In 1880, Henry Faulds, a Scottish surgeon in a Tokyo hospital, published his first paper on the usefulness of fingerprints for identification and proposed a method to record them with printing ink. That’s because our fingerprints are unique. That means that no one else in the world has the exact same set of ridges and lines that you have on your fingers. Not even identical twins have the same fingerprints. Our fingerprints stay the same from the time we are born until death. Study of fingerprints as methods of identification is also known as Dactylography or Dactyloscopy, and at present it is also known as Henry-Galton system of identification. Dactylography is the process of taking the impressions of papillary ridges of the fingertips for the purpose of identification of a person.
There are three basic fingerprint patterns: the arch, the loop, and the whorl. These patterns are defined by structures known as cores and deltas. The Arch shape on finger suggests analytical, practical, and cautious personality- one who has traditional values and do not like change. The Loop shape on finger suggests people with average ability, pleasant and balanced in temper and demeanour. They have strong opinions and respect others. They are happy to go with flow and are generally content in life. People with whorl fingerprints are extremely independent and have a dominant personality trait. The whorl normally indicates a high level of intelligence and a strong-willed personality.
The most common of these prints are loops which make up about 60% of the population, whorls make up about 35%, and the least common are arches, which make up about 5%. The rarest of those is the settled arch. Henry Faulds (1843-1930) in 1880 proposed using ink for fingerprint determination and people identification, and Francis Galton (1822-1911) collected 8000 fingerprints and developed their classification based on the spirals, loops, and arches. Henry Faulds learned that the extra cells cause the skin to buckle and fold into ridges. The finer details of the patterns of skin ridges get influenced by factors such as fatal development, including substances taken during pregnancy and the environment inside the womb. These developmental factors cause each person’s dermatoglyphics to be different from everyone else’s.
Fingerprint evidence can play a crucial role in criminal investigations as it can confirm or disprove a person’s identity.
Everyone’s skin grows in a slightly different environment. That is why it is so unlikely anyone has the same fingerprints as you: it is about a 1 in 64 billion chance. Koalas and chimpanzees have unique fingerprints, too. Like humans, their hands and feet are covered in friction ridges.
The National Forensic Science Technology Centre states that “no two people have ever been found to have the same fingerprints including identical twins.” Another fact is that fingerprints also vary between our own fingers which means we have a unique print on each finger.
Unique fingerprints are formed seven months after conception. Although the size of each finger will continue to grow from pre-birth to childhood to adulthood, the relative position of ridges with their loops, deltas and arches which will remain the same. A perfect fingerprint will yield 175 to 180 points of information.
Interesting part is studying the relationship between dermatoglyphics, and Myers-Briggs personality types helps people make informed job decisions by revealing how well-suited they may be for a given field. Our brain has 10 parts which have different functionality and are associated with different multiple intelligence as per theory of Multiple Intelligence by Dr. Howard Gardner.
Intelligence is often defined as our intellectual potential; something we are born with, something that can be measured, and a capacity that is difficult to change. Fingerprint formation and formation of brain are synchronized in the foetus growing in the mother’s body in first 13 to 19 weeks.
Multiple Intelligence (MI) is one of the significant components of DMIT (Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Test) and the assessment cannot be completed without examining MI. The crux of Multiple Intelligence is to figure out the specific intellectual intelligence level that everyone possesses. It helps educators understand their students better and prepare teaching approaches that students can pick effortlessly and ultimately provide exceptional results. Conventional perception says that there’s a direct connection between our IQ and our ability to succeed in life. But there have been many studies that show IQ only accounts for about 20% of success, the other 80% is determined by our emotional intelligence and social intelligence.
Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences
Visual-Spatial
These people think in terms of physical space. They are aware of their environments. They like to draw, do jigsaw puzzles, read maps, and they daydream a lot.
Kinaesthetic
They use the body effectively, like a dancer or a surgeon. These people have keen sense of body awareness. They like movement, making things, they are sensitive to touch.
Musical
These people show sensitivity to rhythm and sound. They love music and are sensitive to sounds in their environments. They may study better with music in the background. They can be taught by escalation lessons into lyrics, speaking rhythmically, and tapping out at times.
Interpersonal
They are good at understanding and interacting with others. These people learn through interaction. They have many friends; they have empathy for others, they are often street smarts.
Linguistic
They use words effectively. These learners have highly developed auditory skills and often think in words. They like reading, playing word games, making poetry or stories.
Logical/Mathematical
These students are good at reasoning, calculating, conceptualizing, abstracting patterns, and relationship among them is a play for these people. They like to experiment, solve puzzles, and ask cosmic questions.
Intrapersonal
These people understand their personal interests and goals. These learners tend to shy away from others. They’re in tune with their feelings; they have wisdom, intuition, and motivation, as well as a strong will, confidence, and opinions.
Naturalistic
This is the most recent addition to Gardner’s theory and has been met with more resistance than his original seven intelligences. According to Gardner, naturalistic individuals are high in understanding subtle changes in environment.
One study showed which is conducted by a Western University that the highest occurrence for the loop fingerprint was found among people with intrapersonal and musical intelligence; the highest occurrence for whorl was found among students with spatial and kinaesthetic intelligence; and the highest occurrence of arch is found among students with naturalistic and linguistic intelligence.
According to DMIT (Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Test) industry wisdom, a Taiwanese researcher named Chem Yimou combined dermatoglyphics with the multiple intelligences theory of Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner in the 1980s, claiming fingerprints could also provide insights into personality type. Over the following years, Chen’s work gradually evolved into the DMIT test being used today. By the 1990s, the Taiwanese firms began expanding into the Chinese mainland in 2005, sensing a huge market opportunity. Dermatoglyphics is certainly on rise.
