From: "Dave Ings" 

About 2 years ago there was a lengthy article in the New Yorker magazine on
this topic, built around a recent case in (I believe) Scotland, the details
of which escape me now but in general was about someone who was initially
acused or convicted of a serious crime primarily based on fingerprint
evidence, but who was later exonerated in an irrefutable manner by other
evidence. It was claimed that this was one of the first documented cases
where other evidence considered as compelling as fingerprint evidence was
in direct opposition to it.

The article made two main points, both of which were news/interesting to me:

1. Fingerprint matching is a probabilistic process, it isn't the black and
white "it matches or it doesn't" process of the movies. In large
part, this is because almost all fingerprints lifted from crime scense are
smudged. However this rather large nuance apparently isn't appreciated by
most officers of the court.

2. Forensic science isn't. There is no peer review process, no established
journals of merit, no formal credentials, the practitioners and conferences
have all the characteristics of a typical trade conference, etc. Further,
this manifests itself in all the forensic (dare I say) arts: fingerparts,
fibre matching, etc.

I happened to read this article on a bus travelling from Cardiff to Swansea
(I got kicked off the London to Swansea train due to track repairs :-) )
but while I was reading it, all I could think of was all the mid-90s
scandals of the Ontario Center of Forensic Sciences. Supposedly it was a
"world class" forensic institute, but when the scandals broke,
and several associated convictions overturned, it showed up forensic
science for what it seems it really is - a bunch of clever people taking
their best educated guess under difficult circumstances.
--
Regards,
Dave Ings,
Toronto, Canada

"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
news:40730f34$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994611
> Contrary to what is generally thought, there is little scientific basis
for
> assuming that any two supposedly identical fingerprints unequivocally come
> from the same person. Indeed, according to a report published in December,
> the only major research explicitly commissioned to validate the technique
is
> based on flawed assumptions and an incorrect use of statistics. The
research
> has never been openly peer reviewed.

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