Preface

Forensic science is, to some extent, a derived science. It is happy to borrow technology and ideas from other sciences. There is, however, a ‘forensic mindset’ and ethos that is peculiar to our science. When DNA technology was launched, the interpretation was attempted by forensic scientists such as Ian Evett and John S. Buckleton. Eventually it became clear, or indeed we had it rammed into our heads, that there was a great amount of classical population
genetic work that needed to be considered by forensic scientists. This situation was brought to the world’s attention by David Balding, Peter Donnelly, Richard Nichols and Bruce Weir. Forensic science is very fortunate to have these fine minds working on their problems and we are personally deeply indebted to Bruce Weir, who has contributed so much to the field and several, otherwise unpublished sections to this book, in areas that we could not solve ourselves.
We recognize very considerable assistance over many years from David Balding. We also acknowledge a very considerable intellectual debt to Ian Evett; large sections of this book are influenced by him.