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For a broader discussion of just how bad, and dangerous, forensic sciecne can be there is a Scientific American article [0] from about 5 years ago. Along with m

by avs733 7y ago

For a broader discussion of just how bad, and dangerous, forensic sciecne can be there is a Scientific American article [0] from about 5 years ago. Along with many others if you take a look. Most access this issue through one specific case that is of local relevance...but at a high level, people have literally been executed based on bluntly fake science and courts opt out of doing anything. If AAAS is telling you your field is bad at science, everyone should situp and listen [1]. For example...there are no scientific standards around fingerprinting. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-trust-crime-forensics/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-trust-crim... [1] https://www.aaas.org/resources/forensic-science-assessments-quality-and-gap-analysis https://www.aaas.org/resources/forensic-science-assessments-...

duxup 7y ago
There was a PBS show that looked into how wonky forensic science could be. A common certification at the time was earned by taking an online class and answering multiple choice questions ... and blamo you had a certificate that they found on a lot of resumes. It didn't require much of any actual scientific knowledge.
- thaumaturgy 7y ago
  This appears to be surprisingly common in both law and fire. I hold a handful of such certificates, all of which say I'm qualified to do things I'm mostly certainly not. I'm trying to change this behavior by incorporating objective examinations into one of my specializations and it's extremely difficult.
  - Agenttin 7y ago
    I wouldn't mind tacking some BS certifications onto my resume, which would you recommend?
    - thaumaturgy 7y ago
      In all seriousness, the FEMA ICS 100 and 200 courses: 100: https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-100.c https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-100... 200: https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-200.c https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-200... They are both available online for free and you download a little certificate afterward. ICS is the Incident Command System used by law, fire, and other agencies to manage "incidents" -- anything from, "my kid just disappeared from my front yard" to "the entire town of Paradise just burned to the ground, now what do we do?" There are some principles in ICS that any technical manager should find helpful. Someday I'd like to write a long article on what technical managers can learn from ICS, but in the meantime I'm happy to suggest other people just take the first two courses.
jcrawfordor 7y ago
I had a professor in my graduate education who was a mathematician focusing on criminal forensics. She was involved in the AAAS report amongst other efforts. The short version of the story that she told about two years ago is that, in all of criminal forensics, there is only one method which has been subjected to rigorous research: DNA matching, due to it being a topic of interest in many fields (e.g. genetic anthropology).
leto_ii 7y ago
There's even an episode of Last Week Tonight on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0 :D

by avs733 7y ago

duxup 7y ago

There was a PBS show that looked into how wonky forensic science could be. A common certification at the time was earned by taking an online class and answering multiple choice questions ... and blamo you had a certificate that they found on a lot of resumes. It didn't require much of any actual scientific knowledge.

thaumaturgy 7y ago
This appears to be surprisingly common in both law and fire. I hold a handful of such certificates, all of which say I'm qualified to do things I'm mostly certainly not. I'm trying to change this behavior by incorporating objective examinations into one of my specializations and it's extremely difficult.
- Agenttin 7y ago
  I wouldn't mind tacking some BS certifications onto my resume, which would you recommend?
  - thaumaturgy 7y ago
    In all seriousness, the FEMA ICS 100 and 200 courses: 100: https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-100.c https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-100... 200: https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-200.c https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-200... They are both available online for free and you download a little certificate afterward. ICS is the Incident Command System used by law, fire, and other agencies to manage "incidents" -- anything from, "my kid just disappeared from my front yard" to "the entire town of Paradise just burned to the ground, now what do we do?" There are some principles in ICS that any technical manager should find helpful. Someday I'd like to write a long article on what technical managers can learn from ICS, but in the meantime I'm happy to suggest other people just take the first two courses.

jcrawfordor 7y ago

I had a professor in my graduate education who was a mathematician focusing on criminal forensics. She was involved in the AAAS report amongst other efforts. The short version of the story that she told about two years ago is that, in all of criminal forensics, there is only one method which has been subjected to rigorous research: DNA matching, due to it being a topic of interest in many fields (e.g. genetic anthropology).

leto_ii 7y ago

There's even an episode of Last Week Tonight on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0 :D