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| marnixR |
 Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:34 pm Post subject: forensic scientist |
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Forum Isotope
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
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Location: Cardiff, Wales
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i once went to a lecture by a forensic scientist where he had a good go at the way his profession is portrayed in television series
he then gave a detailed description of a real-life case, and showed how using the phrase "is consistent with" is incompatible with the real job of a forensic scientist, who should always use the phrase "is indicative of"
the first means that amongst a variety of possible causes you decided to highlight one out of many, whilst the second narrows down the number of possible causes to a smaller number
in the real-life event, the case went to court where it collapsed for lack of evidence - all because the forensic scientist decided it would be nice to take on the role of the TV detective
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| william |
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 7:55 am Post subject: Re: forensic scientist |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 23 Jun 2006
Posts: 914
Location: USA
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| marnixR wrote: |
| he then gave a detailed description of a real-life case, and showed how using the phrase "is consistent with" is incompatible with the real job of a forensic scientist, who should always use the phrase "is indicative of" |
Interesting...
I guess language might be more important here than in other sciences because, in the end, one must convince a jury....
Cheers
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| KALSTER |
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:05 am Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
Joined: 08 Sep 2007
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Location: South Africa
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| Quote: |
| one must convince a jury |
I really am not a fan of this. Instead of having to prove someone's guilt, you have to convince a jury. People are prone to prejudice, even if they don't believe it themselves.
Ok, so how conclusive does evidence have to be to convict someone? I mean, is a large amount of circumstancial evidence enough for a conviction? Then also, do forensic investigators calculate the odds of something happening during there investigation? Are they always impartial in terms of collecting ALL possible information from a crime scene? Are their guidelines open to interpretation or are they specificaly written to preclude subjectivity from a report?
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| william |
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:13 am Post subject: |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 23 Jun 2006
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| KALSTER wrote: |
| Quote: |
| one must convince a jury |
I really am not a fan of this. Instead of having to prove someone's guilt, you have to convince a jury. People are prone to prejudice, even if they don't believe it themselves.
Ok, so how conclusive does evidence have to be to convict someone? I mean, is a large amount of circumstancial evidence enough for a conviction? Then also, do forensic investigators calculate the odds of something happening during there investigation? Are they always impartial in terms of collecting ALL possible information from a crime scene? Are their guidelines open to interpretation or are they specificaly written to preclude subjectivity from a report? |
These are great questions!
We all are familiar with fingerprints. And we might not think twice about convicting someone who's fingerprints matched ones at the crime scene (assuming we could build a good case upon other evidence, perhaps circumstantial). But are any of us really sure about fingerprints being unique? When fingerprints were first introduced, they probably had to convince the jury of their uniqueness.
In today's world, the same might be true for DNA. I would have to be convinced of the uniqueness since I never really studied it myself.
Cheers
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"... the polhode rolls without slipping on the herpolhode lying in the invariable plane."
~Footnote in Goldstein's Mechanics, 3rd ed. p. 202
About my avatar: This is a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation of the merger of two galaxies. The code was written by Volker Springel of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics at Garching Germany. This simulation uses 20,000 disk particles (stars) and 40,000 halo particles (dark matter) per galaxy. The three views are, from left to right, the x-y plane, x-z plane, and y-z plane. |
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| KALSTER |
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:50 am Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
Joined: 08 Sep 2007
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Location: South Africa
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Well, if you look different to a person, you have different DNA. Not too sure about identical twins though....
Fingerprints are also unique, but I am not too sure if they can be matched to exactly 100% accuracy. That is why I am asking about the odds. Mitochondrial DNA (if only the upper part of a hair is found)for example can only give an indication of your lineage, I think, so it could at most add to the circumstantial evidence. Then if a certain amount of circumstantial evidence has been collected, do they then work out the likelihood of all of them happening to an innocent person? Or do they leave it up to the jury? Do they leave it up to the District attorney’s discretion if a case can go to trial, or do certain exact criteria have to be met?
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| marnixR |
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:01 am Post subject: |
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Forum Isotope
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the main thing about this lecture was that the forensic scientist overinterpreted the results and could have misled the jury into convicting an innocent person - the fact that it didn't happen was merely fortuitous
the lecturer's final words were :
"if as a result of this lecture i have put some people off from becoming a forensic scientist, then i have achieved my aim - rather that than see people enter the profession in the mistaken belief that they will be the real-life equivalent of a glamorous TV star"
in short, a forensic scientist doesn't attempt to solve a case : he/she only attempts to unearth evidence so that others can evaluate it
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| KALSTER |
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:09 am Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
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Imagine how it must feel to the guy that gets sent to jail for the rest of his life, knowing he didn't do it  Sounds like a good lecture. As I said before, it is disconcerting to know that a bunch of everyday people get to decide your fate, based on the competency of the accusers and prosecutors. That is why I wonder about the efficacy of guidelines , presumably put in place to restrict this kind of thing to a minimum.
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