geo wrote:I perused the article. This is a classic example of the cart pushing the horse. It's not the science that is at fault here, it's the way the courts push their conclusions through with only the appearance of scientific validity. Our justice system is deeply flawed in many other ways as well. For example, any good lawyer can find an "expert witness" who will side with their narrative version of events. Again, they are only trying to appear scientific. If anything, the problem of bias is accentuated.

So, yes, forensics, as it is conducted by our courts, is deeply unscientific.

The National Academy of Sciences committee report was significant.
Did you read it? Do you dispute their findings?

.
You seem to have stopped at the court system which is only one aspect of what troubles the science of forensics.

. Ballistics and handwriting analysis, the committee noted, are also based on tenuous and largely untested science.

do you disagree with the above? Why? what do you know about ballistics and handwriting analysis that refutes the above claim?
Is handwriting analysis, for example, an objective science? How is that tested for validity?

Do you think that despite forensic labs not subjecting their evidentiary tests to replication for verification purposes (as part of the scientific method) it is of no consequence?


So forensics is just a problem in the court system. Other than that, it has no other issues. Is that what you're saying?
If so, I gather you are disputing and or ignoring everything else the article introduced.

Here is a portion of the report I mentioned:
(emphasis mine)

Lack of Mandatory Standardization, Certification, and Accreditation


The fragmentation problem is compounded because operational principles
and procedures for many forensic science disciplines are not standardized
or embraced, either between or within jurisdictions. There is no
uniformity in the certification of forensic practitioners, or in the accreditation
of crime laboratories. Indeed, most jurisdictions do not require forensic
practitioners to be certified, and most forensic science disciplines have no
mandatory certification programs. Moreover, accreditation of crime laboratories
is not required in most jurisdictions. Often there are no standard
protocols governing forensic practice in a given discipline. And, even when
protocols are in place (e.g., SWG standards), they often are vague and not
enforced in any meaningful way. In short, the quality of forensic practice in
most disciplines varies greatly because of the absence of adequate training
and continuing education, rigorous mandatory certification and accreditation
programs, adherence to robust performance standards, and effective
oversight.6 These shortcomings obviously pose a continuing and serious
threat to the quality and credibility of forensic science practice.

Questions:

Does a lack of structure and education impact the quality of the science that is being performed?

Is this the Court's fault, Geo?


I edited a little to be nice

from page 14 of the report: (emphasis mine)

The forensic science disciplines currently are an assortment of methods
and practices used in both the public and private arenas. Forensic science
facilities exhibit wide variability in capacity, oversight, staffing, certification,
and accreditation across federal and state jurisdictions. Too often they
have inadequate educational programs, and they typically lack mandatory
and enforceable standards, founded on rigorous research and testing, certification
requirements, and accreditation programs. Additionally, forensic
science and forensic pathology research, education, and training lack strong
ties to our research universities and national science assets

ant wrote:Did you read it? Do you dispute their findings?

I don't dispute anything in the article. If forensics is like any other science, it is a work in progress. Mistakes are being made because people—many of them not scientists—are trying to force their own conclusions using data that is itself inconclusive. It's not surprising at all to me that the field of forensics needs restructuring.

When the data is ambiguous, it's something of a Rorschach inkblot. We see what we want to see. Scientists are probably as prone as anyone towards bias and false beliefs. But science itself is always a long-term proposition.

Borrowing here from an article about Jacob Bronowski (the narrator of BBC's 1973 show, The Descent of Man). Bronowski came up with a term, "play of tolerance" that he said must govern our interactions with one another. Because there is no such thing as absolute knowledge. Bronowski said that the pursuit of knowledge always means accepting uncertainty. Errors are inevitable, especially in the short-term.

For Dr. Bronowski, the moral consequence of knowledge is that we must never judge others on the basis of some absolute, God-like conception of certainty. All knowledge, all information that passes between human beings, can be exchanged only within what we might call “a play of tolerance,” whether in science, literature, politics or religion. As he eloquently put it, “Human knowledge is personal and responsible, an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... inty/?_r=0

If it's not following the scientific method (among other things) then it should not be referred to as science.

Forensics as been given the reverence and mystique of science and has not been subjected to skepticism enough because it has the almighty word "science" attached to it.

if your life (or someone you love) ever should hang in the balance and depend on "a work in progress" you might feel more strongly about exposing it as significantly flawed.

ant wrote:If it's not following the scientific method (among other things) then it should not be referred to as science.

Forensics as been given the reverence and mystique of science and has not been subjected to skepticism enough because it has the almighty word "science" attached to it.

if your life (or someone you love) ever should hang in the balance and depend on "a work in progress" you might feel more strongly about exposing it as significantly flawed.

I don't know about the reverence and mystique bit, but I agree with everything else you say. As I said, people attempt to force firm conclusions when the data itself should be regarded as incomplete. We see men released from prison ten or fifteen years after the fact because the forensics methods are shown to be deeply flawed. So I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you there. Are you trying to pin the blame on science? That's what it's starting to look like.

I worked as a newspaper reporter for many years and covered a number of trials. I've seen young men sent to prison for a mandatory ten years under minimum sentencing laws established by politicians. I've always been vocal about abolishing such minimum sentencing laws because they take the judging away from our judges. Our entire justice system is deeply flawed and unfortunately entrenched as well. It's much tainted by politics and racism.

ant wrote:If it's not following the scientific method (among other things) then it should not be referred to as science.

What is the proper naming policy? I think it's sort of slang, that we call things "science" which are instead science-based. There is science behind forensics. Not all of it, but a good deal of it. Just enough, it seems, to lead juries into false trust.

From reading the article, there seems to be a strange mix of science and pseudoscience.

From reading the article, there seems to be a strange mix of science and pseudoscience.

Yes, I too noticed that.
in fields such as forensic anthropology and DNA analysis, I would personally keep the wold "pseudoscience" at a distance.
but I don't think his claim was that all forensics is pseudo scientific.



[pdfview]https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228091.pdf[/pdfview]