Response to False Statements Posted on SSRN by Mark Perlin, CEO of Cybergenetics, and His Employees

Abstract

Cybergenetics is a company in Pittsburgh that markets a software program for interpreting forensic DNA evidence called TrueAllele. Mark Perlin is the CEO of that company and the inventor of TrueAllele. After I published an article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences that criticized some aspects of TrueAllele, Perlin and four of his employees posted a 103-page diatribe on SSRN full of unsupported assertions, circular reasoning and ad hominem attacks based on falsehoods. In this short paper I offer several examples of their false claims and deficient inferential reasoning. While they are entitled to disagree with me and to explain why they think my scientific critique of TrueAllele is mistaken, they are not entitled to lie and make up facts in an effort to vilify those who disagree with them. Their behavior is contrary to scientific norms; they should be ashamed of themselves.

Keywords: Probabilistic genotyping, statistical model, likelihood ratio, STR analysis, validation, misleading report, STRMix, TrueAllele