CLPEX Chat Board

You know I am so mad right now I could chew the rusty nails off of my old barn or walk barefoot across broken glass and not feel a thing. Why am I mad? Well I have been catching up on my reading and I have come across some recent articles where the authors make statements that I believe are just outlandish. Some of these authors are known to be detractors of fingerprints so might be excused but some have been in the fingerprint business for over 30 years.

Now I have to say I do not know everything nor have I been privy to all the giants of this industry. I can only speak from my own experience from my own little world. I do not know what those on the East Coast, West Coast, Northern States, or Canada have done over the past number of years because I did not work there so I cannot say. But from my world I do have some experience to support my point of view.

Let us start with the word “Point Counter”. Now I would like to know who invented or first used that word. Why use the word “Point Counter”? Why not use “Traditionalist” or “Conventional” or “Galton Trained”, “Henry Trained” or a number of other terms that would describe what some people call “Point Counters”. The reason why, is that Point Counters has a negative connotation and you certainly do not want to use a word with a positive or netural connotation when you are trying to get a particular concept, agenda or philosophy out there.

In 1973 I started in Fingerprints and in that initial training I do not recall anyone saying I had to have a threshold of points needed to make identification. Matter of fact they gave me a copy of a letter signed by J. Edgar Hoover dated in the late 50’s or early 60’s that the FBI did not have a set number of points. I remember a few years later going to latent print school and no one there mentioned about a set number of points required. Matter of fact they talked about the single point on the boat scenario. When I started working for a Police Department not one person in that department ever said a word about a set number of points. Matter of fact the old Sgt right after I started gave a statement at an IA Investigation on the identification of a latent print with five ridge characteristics and other features present. In my whole career I have never been instructed or required to count points. My whole training and experience has been that there is no set number of points but because I was originally trained before the Ridgeology Revolution I am a “Point Counter”. To take some from the late Robert Olsen, I was trained in the “Conventional Methodology” but have always believed that all information that is shared between two images should be considered in determining if they are from a single source.

Here is another statement from a 2006 article “A dichotomy slowly developed within the science. Experienced examiners tended to cling to the dogmatic cognitive-intuitive approach while novice examiners, still full of questions, gravitated to where they found answers and adopted the more holistic approach.” Do you know what this statement is saying? It says that a split has developed and that the old “Toads” are stuck in the mud and do not want to move, while the young robust new examiners are waving the flag of knowledge, understanding and the only way is if everybody follows their truth. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP. That statement has so many fallacies in it that I cannot even begin to respond to it.

Here is another one “Ridgeology, it was argued, was a system, a process, a science that allowed for change and adaptation to new information. This was an important distinction given the belief that a lack of an internal corrective mechanism is one sign of a pseudoscience, like astrology or reflexology.” What this one is saying is that before Ridgeology the Science of Fingerprints was unchanging and was a play science. Ridgeology has saved us by moving us from a pseudoscience to a real science. EXCUSE ME, but was not the 1973 IAI declaration before the word Ridgeology was coined. Edgeosocopy and Poreoscopy were words in the discipline long before Ridgeology (it was actually first printed as Ridgeoscopy but then changed). Isn’t real science based upon knowledge, observation, documentation, etc. With this one I have to say that the Science of Fingerprints has always had a corrective mechanism and that the philosophy of Ridgeology HAS NOT all by itself elevated the knowledge of fingerprints to a "Science". They give a citation on this one that does not even have anything to do with the overall topic. Also in the beginning of the paragraph that talked about the split in the "science" and by the end of the paragraph they are inferring that it is not a science after all. MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

I do not care if you are a Ridgelologist, Traditionalist, Conventionalist, Henryist, Galtonist, Scientist, Dactylosopist, or whatever. Bad statements are bad statements. Propaganda is propaganda. One should strive to separate ones personal perceptions and beliefs when writing in professional journals.

Now I believe a lot in what Ridgeology has to offer. I think the concept has been around a lot longer than the word has. I have always believed in using all information present and not just ridge events. The problem I do have is not with Ridgeology but with some Ridgeologist who spread that philosophy thicker than what it really is and dilute all the other advances in this discipline for their own agenda.

There has been a lot of good information published in the past 100 years. Not all of it Dogmatic or Pseudoscience. I am not a point counter nor have I ever worked in a pseudoscience. To say that I am those things is misleading and not truthful and cannot be supported by history or facts.

Excuse me as I have to go brush my teeth and put band aids on my feet.

Hi Charles,

In another post you wrote....

"Currently our DA will not accept latent print ID's with less than 8 points. Our agency does not have a minimum thresehold needed to individuilize. All the LPE here have agreed that if that does happen we will still write our report and submit it. Our feeling is that if the DA does not want to use the evidence, then that is their call. "

Your DA is a point counter. This person fails to understand the significance of the totality of information present in two common-source images/impressions which would lead a competent examiner (yourself, all the LPE's there..) to conclude individualization. At some point in time, if it hasn't happened already, important evidence of a person's guilt or innocence will be excluded at trial due to this lack of understanding. Therefore, I believe that the term 'point counter' SHOULD have a negative connotation.

TAS

Well, old friend, you have presented thoughts I have harbored and only once in a while let loose in a fit of pique. One such outburst was with the guru of ridgeology, David Ashbaugh, when I thought he was oversimplifying the situation before we were finally exposed to the light. I catch him slipping into that as I have with others, and maybe enough is enough. There is a trend to paint history with a very broad brush as if the time before ridgeology was the dark ages when myth and superstition were the mainstays of the profession. As you noted, we tend to be more forgiving of the supporters than the critics, but there is no need to rewrite history to champion a cause. For us folks old enough to have started BR (before ridgeology), recollection is a different picture entirely. I began in 1965 working for an agency that did things quite well, and I was never instructed a minimum number of "points" were needed to declare an identification. I do recall numbers mentioned, but these were more as descriptors of the impression than an essential element of the process. I do recall some heated discussions when information was limited, but not that fewer numbers had violated a cardinal rule. Bear in mind this was eight years before the IAI Standarization Committee report was published. However, the three years the committee devoted to the project revealed that while some agencies used an artificial numerical minimum, there were plenty who did not. I had a nice talk with Andre Moenssens, who was on that IAI committee, and he has promised to write down what he remembers from the committee deliberations. Documentation is scarce, I'm afraid, but what does remain indicates that there sure were those who did not make idents by tapping their toes to eight, ten or whatever.

I spent many enjoyable hours with Bob Olsen and a great deal more time in our weekly telephone conversations, and anyone who knew Bob quickly understood that he never strayed too far from fingerprints in any situation. Once Bob, Ed German and I drove from Peoria, Illinois, straight through to Washington, DC, in a small car, and the discussions never stopped. I don't believe there was any aspect of this profession that we missed, and never did we mention some magical number of points in agreement that had to be present. I do recall how we struggled for terminology to explain what information would influence our conclusions, and I tip my hat to Huber, Tuthill and Ashbaugh for the concepts that permit better articulation of a process. And to me, that is the beauty of levels of detail, ACE-V and concentrating on the ridges themselves instead of major events. Since I also read the first paper Ashbaugh wrote on the subject, I clearly remember how he offered the term ridgeology as a stop gap measure and challenged the profession to coin a better term. We never did.

I tried one time to write a review of Cole's book, and found myself unable to adequately express my disdain for characterizing latent prints as a battle of ridge counters and ridgeologists. The portrayal reminded me of bunch of robed priests engaged in some kind of holy war, the old guard resisting the enlightenment of ridgeology as a means of self preservation to protect the order. Of course, the ridgeologists wear the white robes and get the girl at the end, but their way is full of danger from the practitioners of the old order. Yes, it is pure hogwash, but even hogwash repeated enough times gains some credence as evident by the instances where the white knights also say it was so.

I am not mad, and I suspect your bleeding soles and chipped teeth have cooled your anger. I am more disappointed that history is being distorted to make a nice story. Ridgeology, or whatever any wishes to call it, is not that much different than they way it has always been done. Emphasis has changed, and rightfully so, and we have a better way of explaining the incredibly complex mental processes that occur. But the world of fingerprint science was not wandering lost in the desert for the years BR, and the issue is not good guys or bad guys in some moral struggle. In reflection, I have no less confidence in the identifications I made 40 years ago in which I may have mentioned points just as I mentioned pattern, not because some minimum was required. And I worked with some excellent examiners who were using ridgeology all along. Like many of us then, we just didn't know that is what were we doing. But there is no need for apologies in the work we did. Sure, I had some dogma shoved my way, and most of that has been discarded along the way.

What we had then and we still have now are people doing the job who shouldn't. Teaching people to locate and count points was definitely easier and faster but hardly could be called adequate training. Experience is highly overrated unless one learns from the experience, and, sadly, we have those who just plow the same ground until they are deep in a trench. Do the same with ridgeology, especially if learned by rote and heralded as "real science," will give very similar results. Maybe convincing others that riding the white horse of ridgeology to battle evil point counters makes a difference to some, but it seems that one dogma just replaced another.

Hi Terry, Well you got me. I was thinking more on those people that had received some type of training in the area of fingerprints and in particular latent prints. But since you are counting those that have not received any training then you are right. Counting all the DA’s, prosecutors, defense attorneys, patrol officers, sheriffs deputies, drug chemists and some criminalist’s I suppose you are right in that I have actually have met a number of “Point Counters”.

But is it really fair to call those persons who have no training or experience in our discipline a negative name. Is that not kind of sitting us up on a pedestal of “greater than thou”. I think we need to teach and instruct them. They probably have never received any true teaching or instruction on the subject. We need to work with them and not demand that they do it our way or hit the highway or refer to them as “point counters” or those “person(s) who fail to understand the significance of the totality of the information that we provide them”. I think they are good people. I think that giving them the right information in the right environment will do the most good. And that DA that I mentioned, I have never met him. That is just what I was told, but I have talked to several of his prosecutors on several serious cases and they have never mentioned anything about a number of points. I suspect what I was told was an urban legend. Kind of like the 12 point non-match that some examiners have heard that the FBI has secreted away and is not showing anyone. An URBAN MYTH. I still do not like the term point counter, but I must face the music. It is in language now and probably will never die out. Too bad because now Latent Print Examiners have a slang word we can call someone that we do not like.

Dear David my friend. As always your writings sooth my temper and heals my wounds. I do like to read what you write. One of the younger LPE’s remarked the other day upon reading some of your material from the 1980’s how it really shed some light on some topics. Lately I have been doing some reading and research on Methodology from every corner that I can because of Michele T’s challenge (I like that lady). I have now 14 pages of notes on Methodology and I have to say that your description in 1988 of the “Identification Process of Evaluation, Comparison, Finding (decision) “comes closer to my heart, soul, and mind than all that I have read on ACE, ACE-V, ACE+V, or ACE-V². An excellent piece of work it just did not have as catchy an acronym: ECF or ACE. Even Mr. Ashbaugh first described it as Evaluation, Comparison, Evaluation.

We are all guilty of using a broad brush sometimes. It is so much easier and does not require the finesse, time, skill and patience of the smaller brush. It also depends upon what you want to put out. A Picasso or a Remington!

Most of the time when I read that broad brush rhetoric I just blow it off, but sometimes I read it and I need to vent. Saturday was my day to vent after reading that early in the morning. CLPEX is an easy place for me to vent where I do not have to list references or worry about the grammar too much, and not have to wait 6 months to a year for it to get published. I either do in on CLPEX or WRITERSNET.COM, but the last one would not know what I was talking about. You got me pegged pretty good in that I was not mad, but like you in that I hate to see history vandalized.


I would have given anything to be riding in the back of that car with you and Ed, and Bob Olsen. Some others I would have liked to known a lot better are Ernie Hamm, Bill Sampson, Clarence Phillips, Bob Hazen and there is a whole host of them that I could sit and name all day. I would love to get them together and pick their brains. But that is not to be. I miss my early years where there was a group and we use to discuss things and exchange ideas and respected others thoughts and ideas. It seems today there are only the 7am to 4pm crowd, or the I do not want to hear that mumbo jumbo group, or especially the “you better do it this way or you are wrong” band. Perhaps I am painting my brush too broad now.

Training was an issue 60 years ago, 30 years ago, and 10 years ago. How to get it to people in the best format and the best way is still a struggle. One that I do not think will go away because we have adopted a three letter scientific method.

Ridgeology for all it has helped the Latent Print Examiner in knowing their methodology better and being better articulated to describe that methodology; Ridgeology does have some problems. I do not think it has addressed the problems with the record or ten-print side of Friction Ridge Analysis. It also does not address from my point of view the issues you described in your 1988 article. Should it even do that as those concepts might be in the realm of SWGFAST or the IAI.

I would hope that Ridgeology would be more than just dogma replacing dogma. I would hope that it would evolve and grow into a philosophy that would encompass all aspects of the Science of Friction Ridges. Time will tell. Take care friend and I will drink a beer to all the Neanderthals that have come out of the caves and seen the light of Ridgeology. I have vented so I will be silent for a while and slumber in my cave.

Charles Parker wrote:Let us start with the word “Point Counter”. Now I would like to know who invented or first used that word. Why use the word “Point Counter”? Why not use “Traditionalist” or “Conventional” or “Galton Trained”, “Henry Trained” or a number of other terms that would describe what some people call “Point Counters”. The reason why, is that Point Counters has a negative connotation and you certainly do not want to use a word with a positive or netural connotation when you are trying to get a particular concept, agenda or philosophy out there.

I think you answer your own question, "Why use the word 'point counter'" somewhere later in your post. The answer is not all examiners that count points are deficient enough to be so labeled. Some are. Ironically it is usually those who are most deficient in being able to explain what they do who make the issue devisive. I was told by a point counter once that David Ashbaugh was destroying the whole profession and she refused to take his class.

There's an old saying that goes "Wanna make enemies?--try to change something" I think that applies to this conversation. Ridgeologists wanted to change some fundemental philosophies because the science was both poorly understood and poorly communicated. Now there is both devisiveness and hard feelings.

How do we deal with that? I have two suggestions. (1) Blame Ridgeologist (2) and then claim the FBI invented Ridgeology.

Believe me it will work

BR

The fingerprint community is not alone within the forensic comparative sciences of discussions and debates about understanding how we see patterns, compare patterns, use a type of threshold to decide, and then actually decide the significance of patterns.The firearm/tool mark discipline within forensic comparative science has been discussing the philosophies of Consecutive Matching Striae (CMS) and Pattern Matching (PM) and the blending of the two within the Association of Firearm and Toolmark Examiners www.afte.org and within SWGGUN at www.swggun.org . At SWGGUN, go to CMS/PM survey results for more of an understanding of that discussion.

I look forward to the future as we seek better understanding of what we do and how we do it. Science is about better understandings of our current knowledge. Forensic comparative science has been good and is getting better. I no longer call myself a fingerprint examiner nor a firearms/tool mark examiner, nor a shoe print examiner, nor a fracture examiner. I do not call myself a ridgeologist. Others might. I do not call myself a point counter. I call myself a forensic comparative examiner. That is what I do. Explaining how I do it is the challenge. That is why I recruited Dr. Busey. He and his colleagues have a better understanding of how we do it.

BR You are right, it is the ones who do not understand what they see or who cannot articulate what they do that are this disciplines biggest problem. Whether they be from old school or new school. The woman who stated that Mr. Ashbaugh was destroying fingerprints was wrong. Mr. Ashbaugh has done a lot in assisting the discipline in articulating what it does and how it does it. If a person decides that by not attending a class they will learn something, then I say that person needs to get out of the business and go flip burgers for a while.

"Ridgeologist wanted to change some fundamental philosophies because the science was both poorly understood and poorly communicated". You have made an excellent statement. I could not agree with it more. Where I do not agree is the change part. My feeling is that most (95%) of the examiners that were around prior to 1991 upon reading Ashbaugh for the first time said "Yes, yes, yes". Is there that 5% out there that did not agree, probably, but my point is that most (at least the ones I know) did agree. I do not remember seeing any decisivness or split in the discipline. Mr. Ashbaugh was articulating what a number of LPE were already doing.

What got my dander up was that prior to 1991 I was working in a psudeo science. That prior to 1991 I was a point counter. That prior to 1991 I was involved in the dark arts and could not describe what I did or how I did it.

That is the broad paint brush that Mr. Grieve was talking about. I do not mind someone painting history, but if you are going to do it, then do it with a little bit of accuracy.

I do not have any devisiveness or hard feelings with Ridgeology. I use Ridgeology every day. I belive in Ridgeology every day. I THINK IT IS A GOOD THING.

Your last statement about blaming ridgelologist and claiming the FBI invented it, has totally lost me. I do not have a clue as to what you might mean or try to get across with that statement.

Thanks for your kind words about my literary efforts. And I would have loved having you along with us on the trip to DC. Actually, Ed German may have traded places with you since Bob and I were filling the small car with smoke as we debated. Once the topic became so heated that I swear the car was bouncing down the highway. The interesting thing about Bob is that he could argue one point of view on a topic, then switch and argue the opposite. He was truly someone who tried to see all sides. One night in the Boardroom, he presented pretty good justification for the educational requirements in the new IAI latent print certification program. The next night, he was just as thorough as to why it was wrong. I do recall how heated discussions about the original program could get, and it does seem almost surreal today since the bachelor's degree with no exception was never implemented. But at the time, those opposed claimed the educational portion would destroy the profession. I don't think it would have any more than I think Ashbaugh has.

Even though we didn't utilize current terminology, I believe we were using the principles of ridgeology prior to 1991, or BR. True, I made more reference to the quantity of Galton detail present, but one must never forget that quantity as well as quality is still part of the process. Yes, I've met a few old timers who maintain that they will never accept ridgeology, but if you sit down with them and discuss a print, they are practicing ridgeology. As to whether we were performing science or pseudoscience, I just can't get that worked up about it. We did good work.

The problem with this whole thread is we are talking a lot about people and anecdotes and not much about references. I think it is embarrassing that until 2QA there was not a well written text on the subject of our philosophy and methodology regarding comparisons. There should have been one hundred of those texts, but in the year 2000 there was only one and that one caused a stir. The rest was journal articles that all too often were half-baked, the rest of our explanations are a lot of "he said she said".

We are behind!--It is arrested development that stems from a scientific culture that resists change (this is an oxymoron but the only other word I can think of right now is pseudoscience and I will not go that far). On the continuum of pseudoscience and hard science we are somewhere in the middle, probably on the psuedo side. This is strictly my opinion but the only way beyond this is to increase our educational requirements across the board. Real educational requirements like BS, MS, PhD type requirements. Not 1960s memos from a guy in high heels.

BR

BR (Bohemian Rhapsody, not Before Ridgeology), I respectfully disagree. In preparing for US v Mitchell, I did a great deal of reading and re-reading of texts prior to 1991, and there were some real gems if one allows for context and times. Wentworth and Wilder, Cowger, even Olsen in his revision of Scott's, all contributed to our understanding. Tuthill's first publication, perhaps not a full text book, contained the seeds of what Ashbaugh would describe later. G. Tyler Mairs was magnificient, and I still use his work in my training. These people did not make understanding all that easy but I think they managed to articulate the methodology a littel better than before, so each added to our understanding. These gains may not have been as spectacular as when Ashbaugh refined old concepts into new expression, but they added to our knowledge base nonetheless. And for three years, a select group headed by one of the most determined chairs any committee could want, Paul McCann, studied all references available. T. Dickerson Cooke had a huge library, texts from all over the world, that were contributions to the task. Andre Moenssens, certainly no slouch in all aspects of the discipline, worked as hard as McCann and Cooke to satisfy the committee's assignment. This was not a conclusion drawn from a hat but based upon a thorough study reference materials.

I think what Charlie was trying to get across is that the discipline is progressing, and the expression of Q-Q, levels of detail and it is all about ridges, stupid, have added greatly, but we don't have to promote the concepts of ridgeology as a science by denigrating the past as wasted junk. To label past practices as psuedoscience does not elevate ridgeology to a science, and for those in the trenches back then, a sweeping generalization that we were engaged in dogmatic ritual void of science becomes a cheap shot. You know, I really don't conduct examinations much differently now than I did thirty years ago. I can express what I do a bit better, but when a very similar method that is even partially accepted as science today is portrayed as psuedoscience BR, it does become an irritant.

I sometimes think we are too preoccupied in trying to prove what we do is science so that we end up apologists when no apology is needed. David Stoney once told a group that he wasn't sure what I was teaching but it was not science. Fine. I was not turned into a pillar of salt by his remarks, nor did I cry myself to sleep that night. And for all those who want to assign us somewhere along the spectrum between witchcraft and Mt. Olympus, be my guest. My interest is in what the court accepts, not Cole's opinion, Stoney's opinion, Starrs' opinion, nor, no offense, yours. When we were nearing the end of the Mitchell hearing, the AUSA asked us if we wanted to pursue being accepted as a science, or, after Kumho, taking a runner up spot of specialized or skilled. Then he smiled and said, "but that is really relevant. The yardstick is the same." Maybe there is personal satisfaction or ego stroking in being called a science, but since what we do is applied, it doesn't bother me if someone says otherwise. When I conduct an examination, I know I am following scientific practices, and I did nearly forty years ago. The court wants reliability, and so do I.

Mr. Grieve thanks for the reply. I enjoy this conversation. I have not yet read the articles that Mr. Parker is referring to so I think I am missing out on some of this controversy. I am only responding with the ideas in this thread.

"Here is another statement from a 2006 article “A dichotomy slowly developed within the science. Experienced examiners tended to cling to the dogmatic cognitive-intuitive approach while novice examiners, still full of questions, gravitated to where they found answers and adopted the more holistic approach.” Do you know what this statement is saying? It says that a split has developed and that the old “Toads” are stuck in the mud and do not want to move, while the young robust new examiners are waving the flag of knowledge, understanding and the only way is if everybody follows their truth. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP. That statement has so many fallacies in it that I cannot even begin to respond to it."

I don't see what is so objectionable to the above statement. I have witnessed this. Old-timers that steadfastly stand behind the dogmatic statement "I know I am right because the FBI says the science is 100% objective, and besides no two prints that came from different people have ever been found to match." In short--I have witnessed the split that you are denying.

Several years ago I listened to William Babbler lecture a group of LPE's. He said he believed that the science regarding the uniqueness of FRS formations has been so solidly established that is beyond reproval, BUT the science behind latent print comparisons is not. I completely agree with that claim.

Cummins, Wentworth and Wilder, and many others who contributed to the knowledge base around FRS formations were great scientists. I don't think you should lump authors like Cowger in with those names. Just as Mr. Parker has broad brush objections, so do I.

I personally love Olsen's work but I don't think it did anything for the philosophy/methodology of comparison science. I believe Olsen's biggest contributions were to the development of fingerprints and what is impressive is that his work is still an authority in that area, but I also think his explanation of the individualization process is not science and probably should have been left for a separate book. Tuthill’s contribution was, as you implied short and sweet, but not overly impressive until Ashbaugh drove the concept home.

If our science was as glorious as you paint it why did we have to wait so long for one simple explanatory text on the science of fingerprint comparisons? (please don't hit me with all the supporting sciences and LP development scientists again--I am talking about comparisons).

And to top it off why did Bob Hazen write a review of 2QA objecting to the use of the “S” word. If the FBI are the scientists that they promoted themselves to be why is the word subjective so scary for them? As the foremost fingerprint educators in this country I would think the subjectivity of the ACE-V process would not have been a scary topic at all.

These are just some thoughts. I gathered from your comments about Bob Olsen that you appreciate someone who can play the devil’s advocate role, I wish I could have met the man.

Thanks for the interesting conversation.

BR

BR, you remind me of a person who once said that all Finns were 6 foot 3 with flaming red hair, or at least the only one he met was. There is still a flat earth society and folks who believe Neil Armstraong was suited up in a television studio in Burbank. If I tried to sample human behavior by attending a flat earth meeting, my viewpoint would be a bit suspect. So, you had someone hide behind dogma instead of engaging in rational discussion. Well, I vowed I would never say to my kids, "because I said so," but that lasted a shorter time than my New Year's resolution.

I am sorry for your encounter and I don't mean to minimize what is obviously disappointing. I concede that some people have resisted looking at what it is we do from a different perspective, but that demonstrates very little except some folks just don't like change. I don't teach latent prints today the way I did thirty years ago, but I do not repudiate what I taught then, nor do I believe I owe those folks an apology. Sure, I included some dogma in that instruction, although rule number one was to question and challenge everything I said. Over the years, I have weeded out as much dogma as possible, but I can't state what I teach has been completely sanitized to meet someone's definition of "pure" science. But the presence of some dogmatic elements does not invalidate the whole, and the fact that I, along with other old toads, recited some things from rote rather than reason does not make us either sinners or lepers. As with cheese, cut away the mold and enjoy.

Ashbaugh and ridgeology did not spring from the head of Zeus but David did what a number of us continue to do, challenge and question. He recounts Tuthill describing analysis, comparison and evaluation as an effective approach to impression evidence, EXCEPT for latent prints. That prompted the question, why is that? Stumped for an answer, Tuthill admitted the error of his ways. This evolution of thought, of philosophy and practical application required a number of years to even begin, and even more time to take shape. And the process is ongoing. I caution David not to count failures but to win them over one person at a time. Some will definitely take a little longer than others.

What I find objectionable in the black and white scenario Charlie referred to is what I find objectionable in all efforts to revise history according to someone's personal agenda. It simply isn't so and that needs to be said, although unlike my friend from Texas, I avoided rusty nails and broken glass. But I do not think it is time to form a support group, Point Counters Anonymous, to deal with the tormented souls who received heaping doses of dogma and swallowed some, if not all. Charles Parker, maybe more of a historian than I am, is simply taking a critical look at ridgeology and those who believe this approach lifted us from the stone age, and that sounds like he is being pretty scientific to me.

One thing puzzled me for years, and when you mentioned his name along with Bill Babler's, I think I came up with an answer. Cummins had a strong and long lived association with the IAI, gave numerous presentations at conferences, and seemed to have great respect, even admiration, for those characterized as hopelessly in the dark before ridgeology. I wondered what a nice boy from Indiana who made quite a name for himself studying opposum tails and human hand prints, who was well educated and a proponent of science found so fascinating in a bunch of uninformed fingerprint people. Then I remember what Bill Babler said to me one time. "All I did was just gather the data and interpret it. You guys really do something with that." Yeah, even point counters do.

Dear Bohemian:

As usual when I start one of these threads then something comes along where I do not have the opportunity to stay on it. Either a priority rush at work or family! This time I had both, but I am happy because I now have a new grandson.

I think David has said a lot of what I think and believe and I want to thank him for jumping in on this thread. He makes far better sense than I do.

But I would like to add a couple of points from my view. You mention this is a lot about people and not references. First the articles I was referring to were in Fingerprint Whorld. Go through the issues of 2006 and you will find the two articles I am referring to.

I agree that it is people that make the errors and blunders and not the methodologies. None of the following comparison methodologies were developed with the intent to make errors. Not any of the Demonstrative Models (Galtons 1892, Seymour Trace 1913, French Photographic Strip 1920, Overlay 1942) or the Grid Models (Osborn 1910, Osterburg 1977) or the Geometric Models (German 1935, Mairs 1942, Hare 2003) or the Evaluative Models (Moenssens 1971, Olsen 1978, Ashbaugh 1983, Grieve 1988) or the Analytical Models (Huber 1962, Dick 1969, Ashbaugh 1991, Tuthill 1994) or the Hypothesis Models (Wertheim 2000, Beeton 2003, Triplett/Cooney 2006), were designed to make errors. It is true that some have problems in dealing with all aspects of latent print comparison but not one was designed with the full intent of making an error. Comparative Methodologies (Identification Process) are like the Error Rate. They are operator dependent.

I think we will just have to agree that we disagree about the arrested development. That is a totally subjective point of view and I do not think I would be able to convince you without a lot of documentation any more than you might be able convince me without a lot of documentation. It is belief that we do not share and leave it at that.

For the part about education! I am in the middle. I have a BS from the Univ. of MD, with some work towards a Masters that I hope to finish some time soon. I say that so that my comments may not see to come from someone without a degree. I have a great deal of respect for education. There are those who read this post who have written in the past about Experience, Education, and Initiative. I put them in the following order that I think is the most important Initiative, Experience, and Education. When I talk about experience I am talking about real experience not just making time. You can have 14 years of experience or you can have one year of experience repeated 14 times. Education is good thing to have but I have seen those with a degree plow themselves into the ground the same as those without one (as Dave pointed out). We would all hope that education would elevate someone to a level of knowledge, intelligence, and reasoning skills. However education is not foolproof and it does have an error rate. Education might solve some problems with the science of fingerprints but it will not stop the erroneous ID’s, the bad judgments, or the poor reasoning skills. The comment about a guy in high heels in the 1960’s memo was cute. But I believe he had several degrees.

On to your second post. You and I could both tell horror stories about individuals that were trained traditional (old timers) or ridgeology. You are right we are talking about people. Maybe this can resolve the issue.

I like to think of myself as a Historian and Philosopher in this area (some would disagree and that is fine), but when someone says there is a split my first question is “define a split”, when someone says experienced examiners cling to dogma, I want to know what percentage of those practicing would enable a split or clinging to dogma.----1%, 10%, 25%, 50%. One person does not make a riot. Ten people disagreeing with someone does not mean a discipline split or that the discipline is clinging to dogma.

One, two or three old timers giving you that line about the FBI, I would not consider a split. If I jump up and say it is snowing outside, does that mean it is snowing everywhere? No it does not. If someone tells me that a couple of old timers said A + B = Z does that mean that all old timers mean that. If a Ridgeologist is asked in court about the number of points they observed and the Ridgeologist states that he does not use points to make a determination, does that mean every Ridgeologist does not use points? Of course not!

I think that an open ended statement without justification, citations, or references is not a good thing or a good journalistic practice. The news media writers are not supposed to use open ended statements unless they are quoting someone (or writing an editorial) so why should we allow it.

Charlie, I think you make considerable sense on your own. Perhaps there is a stage in a person's career, plus having a certain passion for history as it really happened, that misrepresentations in any form become more irritating and in need for someone to call time out. Chewing on rusty nails or taking a stroll in the glass chards aside, I was pleased to see someone make the effort. We are bombarded by enough hyperbole in our daily lives that sometimes it seems we are in fun house where every mirror reflects different distorted images and reality gets harder and harder to determine. We have plenty of old dogs doing just fine in the era of ridgeology and some who are not. Period.

I am reminded of a series of articles from the 1930s in which the subject was almost the same. There were unqualified people mucking up the scene back then, and the hue and cry was to weed them out so that reputable examiners, no doubt point counters all, would not be tarnished by their incompetent shenanigans. The litmus test as to separating good guys from bad were different, but the intent was the same. In spite of some pretty heavy emotional rhetoric, the IAI wisely stayed out of the battle. According to my own theory, World War II solved this problem by decimating the work force, good and bad.

In spite of Ashbaugh's statements that numerical minimums were all the rage prior to 1973, I can't find evidence this was an official policy of any major agency or even a de facto standard spread by word of mouth. I doubt too many people were following the Locard approach, 12 ever, 8 never, for I find no reference to the Frenchman in early texts, perhaps because anyone who supported Bertillon was suspect. But I do believe that point counting, minimums and a whole lot of dogma came into play after the war when there was a big push to replenish the herd. Even history was abbreviated and simplified into the big three, Herschel, Galton and Henry, with an emphasis on the practical, not the theoretical. Chris Coombes, a marvelous man with a droll sense of humor, described the post-war training as the "bop system" during which original thought, serious questioning and any deviation from the program provoked a bop to the head. As Chris concluded, following the script was not matter of voluntary and reasoned agreement to the instruction but of self preservation. He may be right.

After reading Charles's latest post I thought there were some good places to comment and continue the debate. All that changed with the last post. I am only left with the words that opened this thread:

Charles Parker wrote: WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP. That statement has so many fallacies in it that I cannot even begin to respond to it.

The rift that was mentioned is real. I don't believe the degree is minuscule, as it has been portrayed in this thread. I believe that by denying that it exists, and falling back on the same old "run around" that has been used the last 30 years is bogus (Hey, I looked and I couldn't find a point standard in writing so that means we were practicing ridgeology).

I fear the rift will just continue to widen unless there is a genuine attempt to move past rhetorical maneuvers that do more to label the endeavor as a science than to actually practice science.