How sure the genetic route to identity is?

Otzi, the iceman, has living relatives, says a news story. Otzi is the name given to the mummified remains of a man who got frozen stiff some 5,300 years ago somewhere in the mountains between Vienna and Italy. Now, scientists are not sentimental people when it comes to making guinea pigs out of dead bodies — one of them even took out Einstein’s brain for study, without the say-so of relatives who tend to turn maudlin rather than scientific over the remains of their dear departed.

Not allowing concerns over the privacy of individuals to contaminate their commitment to the cause of science, some Austrian scientists proceeded to match the samples of 3,000 volunteers who had donated blood with genetic material from Otzi. And came up with 19 individuals, who had descended from Otzi or shared a common ancestor.

Now, if genetic matching can only assert commonality of ancestry and not direct descent, where does that leave N D Tiwari, who has been burdened with a son, full-grown at that, in the evening of his life, on the strength of genetic matching? Does it mean that findings of the hard science of genetics would not suffice to nail the identity of impugned sowers of wild oats?

Luckily, in India, we have the soft skills of our policemen to generate almost any kind of fortification purely scientific evidence needs. Austrians, take note.