Scientist or Specialist? I think I prefer the later.

[raybie]

I think we have more in common with biology than the pure sciences like physics and mathematics. Biologist had this same problem with their critics (asserting that biologists are not scientists).

It is my contention that the definition of science for the pure scientist is far too narrow for areas like biology and ultimately fingerprints. Take as an example the idea of falsification, there are many new theories in physics and astronomy that have been falsified and they keep on going. I take this to mean that just because a scientist got it wrong he/she would just try a different tack. Try applying this test to fingerprints. You just can’t because the basis is rock solid although as CUMMINS and MIDLO said: “Complete observational proof is unattainable”. That is why in biology they run ‘field tests’ to make sure that what is stated is still what is observed. Oh if our critics only new or for that matter researched us properly.

We cannot apply Carl POPPER’s definition of science because he had physics in mind when defining science (after all he was in awe of EINSTEIN).

Anatomy cannot be considered a science either based on today’s definition of science as advocated by our critics.

If I spent most of my time researching some pathogen that might lead to the cure of an obscure third world disease then I would probably not mind being called a scientist.

[Neville]

Hi Ray

What about Meteorologist are they scientists? If they got their weather forecasts even half correct that would be an improvement, better to consult a fortune teller. How about astronomy they can't even tell us what is happening now, they are so many light years behind reality. Then there are the statisticians, are they scientists, how can it be scientific if two opposing arguments can use the same statistical product to prove (?) their point of view?
Not to mention Global Warming, now there is a whole new bomb shell, based on a miss quote and then intentional lies by an English university professor to ensure funds keep on flowing in! Is it the end of an ice age, global warming, climate change or just normal cyclical change, I do not know or care, but the scientists can not agree and you think we have problems in the Fingerprint world.
I have had my daily rant and feel much better now thankyou.

[raybie]

No Problems Old Bean,

I sometimes wonder why some critics say we are not scientific because we don't measure up to today's perceived definition of science. What I mean by 'perceived definition' is that this definition may change in the near future to suit some political agenda.

If critics want to challenge the basis of what we do they must locate two people with identical fingerprints instead of saying "individuality cannot be proven because we have not observed all fingerprints past present and future". We can say fingerprints are individual because we ( by "we" I mean fingerprint officers past and present) have been running field tests for over 100 years now and we are in the position to observe and still haven't found two people with identical fingerprints heck even twins are different.

Hey Simon Cole! Run some field tests and stop looking at missed identifications as proof that we are not a science, or to put it another way the numerical standard has been falsified and we are now using the holistic approach. I am glad that there are still some jurist (judges) out there who are not swayed by those who try to persuade them that fingerprints is pseudo-scientific.

Neville, I believe meteorology and climatology are sciences because they do get it wrong a lot...If you have climatologists disagreeing with each other about global warming it isn't that strange. Stop the press if fingerprint specialist around the world tend to agree on the erroneous McKie print. Why did Al GORE win the NOBEL peace prize again?

Let's hear it for all those great scientists. Alfred HALE, CUMMINS & MIDLO, Inez WHIPPLE, Henry FAULDS, Sir Francis GALTON to name just a few.

[Neville]

Exactly well said, but they are not real scientists are they?

You ask "Why did Al GORE win the NOBEL peace prize again?" because it was politically correct. Now there is an interesting point if he won it on his work on Global warming (which it ain't because it is climate change, I think) does that make him a scientist? I hope not, but then he is practicing in the sciences he is researching, testing theories and concluding, just maybe he is.

On that point about you made not finding two people with identical fingerprints, I can say I have never seen it and no one I have ever meet in person has ever found it. Now I worked under a guy Dedman who was in fingerprints since 1949 and replace as officer in charge of Auckland a fellow who trained under Dinnie. Dinnie at 18 was in charge of Fingerprints back in 1903 and trained in New Scotland Yard. Dedman said he had never seen nor heard of anyone ever finding two people with identical fingerprints.

That's better than anything that Simon Cole has ever said as far as I am concerned.

[raybie]

Hey if economists can win the NOBEL prize and not one biologist has ever won one, it just goes to show that the the elites advocate ideology (nuts and bolts wise economic theory is no different to ideology) over real science. Society is changing so that we are taught not to trust our observations but to trust observations supported by theoretical mathematics & complex statistics. So if 'we' the observer gets it wrong with the help of statistics it's because of the observer not the stats.

The global economic crisis was caused by a combination of governmental and private decisions. Phd's with complex statistical backgrounds could not avert this disaster...The private sector and all the intellectual resources it holds could not avert financial ruin, yet we are still meant to believe that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector, and it will continue to be so when the government bails out private sector with public money and continue to allow private sector to apply for government contracts while the public bears the costs.

It is very sobering that the institutions that supply public goods need to tighten their belts for the mistakes of the private sector. Oh by the way those private institutions get paid millions to churn out those stats and complex mathematical theories to support their decisions.

I'm glad that the courts deal with 'reasonable doubt' rather than scientific certainty.

Thats my rant.

[Neville]

I think that as a fingerprint officer the main reason for doing the job is to identify fingerprints and present your findings in court, the court decides if you are an expert in you field qualified to give OPINION evidence on your previous experience and training. You are there to assist the court to make sense of the evidence you are giving and to give a conclusion in your OPINION. If the court decides to allow you to give that evidence you are for that time in the court an EXPERT, a friend of the court not an enemy and therefore you can give your OPINION. It does not have to be in scientific terms, it does not have to be SUPPORTED with statistical mubo jumbo designed to baffle the court with your brilliance, no you just have to explain what and how you did it if asked.

Sure it maybe of interest to know what the error rate of fingerprint identification is and the likely-hood ration is (10,000,000,000,000 to 1) and all that, but I still do not see that a fingerprint witness needs to get up in court and spout it off as fact to prove the identification, it makes no sense to me. Just like a chart does not prove the identification, it can be used as an aid to help explain the process of identification it is at best secondary evidence, unless it is the markings you make as you make the initial identification, at worst a security blanket.

As with the other thread are we a scientist? No we are not though there maybe scientists working among us but we are all specialists (or experts) the courts have accepted our evidence as it stands as experts in our field to assist the courts by giving our opinion on issues before the court. That is it in a nut shell.

[Michele]

Neville,

You’re absolutely right, you don’t need to be a scientist or perform your analysis scientifically to testify in court but there’s more to the issue than just testimony (at least in the United States).

The other thread was started to discuss the other perks that go along with claiming that a conclusion is scientific. There was an assertion made that as scientists, fingerprint analysts should be allowed to participate in open discussions and debates (such as posting on this website). Scientists should be allowed to do this because open discussions, debates, and questioning current practices are part of the scientific environment, while these practices may not be promoted in non-scientific fields.

The issue goes much further than posting on a chat board. In the US, there are other benefits to those who practice science… and that’s funding. Funding for training, for creating training programs, for staffing, equipment, facilities, for certification, accreditation, external audits, and for research. If we practice science then this funding is available. If we don’t then this same funding isn’t offered. I’m guessing that this funding is only offered to ‘sciences’ because there’s the thought that scientific evidence may be more beneficial to the courts than non-scientific evidence. The CFSO asked our government for funding (based on our discipline being scientific) and our government asked our National Academy of Sciences to look into the issue. If only the research aspect is scientific then perhaps only that area should get funds, but if practitioners are practicing science then funds can also be dispersed to individual agencies.

Granted, in the US, our testimony is considered OPINION evidence but the NAS was very clear on what measures have to be in place to qualify as a SCIENTIFIC OPINION. It’s not merely a scientist giving his/ her thoughts. There must be measures in place to limit human interpretation and bias (among other things). Conclusions based on a persons skills, knowledge, education, experience and training may be considered to be an expert opinion but it may not qualify as a scientific conclusion.

I’m speculating that agencies that perform a scientific analysis will get more funding and continue to grow and move forward. The agencies that don’t may end up fading away.

Some people may believe that the non-scientific analyst is being pushed out but I don’t think this is true. I think they are really just being asked to step it up a bit and recognize the benefits of implementing better quality control measures.

[Neville]

D'oh

Hi Michele,
I think even Bart would understand that.

Thanks for the insight.

Will the benefits be outweighed by the cost of all this though? I remember speaking to an Australian expert at the 100yr conference in Sydney and he said that the Feds in Canberra had to increase their staff by 50 to 75% just to cope with the extra work load, just as a result of becoming ASCLD/LAB Accredited. I doubt many Labs could cope with that and where do all the experts come from or do you see that the work will just be backlogged as in pre AFIS days.

[raybie]

Hi Michelle

That all makes sense now. I hope that you are successful in getting upgraded there in the U.S of A.

[Michele]

I’ve heard the same (that it takes more people to run an accredited lab) but I think it's worth it. Many people have said that you can either pay now or pay later, meaning that if you don’t pay for the quality assurance measures now then you’ll pay huge sums of money if an error occurs.

Brandon Mayfield won a $2 million dollar law suit and then the FBI had to spend the time and money to improve their procedures anyway. I can see the benefits of implementing what you can now. I think it’s much easier to take baby steps towards all the changes rather than trying to revamp everything at once. I imagine it’ll take years to implement all the changes.

Our universities are now implementing forensic science programs and we have more people wanting forensic jobs than ever before. At our agency, most of our new LPE’s come from our tenprint section. This has always worked well for us.

[Neville]

Hi Michele,

We are a National Police and historically we always took trainees from the 10print office but about 20yrs ago the system failed as the ten print office which is located in Wellington started recruiting staff from within Wellington only, no one wanted to move to Auckland so we had to recruit locally and train from scratch. Luckily the University of Auckland started a Forensic Masters course soon after so for the last 15yrs Auckland have had people knocking at the door for jobs that have not existed. However we are still putting these scientists through a 5 yr training program which they complain is harder than doing a BSC or Masters.
I guess for us accreditation is not such an issue as the Government pay for any cases where the police are sued.

[David Fairhurst]

Neville, has your training establishment thought of linking up with the University and getting your course accredited as a BSc?

[Neville]

Hi David

That would be a worth while idea; however I will try and put this into a UK perspective. Manchester is the ten print office which also has a crime office like our Wellington staff here, York is our Auckland crime office, Nottingham is our Hamilton crime office and Glasgow is our Christchurch Crime office; when the York University along with the York Fingerprint section Crime office decide to run a BSC degree with focus on fingerprints. How do you think the guys in Glasgow and Manchester will feel about that?

The other problem is that the Fingerprint Sections in the New Zealand Police would employ less than 60 people, 50 or so fingerprint officers serving a population of about 4.5 million, the training is provided from Wellington in a module fashion, it is NZQA approved and results in a Diploma and is also run via the Royal NZ police Training College in Wellington. The trainees are working on the coal face while they are training. I would imagine, as the approved NZ Police University is actually Victoria University in Wellington and Police Training is based in Wellington then the reality is that that is where it would happen I think Ray would be better place to answer your question.

The reason the Auckland University is doing the Forensic Masters Course is that the ESR which provides the police with DNA and other forensic science services is based in Auckland, due to the fact that here is where the largest population base and crime is, Fingerprints is only a small part of the Forensic Course. I think also that the guy who drove it from the ESR had quite a bit to do with AK uni, plus the ESR and Auckland Fingerprint Section had a good working relationship with the AK uni since the Rainbow Warrior Bombing By the FRENCH, who we caught without USA UK or French help thank you very much not that we bare any grudges for you all forgetting to inform us that it was going to go down. I digress into ranting again sorry.

[raybie]

Hehehehehe. Well put Neville. I'd have to agree with you there especially about the rainbow warrior. Yes a real life example of state sponsored terrorism. Unfortunately as punishment they (two french terrorists) spent their incarceration in a beautiful French atol in the south pacific got pregnant and flew back to France with full honors.

I think you are correct Neville. There are small opportunities here unfortunately we don't have a working group together or the funds and resources that can make this happen. There needs to be movement from the training directorate at our national headquarters to include fingerprint science as a course in Victoria University, just like current police courses already available. Our fingerprint chain of command from all cities must be more proactive and get the ball rolling to discuss these important issues with the training directorate at headquarters then meet with the vice chancellor of Victoria University. Easier said than done.

[Neville]

Ray
yes

I have to say I would have taken the $10million, the prisoners released, saved the tax payers the cost of put'n up those low life's in our Queens best accommodation at Castle Mt Eden. They at least did the decent thing and pleaded guilty, no doubt knowing they would finally get sprung by the French Governments agents or that we would accept the cash and let them run.

The best story of cause relating to this one follows on some years later when the man himself was returning to France from holiday? (another plot no doubt) and got stopped on his own boarder because his wanted file put out by Interpol in FRANCE at the request of the NZ Police had never been withdrawn. I just about died LOL.

Just brilliant, truth is strange than fiction.