Talk:Fingerprint
From Academic Kids
Fingerprint identification is the subject of some controversy in some courts (UK and US), I understand. And the UK and US (and other jurisdictions) vary in the standards for 'positive match'. The US (as I understand it) has no standard while Scotland Yard requires 12 matching points of identity or some such. It would be nice if both issues were addressed by someone who actually knows something about the subject. ww 14:52, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
Unique fingerprints? There has been some recent, serious, and important criticisms of forensic applications of finger prints (article in The New Yorker, etc.). This criticism should be covered in the article with NPOV. The following summary briefly addresses one concern about reliability of matching fingerprints. "Based on the current world population of 6.5 billion individuals pitted against the limited number of permutations of fingerprint patterns possible, given: a) the area of a fingerprint and scale of the grid employed (vis-a-vis the diameter of ridges), and b) the number of reference points utilized in the matching of prints, fingerprint identification cannot be entirely reliable. It's almost certain that two or more persons among the world's population have virtually identical prints. (And this doesn't include the "silent majority" who also left prints.) Given the global sharing and merging of record banks among law enforcement agencies, we should expect more incidents of "false positive" matches."
soverman 0214 June 9 2005 (UTC)
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Herbal fingerprinting?
What does it mean when a nutritional supplement claims to be "fingerprinted"? Does an article already exist that covers this? --LostLeviathan 19:30, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Fingerprints of Twin
Twins have similar Fingerprint? Story on yahoo about transplant suggests otherwise please see [1] (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&e=6&u=/ap/first_transplant) whether it is true or false we should mention it in the article.
- Zain 22:03, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Real Use?
Please note that finger prints exist for other reasons than identification, LOL. There should be some mention of why organisms evolved finger prints, namely gripping things. Also, if you cut your print completely off will it regrow the same? If so that suggests it's encoded in DNA, if not then it's random.
Medical aspect
'fingerprint' also means the pattern on the finger itself: ... be differenciated from Helomas "Corns" by close observation of skin striations. Feet, like hands, are covered in skin stria which are more commonly called fingerprints. (from Plantar wart).
This article should either make mention of these on fingers and feet, or link to another artiucle that dicusses the anatomical aspect, eg skin stria. -- Tarquin 11:49, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
