency of alignment of ridges either transversely or diagonally across the palm, all these differences are statistical. You can make them out by taking a group of a given race and comparing that group with other groups. But I am very skeptical about one being able to pick up a set of prints and saying that this is an Australian aborigine, Chinese, or what not.”
This has been found to be true to this day. There are STATISTICAL differences, but it is very hard to look at a fingerprint and say, "that guy is of this race". Or, for that matter, even if the person is a guy!
Hope that helps!
2006-09-01 12:59:11 · answer #1 · answered by Doctor Why 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sir Francis Galton, one of the pioneers of the modern system of fingerprint ID, (he also coined the term "eugenics") with its three classifications of arches, loops and whorls, wrote a book in 1892 entitled "Finger Prints". This book was a published study of the frequency with which these three pattern types appeared among various races. He did not find significant variations, other than slightly fewer arches among Jews.
This information came from this paper:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/dnabook/
(scroll down to item #5 to read the paper by Simon Cole on the subject.
2006-09-01 19:58:28 · answer #2 · answered by Kraftee 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
fingerprint pattern variance is not reliable in determining the race of an individual from fingerprints alone.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-41,GGLD:en&q=race+and+fingerprints.
2006-09-01 19:40:19 · answer #3 · answered by loligo1 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint#Fingerprint_identification
no .... i asked my palmist .... he laughed
2006-09-01 19:41:25 · answer #4 · answered by Brian D 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
absolutly. and so does everything else about us.
all is connected
2006-09-01 19:42:33 · answer #5 · answered by namasterwc 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
no
2006-09-01 19:37:48 · answer #6 · answered by knowbuddycares 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋