This document discusses various types of forensic science techniques and analyses that are considered pseudoscience. It provides definitions of pseudoscience and reviews concepts like the scientific method and falsifiability. It then examines several specific domains of forensic science in more detail, including bite mark analysis, bullet lead analysis, arson investigation patterns, and handwriting analysis. In each case, it describes how the techniques were once presented as scientific but later studies found the underlying theories and assumptions were not reliable or supported by evidence.
This document discusses various types of forensic science techniques and analyses that are considered pseudoscience. It provides definitions of pseudoscience and reviews concepts like the scientific method and falsifiability. It then examines several specific domains of forensic science in more detail, including bite mark analysis, bullet lead analysis, arson investigation patterns, and handwriting analysis. In each case, it describes how the techniques were once presented as scientific but later studies found the underlying theories and assumptions were not reliable or supported by evidence.
This document discusses various types of forensic science techniques and analyses that are considered pseudoscience. It provides definitions of pseudoscience and reviews concepts like the scientific method and falsifiability. It then examines several specific domains of forensic science in more detail, including bite mark analysis, bullet lead analysis, arson investigation patterns, and handwriting analysis. In each case, it describes how the techniques were once presented as scientific but later studies found the underlying theories and assumptions were not reliable or supported by evidence.
This document discusses various types of forensic science techniques and analyses that are considered pseudoscience. It provides definitions of pseudoscience and reviews concepts like the scientific method and falsifiability. It then examines several specific domains of forensic science in more detail, including bite mark analysis, bullet lead analysis, arson investigation patterns, and handwriting analysis. In each case, it describes how the techniques were once presented as scientific but later studies found the underlying theories and assumptions were not reliable or supported by evidence.
SCIENCE • It is a discipline or practice. • It is presented as scientific. • It may be presented as “scientific” by one who has scientific degrees. • It is not supported by scientific evidence. • It does or did not employ the scientific method. • It is not falsifiable. • It may coincidentally (შემთხვევით) be accurate. (A broken clock is right twice each day.) A REVIEW • SCIENTIFIC METHOD – Hypothesis – Experiment testing the hypothesis – Results – Conclusion • Confirm hypothesis • Refute hypothesis A REVIEW • Falsifiable – A theory or hypothesis that has the possibility of being shown to be false. – Example – this marker will fly to the ceiling. – Example – all geese are black. FORENSIC DENTISTRY DR. MICHAEL WEST • Hundreds of cases • Methods: – When a bite mark was not clearly visible, West pressed the cast of the suspect’s teeth into the victim’s skin. – West found “bite marks” when no one else could find them. – West testified “without doubt” “certainty.” – West claimed that only he could perform his methods. DR. MICHAEL WEST’S DOWNFALL • Attorney Christopher Plourd. – His investigator gave Dr. West bite mark photographs from a case that Plourd was defending, telling him it was from another case. – His investigator presented West with a plaster cast of the “suspect’s” teeth. • West compared the cast with the photos and concluded that “the odds . . . that these weren’t the teeth . . . would be almost astronomical.” WEST USED SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE • “Occlusal plane” • “Diastema” • “Facets” WEST’S PROBABILITY STATEMENT • “The odds of that happening, if these were not the teeth that created this bite, would be almost astronomical.” [Near certainty]
• “I believe that can lead an odontologist to
only one opinion . . . That these teeth did create that mark.” [Certainty] DR. MICHAEL WEST • Dr. West’s problem: the cast was of the investigator’s teeth.
• IN GENERAL, BITE MARK ANALYSIS HAS BEEN
SHOWN TO HAVE A 63% ERROR RATE.
• THE “SCIENCE” CANNOT BE ESTABLISHED.
VALID FORENSIC DENTISTRY • IDENTIFICATION OF A BODY BY COMPARING THE BODY’S TEETH WITH KNOWN DENTAL RECORDS. • DETERMINING AGE. FIREARMS ANALYSIS • CARTRIDGE MARKS • BULLET MARKS • BULLET LEAD ANALYSIS BULLET LEAD ANALYSIS • Quantitative chemical analysis – % Arsenic – % Antimony – % Tin – % Copper – % Bismuth – % Silver – % Cadmium BULLET LEAD ANALYSIS • The theory: – The chemical composition of bullets is variable but bullets from the same box will have the same chemical composition. – Chemical composition means the percentages of the elements (Arsenic, etc.) in the previous slide. – If the percentages fall within a certain range, then the examiner declares that the crime scene bullet (or bullet fragment) and the bullet seized from the suspect came from the same box. BULLET LEAD ANALYSIS • Quantitative chemical analyses ARE SCIENCE. • But is the theory behind bullet lead analysis science? BULLET LEAD ANALYSIS • THESE WERE ASSUMPTIONS! • The theory had never been subjected to empirical testing. • In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences examined and tested the assumptions. [You have their report.] BULLET LEAD ANALYSIS • Conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences: – The methods of analyzing composition are sound. – The statistical analysis is not sound. – The theory, that bullets in a given box are similar, is not sound. “Variations among and within lead bullet manufacturers make any modeling of the general manufacturing process unreliable and potentially misleading . . . comparisons.” (NSC Report, p. 5). BULLET LEAD ANALYSIS WHAT DID THE FBI DECIDE?
“One factor significantly influenced the
Laboratory's decision to no longer conduct the examination of bullet lead: neither scientists nor bullet manufacturers are able to definitively attest to the significance of an association made between bullets in the course of a bullet lead examination.” CARTRIDGE MARKS FIRING PIN IMPRESSION BULLET STRIATION BULLET STRIATION TOOL MARK COMPARISON COMMENTARY “Toolmark and firearms analysis suffers from the same limitations discussed above for impression evidence. Because not enough is known about the variabilities among individual tools and guns, we are not able to specify how many points of similarity are necessary for a given level of confidence in the result. Sufficient studies have not been done to understand the reliability and repeatability of the methods.”
Strengthening Forensic Science, p. 154.
COMMENTARY “Individual patterns from manufacture or from wear might, in some cases, be distinctive enough to suggest one particular source, but additional studies should be performed to make the process of individualization more precise and repeatable.”
Ibid. COMMENTARY What the commentary means is that you can look at the obvious matches, like those in the photos in this lecture, but you cannot draw good conclusions about the less obvious.
In other words, an “expert” should not draw
conclusions that are not obvious to the non- expert. BULLET STRIATION ARSON INVESTIGATIONS • ALLIGATOR CHARRING • CRAZED GLASS • NARROW V BURN PATTERN • POOLED BURN PATTERN ALLIGATOR CHAR CRAZED GLASS V BURN PATTERN
Believed to show source of the fire
POOLED BURN PATTERN
Thought to show use of accelerant, like benzine
ARSON INVESTIGATION These patterns were considered to be strong indications of arson. (For example, a V pattern, without an apparent source.)
This was sometimes correct, but not always.
ARSON INVESTIGATION • This was passed down as wisdom and knowledge from arson investigator to arson investigator. • Inherited wisdom: When do you make cha cha? – “make cha cha when snow falls on the mountains.” • It may be accurate but. . . . ARSON INVESTIGATION • In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was an attempt to verify burn pattern assumptions with empirical evidence – scientific investigations. • Studies found that the assumptions, although sometimes correct, were not reliable. • The same burn patterns appeared when fires were not set by a person. SHOEPRINT CASTS
Source: forensicresources.co.uk SHOEPRINT CASTS Used properly to prove murder in a Montana case. SHOEPRINT CASTS In the case of Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, a court held that a prosecutor would be required to pay the accused. The prosecutor had consulted with several shoe print experts who told him that the shoe print did not match the accused’s. The prosecutor kept looking for another expert who would say what he wanted. GAIT ANALYSIS VOICE ANALYSIS Michele Catanzaro, Elisabetta Tola, Philipp Hummel & Astrid Viciano, “Voice Analysis Should Be Used with Caution in Court,” Scientific American (January 25, 2017).
This is not the same as “ის ჟღერს მას.”
You can ask a witness if the voice s/he heard
sounded like ____’s. But this is not “analysis.” HANDWRITING ANALYSIS & QUESTIONED DOCUMENT ANALYSIS • Handwriting analysis is different from questioned document analysis.
• Handwriting analysis is what Bertillon
attempted – is the handwriting Dreyfus’s?
• Questioned document asks what, not who:
Forgery? Alteration? HANDWRITING ANALYSIS & QUESTIONED DOCUMENT ANALYSIS • Handwriting analysis has a high rate of error – 22% to 36% in two studies. (See Reference Manual at 88-89).
