Fingerprint Society Events 2011

[Les Bush]

Hello Richard,

Thanks for asking about the outcome of recent weather events here, I'm fine, while I do live in the Brisbane area the flood affected suburbs are located 20km away from my home. However the building I work in became isolated due to its location in the city with restricted access to attend. Most recently there has been Tropical Cyclone YASI coming from Fiji travelling West with a big rush and fortunately for the cities of Cairns and Townsville it passed between them. The price of bananas will now rise due to crop damage and the sugar cane harvest has also been storm damaged. On the bright side the state emergency planning and mandatory evacuations has meant no recorded loss of life at this time. Australia is a big island continent Richard and I'm not sure if you have travelled here for business or tourism or family reasons, the aussie spirit is pretty strong and resilient and able to bounce back so normality will return pretty soon. Kind regards Les

[Tazman]

From a recent article in the Elbonian Red Star:

Role of Professional Associations?

The fingerprint experts in the country of Elbonia had made an erroneous identification. Of that there can be little doubt. Hundreds of other fingerprint experts from around the world agreed on that fact. Nary a single expert from outside of Elbonia ever went on record in support of the so-called identification made by the Elbonian experts, nor were any ever known to agree in private.

The terrible series of events began when a man by the name of Hub Lubener was arrested for murder on the basis of a single fingerprint found at the scene of a murder. Two experts from Lithovakia had originally checked the alleged identification at the request of Mr. Lubener. The Lithovakian experts had proclaimed the error and had even traveled to Elbonia to testify. Ultimately, Lubener was acquitted of the murder.

But the experts in Elbonia refused to admit the error and launched a personal attack against the experts from Lithovakia. The Elbonian press had a field day with all the charges and counter charges. A few Ministers in the Elbonian government wanted to ignore the case and hope it would go away. But a couple of other Ministers thought that if there had been an error and if an innocent man had been arrested, the correct and ethical thing to do would be to find out why the error had happened and take steps to insure that it never occurred again.

None of the Elbonian Ministers were fingerprint experts. What were they to do? Were they to believe their own experts, who continued to insist they were correct? Or were they to believe the word of those foreigners, the Lithovakians, who said the Elbonian experts were incompetent? Where could the Ministers turn? Since none of the Ministers were fingerprint experts, they discussed holding an inquiry.

There was one group who might have put an end to the scandal early in the sequence of events. The Associated Science Society of Elbonia hosted a couple of presentations on the fingerprints at their annual convention within months of the controversy erupting. All of its members had the chance to unofficially review the case. If the Associated Science Society had taken a position, the Elbonian Ministers might have been able to resolve the situation quickly and with minimal damage to the Elbonian Police Forensic Services and the Elbonian criminal justice system in general.

The Associated Science Society, however, loudly proclaimed itself to be only a social organization. The Associated Science Society said their only activity was their annual educational convention. The officers of the Associated Science Society publicly stated that they could not and would not render an opinion. They would not advise the Ministers.

Frustrated, the Ministers convened the inquiry. When that inquiry failed to bring the mess to a conclusion, they convened another inquiry. Then another. Eventually, it became a running series of inquiries, each one ratcheted up a step from the previous inquiries. The same, tired experts testified over and over again, but without resolving the dilemma. In the end, a judge was brought in from outside of Elbonia to try and resolve the situation a full decade after the scandal had burst into the headlines.

What is the purpose of a professional association? Should it police its own members? Should it offer to advise the government? Or should the members put on their vests and coats and attend banquets and decry the controversy, all the while refusing to get involved on the grounds that the Associated Science Society is merely a social and educational organization?

Which would be the more ethical course of action?

Which, indeed, I wonder.