Notably absent are the guys sentenced to 178 years in prison for bullets that matched, except they weren’t guilty and the match was forensic nonsense. [More]
I'm glad they ended with the Thomas Dolby video to save me the trouble.
We recently discovered a show on Netflix (?) titled "Adam Ruins Everything", the gist of which is comedian Adam Conover exposing the truths and facts that we try to ignore when following society's traditional norms (and he cites his sources, too).
In one episode, Adam exposes the facts behind "forensic science" - essentially, most of what you see on CSI is Hollywood crap, and the "science" real forensics is built on is ALSO mostly crap. For example: - "Fingerprints are unique" is a 19th-century assumption that has never been conclusively proven, crime-scene samples are never perfect (nearly always "partial" and smudged), and the "final match" is still done by human eyes (with all their inherent fallibility and bias). - Eyewitnesses are unreliable; they can be convinced after-the-fact of details they "saw" that in fact weren't there at all, and that assumes that the stress and trauma hasn't already affected their recollection. - Ditto for "ear-witnesses".
In fact, almost all the "forensic science" we take for granted was developed by cops, for cops, with little-to-no scientific oversight or accountability.
The sole exception is DNA evidence, which was developed by real scientists in real labs and SLOWLY integrated itself into crime-scene analysis and associated jurisprudence. It's the reason The Innocence Project has been so successful at overturning so many wrongful convictions. (The example given in the show was a lawyer from Oregon who was convicted of a murder in Spain based on fingerprint evidence [see above] - despite a solid alibi, including having never been to Spain - and later exonerated by DNA evidence.)
Basically, most of CSI is B.S.; "forensic science" leaves a lot of room for "reasonable doubt", if a lawyer knows how to argue real science.
We recently discovered a show on Netflix (?) titled "Adam Ruins Everything", the gist of which is comedian Adam Conover exposing the truths and facts that we try to ignore when following society's traditional norms (and he cites his sources, too).
ReplyDeleteIn one episode, Adam exposes the facts behind "forensic science" - essentially, most of what you see on CSI is Hollywood crap, and the "science" real forensics is built on is ALSO mostly crap. For example:
- "Fingerprints are unique" is a 19th-century assumption that has never been conclusively proven, crime-scene samples are never perfect (nearly always "partial" and smudged), and the "final match" is still done by human eyes (with all their inherent fallibility and bias).
- Eyewitnesses are unreliable; they can be convinced after-the-fact of details they "saw" that in fact weren't there at all, and that assumes that the stress and trauma hasn't already affected their recollection.
- Ditto for "ear-witnesses".
In fact, almost all the "forensic science" we take for granted was developed by cops, for cops, with little-to-no scientific oversight or accountability.
The sole exception is DNA evidence, which was developed by real scientists in real labs and SLOWLY integrated itself into crime-scene analysis and associated jurisprudence. It's the reason The Innocence Project has been so successful at overturning so many wrongful convictions. (The example given in the show was a lawyer from Oregon who was convicted of a murder in Spain based on fingerprint evidence [see above] - despite a solid alibi, including having never been to Spain - and later exonerated by DNA evidence.)
Basically, most of CSI is B.S.; "forensic science" leaves a lot of room for "reasonable doubt", if a lawyer knows how to argue real science.