Criticism for Craig Venter’s “Face-Prediction” Software

The tool cannot predict a person’s face from DNA, say researchers—including some listed as coauthors on the publication.

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ISTOCK, SIMARIK

Update (September 12): Venter and his colleagues have published a response to Yaniv Erlich’s criticism of the paper. On bioRxiv, the authors refute Erlich’s claim that the paper contains “major flaws,” and call his approach to the data “misleading.” They also emphasize that their software can predict not only faces from DNA, but other phenotypic and demographic variables such as height and biological age.

A paper from Craig Venter and colleagues at his genetics company Human Longevity made waves after publication in PNAS last week (September 5) with its claim to be able to reconstruct a person’s face from his or her genome. Now, it’s attracting a tidal wave of criticism from researchers—including some who are listed as coauthors—with suggestions that the article is more ...

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  • Catherine Offord

    Catherine is a science journalist based in Barcelona.
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