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Top Ten List: Forensic Sciences That Aren't Science

At the recent Texas Forensics Science Seminar sponsored by the Criminal Justice Integrity Unit of the Court of Criminal Appeals, I attended presentations by DPS crime lab experts on ballistics, toolmarks, hair (and other trace) evidence, and fingerprint examination. Much of the discussion at the event was framed by the 2009 report (pdf) from the National Academy of Sciences which was particularly hard on forensic disciplines which rely upon subjective comparisons, from fingerprints to hair comparisons to shoeprints. After hearing DPS' own experts discuss how they perform these tasks, it's difficult not to agree that the basis for these practices is not scientific in the same sense as, say, DNA analysis.Dr. Jay Siegel, who was one of 17 people on the NAS panel that produced the report, told the seminar audience to closely examine terminology from experts providing so-called "pattern evidence": Ask them, what is the definition a "match"? By what methodology can the examiner individualize their findings? And beware "weasel words" like "consistent with," he said, or statements that an item "could not be eliminated as the source...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on October 17, 2010 (boomark / email).