Reply to Budowle, Ge, Chakraborty and Gill-King: use of prior odds for missing persons identifications.

Abstract

Prior probabilities represent a core element of the Bayesian probabilistic approach to relatedness testing. This letter opinions on the commentary Use of prior odds for missing persons identifications by Budowle et al., published recently in this journal. Contrary to Budowle et al., we argue that the concept of prior probabilities (i) is not endowed with the notion of objectivity, (ii) is not a case for computation, and (iii) does not require new guidelines edited by the forensic DNA community--as long as probability is properly considered as an expression of personal belief.