3 ms·

> Most forensic science is junk. I'm ignorant on the topic. Got links?

• sdenton4 5y ago
  Forensics is full of gee-whiz-cool csi stuff which eventually is shown to be worthless. Polygraphs are a great example; they're still very wisely used in the US, despite piles of evidence showing they're prone to both false positives and false negatives. Sibling comments saying they aren't forensics because they've been discredited are missing the point: these are typical crime tech, and have been lately discredited, but are still in use in the US regardless. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph For a more recent example, here's an article on denim analysis... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/denim-pattern-matching-forensic-crime.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/denim-pattern-mat... The underlying problems seem to be bad incentives (the prosecution is paid+evaluated on its ability to put people in jail) and the court's willingness to accept insufficiently validated tech.
  • ransom1538 5y ago
    https://innocenceproject.org/what-is-bite-mark-evidence-forensic-science/ https://innocenceproject.org/what-is-bite-mark-evidence-fore...
  • duskwuff 5y ago
    To add to that list: fire investigation. There have historically been a lot of myths in the field regarding forms of "proof" that a fire was caused by arson, and many of them were historically used to obtain (likely false) convictions. https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/long_held_beliefs_about_arson_science_have_been_debunked_after_decades_of_m https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/long_held_belief...