The Return of the Bite Marks
Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 8:47 am
Forensics dentists are working out the specifications for bite mark measurements toward the end of establishing a data base.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/ ... TE=DEFAULT
The AP story pretty well covers the Marquette University news release, and I wanted to link to something with this astounding quote:
"If the discipline lends itself to opposing experts, it's not science," said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, which works to free wrongfully convicted inmates.
Dear me. And this is from an organization, purporting to possess considerable legal expertise (if getting amicus briefs through the door of the SCOTUS counts), with a specific interest in appealing convictions. Now, a lot of those appeals involve claims of mental conditions and intellectual abilities that are presented through the testimony of their psychological and psychiatric experts. They take it for granted that other experts will contribute conclusions more or less in opposition. It's virtually a given that there will be opposing experts. In a great many cases, their own experts are opposing the on-the-record conclusions of experts from trial. It seems Mr. Neufeld misspoke and meant to say that a field in which experts can disagree is not a science, unless it suits they sponsor it. (Or that no one who opposes experts who suit us are real experts.)
Is there a non-trivial forensics field in which experts always agree? He got it entirely backwards. If the discipline doesn't lend itself to opposing experts, there hasn't been enough study to call it a science.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/ ... TE=DEFAULT
The AP story pretty well covers the Marquette University news release, and I wanted to link to something with this astounding quote:
"If the discipline lends itself to opposing experts, it's not science," said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, which works to free wrongfully convicted inmates.
Dear me. And this is from an organization, purporting to possess considerable legal expertise (if getting amicus briefs through the door of the SCOTUS counts), with a specific interest in appealing convictions. Now, a lot of those appeals involve claims of mental conditions and intellectual abilities that are presented through the testimony of their psychological and psychiatric experts. They take it for granted that other experts will contribute conclusions more or less in opposition. It's virtually a given that there will be opposing experts. In a great many cases, their own experts are opposing the on-the-record conclusions of experts from trial. It seems Mr. Neufeld misspoke and meant to say that a field in which experts can disagree is not a science, unless it suits they sponsor it. (Or that no one who opposes experts who suit us are real experts.)
Is there a non-trivial forensics field in which experts always agree? He got it entirely backwards. If the discipline doesn't lend itself to opposing experts, there hasn't been enough study to call it a science.