A Litigator's Guide to DNA educates litigators, judges, criminalists, students, and others about all aspects of the use of DNA evidence in criminal and civil trials. It includes discussions of the molecular biological basis for the tests, essential laboratory practices, probability theory and mathematical calculations. It presents issues relevant to all parties involved in trying a case, from the prosecution and the defense, and to the judge and jury. The book is also extremely useful as a text for students aspiring to careers in forensic science and criminal law. The authors provide a full background on both the molecular biology and the mathematical theory behind forensic tests written specifically for people with little or no science background. No other book relates the foundational information on molecular biology and statistics to legal practice issues as extensively as this book does.

This book is a work of interpretation not prophecy. In an area where there is an endless stream of technical innovations, it would be foolish in the extreme to try to predict what might or might not be the ultimate success of automated systems in dealing with problems or questions of translatability. Its aim is rather to understand in a broader sense the implications for language, culture, and society of translation’s engagement with technology. In order to do this, it takes in disciplinary perspectives from anthropology to zoology and deals with historical examples ranging from the river settlements of the Tigris and the Euphrates, to the changing fortunes of the Australian military in the contemporary world. Throughout the book, there is a deliberate avoidance of the idle partitioning of evidence, and literary translation is discussed alongside technical, commercial, and scientific translation. There is repeatedly the contention that technology is not simply an accessory, an adjunct to translation, but that it has been central to the definition of translation activity in many different societies and in many different historical periods up to and including, of course, our own.