By SCOTT SHANE
Published: February 15, 2011
WASHINGTON — A review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s scientific work on the investigation of the anthrax letters of 2001 concludes that the bureau overstated the strength of genetic analysis linking the mailed anthrax to a supply kept by Bruce E. Ivins, the Army microbiologist whom the investigators blamed for the attacks...
Yeah, the FBI said it was "definite" and they should have said it was "nearly definite."
The FBI didn't calculate the ODDS that all four mutations could have spontaneously appeared somewhere else. They just determined that the odds were extremely tiny.
To scientists, that's not good enough. They think like True Believers and Conspiracy theorists: If it isn't an absolute certainty, then anything is possible.
That may be true, but it is of no help in determining what actually happened.