There is a new report out of the National Academies in the US on forensic science methods, including identification technologies based on fingerprints, DNA, etc.
The report suggests, not for the first time, that many of the methods used in forensic science have never undergone rigorous scientific testing, and that standards for methodology and accuracy are lacking.
Due to the heavy use of forensic identification in the legal system, there seems to be a serious reluctance to do any kind of research on the accuracy of the methods and results. We should be doing the opposite and making sure that these methods are thoroughly questioned and tested. This report calls for a new National Institute for Forensic Science to do that testing.
A congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council finds serious deficiencies in the nation’s forensic science system and calls for major reforms and new research. Rigorous and mandatory certification programs for forensic scientists are currently lacking, the report says, as are strong standards and protocols for analyzing and reporting on evidence. And there is a dearth of peer-reviewed, published studies establishing the scientific bases and reliability of many forensic methods. Moreover, many forensic science labs are underfunded, understaffed, and have no effective oversight.
Forensic evidence is often offered in criminal prosecutions and civil litigation to support conclusions about individualization — in other words, to “match” a piece of evidence to a particular person, weapon, or other source. But with the exception of nuclear DNA analysis, the report says, no forensic method has been rigorously shown able to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source. Non-DNA forensic disciplines have important roles, but many need substantial research to validate basic premises and techniques, assess limitations, and discern the sources and magnitude of error, said the committee that wrote the report. Even methods that are too imprecise to identify a specific individual can provide valuable information and help narrow the range of possible suspects or sources.
Many methods used in medicine have large errors, lack of precision. And this very seriously, because such errors can lead to terrible consequences!
You write very well.
I am doing a project in school bout forensic science. This is my report:
Before you watch True-TV, Read this report
Forensic science (often shortened to forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system.This may be in relation to a crime or to a civil action. But besides its relevance to the underlying legal system, more generally forensics encompasses the accepted scholarly or scientific methodoloy and norms under which the facts regarding an event, or an artifact, or some other physical item (such as a corpse, or cadaver, for example) are to the broader notion of authenication whereby an interest outside of a legal form exists in determining whether an object is in fact what it purports to be, or is alleged as being.Forensic sciences is crime.
your view is very correct, there is no optimised methods in forensic analysis. but our courts accepting the test results without proper scrutiny on percentage of error in those methods only because due to the lack of knowledge in science,