There was a woman who went to prison for this, her chimera baby's dna contradicted her story, I think to get public assistance of some kind, and the dna test convinced the state assholes she was lying and they sent her to prison, I think some researchers exonerated her eventually.

[+] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works -12 points 5 days ago (10 children)

Why are they assholes? Because they didn't know about chimeras?

[–] WiredBrain@lemmy.ca 54 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Because they don't know the limits of their tools and were convinced they're infallible, and as a result an innocent woman was punished by the state. Just a guess.

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works -5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Nobody knows the limit of their tools until those limits are known. Where did you decide they thought they were infallible? They followed the law they have, as is their job. Justice is not perfect, we don't have all the answers, jumping to such vicious conclusions speaks more about you than them. The entire incident, and her successful appeal after further investigation, was like a year. Nobody threw the woman into prison for a decade or something. Seriously, people are so reactionary.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Nobody knows the limit

I'm not sure, but let's say that's true. They usually also don't care to know the limits. Another interesting case is Patricia Stallings (emphasis mine):

an American woman who was wrongfully convicted of murder after the death of her son Ryan on September 7, 1989. Because testing seemed to indicate an elevated level of ethylene glycol in Ryan's blood, authorities suspected antifreeze poisoning, and arrested Stallings the next day. She was convicted of murder in early 1991, and sentenced to life in prison.

Stallings gave birth to another child while incarcerated awaiting trial; this next child was diagnosed with methylmalonic acidemia (MMA), a rare genetic disorder that can mimic antifreeze poisoning. Prosecutors initially did not believe that the sibling's diagnosis had anything to do with Ryan's case. Stallings' lawyer was forbidden from producing available evidence as proof of the possibility. After a professor in biochemistry and molecular biology had some of Ryan's blood samples tested, he was able to prove that the child had also died from MMA, and not from ethylene glycol poisoning.

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

One incident does not prove another.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That kinda depends on the circumstances, but I'll try to stop arguing after this reply

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago

Respect the self control.

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