5 ms·
A huge amount of "forensic science" is complete bunk. Scientific validity doesn't matter, you just have to be able to sell it to a jury.
by lenticular 7y ago
A huge amount of "forensic science" is complete bunk. Scientific validity doesn't matter, you just have to be able to sell it to a jury.
- duxup 7y agoSadly that is where judges should be stepping in but the barn doors were left open so who gets to be the first to say "you can't use fingerprints that 'match' because your noob deputy thinks they kinda look alike..."?
- c3534l 7y agoIn my experience at least with lawyers (don't know any judges), I wouldn't trust them with that sort of thing any more than anyone else. They're hyper concerned with convincing arguments, to the point where they often fail to make the distinction between something that is actually true and something that seems like it should be true. They know plenty about law and the sort of reasoning that makes the interpretation of law consistent. But it doesn't seem like they're in a position to understand scientific evidence better than your average joe. Like, programmers and folks on hacker news are great at computers and sometimes math and engineering. But I'm not sure I want hacker news giving me dating advice or gardening advice. That's not really in their wheelhouse. Unless you had specialty judges who only did something like determine the validity of certain kinds of evidence who didn't have to have the same skill set as other judges, I don't see it as being much of an improvement.