CLPEX Chat Board

Following Quote--My Emphasis.

A MARINA RESIDENCE ON THE 3300 BLOCK OF DREW STREET WAS BURGLARIZED. ENTRY WAS

GAINED BY BREAKING THE WINDOW TO THE GARAGE SIDE DOOR. ITEMS TAKEN INCLUDE A SONY

HANDY-CAM AND MISCELLANEOUS JEWELRY. PARTIAL LATENT FINGERPRINTS WERE COLLECTED. NO

WITNESSES WERE LOCATED AND NO SUSPECT INFORMATION PROVIDED.

Has anyone ever seen a FULL Latent Print. If you have I would like to see it. I have never seen a FULL Latent Print---which of course must exist because PARTIAL Latent Prints exist.

I know just let it go because it is just semantics.

(Triva---Did you know Semantics is classified as a science--Wonder what their error rate is? I wonder how you do Semantics Blind---Of course a blind person could do semantics, but Blind Semantics Does Semantics fit Poppers Falsibility Principle? So many questions---so little time!)

Charles,

I've seen partial major case prints.

Gee, Charles. Slow morning on Springdale Road?

You may be pleased (or not) that, so far as I can find, only you and Rudy Giuliani have ever used the term "blind semantics" (Republican debate 9/5/07).

And then you have to call up Popper's Falsifiability Principle. Popper would not accept the uniqueness of fingerprints as a scientific theory, since it cannot be practically tested for falsity. We can retreat to Likelihood Principle, but not now. Probability notations give me a twinge in the load-bearing regions. I have no idea what Popper would say about the Parker Partial Print Principle.

"Son, no matter how far you travel, or how smart you get, always remember this: Someday, somewhere, a guy is going to show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is never broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that the jack of spades will jump out of this deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not bet him, for as sure as you do you are going to get an ear full of cider."
-- Damon Runyon

Steve---You are right I have seen partial major case prints, I have seen partial inked prints, but a partial latent print is kind of like looking for that 10-print card that contains all Radial Loops-----It just does not exist to my knowledge at this time.

(For those scratching their heads----did you know that we have 10-print cards with 10 A’s, some with 10 T’s, a bunch with 10 Ulnar’s, and quite a few with 10 Whorls, but no one has one with 10 Radial Loops---go ahead and run to those files and take a look).

Gerald---I am shocked. If you look at the time I posted it was before I punched in. I got in early that day and wanted to do a little rant to exercise my fingers. Heaven forbid I do one of those while I am on the clock. You know how managers can be.

Gerald Said

And then you have to call up Popper's Falsifiability Principle. Popper would not accept the uniqueness of fingerprints as a scientific theory, since it cannot be practically tested for falsity. We can retreat to Likelihood Principle, but not now. Probability notations give me a twinge in the load-bearing regions. I have no idea what Popper would say about the Parker Partial Print Principle.

Gerald, I do not know if I agree with that. Here is what I have in my file on Popper and I have hi-lightened the areas of interest that might disagree with your statement.

These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows.
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. 5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.
published in Conjectures and Refutations (1963).by Karl R. Popper

#3 Fingerprints forbid the reproduction of exact friction ridge skin. Cannot get much more forbidden than that.
#4 I can conceive of an event that if exact friction ridge skin of two different people were found the theory would be false. Everytime a comparison is made the falsebility is tested. There is always the possibility that someone, somewhere, at sometime will find those two areas of exact reproduction between two different people. Then the theory is refuted.

I think Popper would agree that Fingerprints is based upon science.

From my POV it is based upon science but the actual physical and mental action of comparison is analytical in nature and does not constitute the steps of The Scientific Method. (Wow---that should fire some of them up).