Chapter 10: The Professor versus the Computer: Harnessing Software to Determine Race and ID a Victim

One of Dr. Bass’ students developed a program called ForDisc. This program took input from the user about different measurements from a skeleton and then could predict the race and stature based off of a database with thousands of other measurements from hundreds of other skeletons. The blending of races increased complexity for anthropologists when looking at skulls. Dr. Bass used ForDisc to confirm his thoughts about race/identity of the skeletal remains found at the bottom of the creek.