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wills
01-11-2006, 09:31 AM
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/metropolitan/3579143

johniv
01-11-2006, 01:58 PM
Interesting, I sure dont understand some of the numbers bandied about by thosefolks when talking about their tests being conclusive to the factor of "one in 5 bazillion " or some such. I remember when fingerprints were infallable and "no two were alike" etc. Nope cant be a mistake.
John

9.3X62AL
01-11-2006, 04:37 PM
One of the HUGE disservices done to our citizens by cop shows like "CSI-Wherever" is the impression left that 1) DNA or other forensic evidence is stand-alone-infallible and 2) that other investigative methods and contributions to a case are irrelevant or secondary. NOTHING could be further from fact. Physical evidence is wonderful to have, surely--fingerprints, DNA, splatter patterns, ballistics, the list goes on. But--it cannot stand on its own two feet and point the finger of culpability.

Neither can a witness statement. Or a suspect statement, even if he/she cops out straight-up. Or circumstantial indications. ALL THE GEARS HAVE TO MESH. If there's a hole in the information, you had better find some DEFENSIBLE FACTS to fill it with, or that hole will be the lance that the defense attorney will shove a case-fatal lance through.

I can only speculate as to the source of the problems discussed in the news article. I suspect that some combination of laziness, haste, pressure for "positive" outcomes, sloppy procedures, and failure to double-blind test the results given could play a role. If there is any foundation to these charges--and there's at least "smoke" indicating a fire--the persons responsible have no business doing this work. I cannot fathom the absence of conscience it would take to falsify evidence or findings that could deprive another human being of freedom--or, even life itself.

Let's also not exclude from the mix the reflexive reaction of the news media to spin and expand ANY perceived wrong-doing by public agencies. This is the media's most vital role in our society, but their fervor to engage in these ventures casts at least a shadow of doubt on their reportage for me. And politics......to paraphrase Edward Abbey--swinish politics, our ball and chain.

grumble
01-11-2006, 05:11 PM
I couldn't agree more, Al. A lot of the problem, IMO, is how bureaucracies rate employees' performance. When it comes to run-ins with the law, cops are rated based on valid arrests and evidence gathered, district attornies on cases resolved with convictions, and crime labs are rated on how many convictions they can support, not on how many innocent people are freed.

There've been major scandals in many states, and the FBI lab itself, for either "shading" evidence to help the prosecutors or, in some cases, outright falsification to convict someone the cops "like" for a crime.

Even judges fall into the same "pour the meat into the grinder" attitude. Right or wrong, most judges I've seen will believe a lying prosecution before a truthful ordinary citizen. It takes actual evidence to proove innocence once accused, "innocent until proven guilty" notwithstanding.

In their defense though, the same is true of most people -- most will readily believe something bad about someone, even if just based on gossip.

StarMetal
01-11-2006, 05:44 PM
If you guys wanted to vomit you should be watching the Alito questioning by the Senators on Fox News. Kennedy and Schumer are especially sickening.

Joe

grumble
01-11-2006, 05:58 PM
Actually, I thought the hearings were going pretty well for Alito. The criticism is patently silly, and won't convince anyone except those who were against him before the hearings began. I know I'd sure hate to be held to account for everything I've written in my life, all the way back to my school days.

StarMetal
01-11-2006, 06:25 PM
They are going pretty good. THe only two smucks are Kennedy and Schumer, both of which not only make me sick to listen to, but even to look at, especially Schumer. Tpr Bret...how in the hell do your fellow statemen keep electiong Schumer? ...and I not saying you did. Kennedy (never had any usefulness to begin with) has out served his usefulness a long long long time ago. Yeah it's apparent I don't like the two fellows. I was just watching Schumer drill Alito again just now. Schumer is so arrogant and he makes faces and gestures to make Alito's statement look bad. Those two men aren't there for the reason they are suppose to be. They are bitter Democrats and are there only to shoot down anything the Republicans want to do.

Off that subject those five gang members that got arrested during the last Presidential election procedure for slashing tires on Republican vehicles that were to transport propestive voters to the poll have announced some important information. They were asked at trial who was the blame for this and they said "Blame the Democrat Party" and went on to say that they (Democrats) hired outside people to come into Milwaukee to hire them to slash the tires. Somemore dirty underhanded stuff to win at any costs.

GRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I hate Washington DC

Joe

johniv
01-11-2006, 06:51 PM
Schumer is distasteful enough but Kennedy....I remember him during the Clarence Thomas hearings. Can you imagine being taken to task for conduct with a woman by none other than Teddy Kennedy..??
John

wills
01-11-2006, 07:04 PM
It is a long story involving incompetent lab people with phony credentials, contaminated evidence, etc.

StarMetal
01-11-2006, 07:13 PM
They are going pretty good. THe only two smucks are Kennedy and Schumer, both of which not only make me sick to listen to, but even to look at, especially Schumer. Tpr Bret...how in the hell do your fellow statemen keep electiong Schumer? ...and I not saying you did. Kennedy (never had any usefulness to begin with) has out served his usefulness a long long long time ago. Yeah it's apparent I don't like the two fellows. I was just watching Schumer drill Alito again just now. Schumer is so arrogant and he makes faces and gestures to make Alito's statement look bad. Those two men aren't there for the reason they are suppose to be. They are bitter Democrats and are there only to shoot down anything the Republicans want to do.

Off that subject those five gang members that got arrested during the last Presidential election procedure for slashing tires on Republican vehicles that were to transport propestive voters to the poll have announced some important information. They were asked at trial who was the blame for this and they said "Blame the Democrat Party" and went on to say that they (Democrats) hired outside people to come into Milwaukee to hire them to slash the tires. Somemore dirty underhanded stuff to win at any costs.

GRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I hate Washington DC

Joe

KevMT
01-12-2006, 01:07 PM
I think that this topic speaks to the validity of science in general as it is being practiced today. As a scientist (not a forensic scientist) I quite often see studies done and careers made via science that shouldn't pass a high school science fair, let alone be published somewhere. While outright falsification of information is rare, “spin” the same spin that is used by the popular media is very common.

On of the problems that have been brought up with forensic science is that people are given jobs based on their "credentials". Usually the all-important PhD. Later when it is found out that the PhD was some bogus document handed out at some diploma mill all parties involved are “shocked”. I myself am not shocked at all when this happens, after all people are being handed jobs based on a title rather than their experience, aptitude or abilities. In the science community having a PhD means that you automatically know what you are talking about even if it is outside of your area of training or expertise.

I happen to work with one of these “super genius” PhD’s who tells her students and anyone else that will listen that global warming is 1) without a doubt real and 2) definitively caused by lazy SUV driving Americans. This statement is made by a person who leaves the exterior door open for hours on a state building in 30-degree weather so her dog can freely come and go in the office. Meanwhile she’ll start a state truck and warm it up for 10 minutes to drive 250 yards to the gym and work out.

My point with this little story is that our higher educational system is producing SCIENTISTS that believe that their OPINION is fact because they have some title. Real knowledge of the topic is evidently secondary.

Kev

shooter575
01-13-2006, 01:24 AM
I worrk at a big 10 U. I do love to go on a service call to some post hole diggers [phd] office to explain that they can't pull 32 amps from a 20 amp circuit.Or why the A/C does not work in the dead of winter.Yup body slamming them up aganst a wall of physics [politely] is one of my joys at work.

9.3X62AL
01-13-2006, 11:30 AM
Ph.D. = Post Hole Digger......Marie cracked up at this, but insists that the people being discussed in this context likely would screw that assignment up as well.

That said--an education is only as good as the person who obtained it. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, genius is 10% inspiration and 90% persperation, and the kind of people who fit Shooter 575's description seldom break a sweat, I'm sure. Ya gotta put in the hours in the real world--classrooms are often very sterile environments. Of all the things I learned in my B.A. program, the most certain was that the folks teaching the courses didn't get out much into the real world they were attempting to launch graduates into.

KevMT
01-13-2006, 01:38 PM
Ph.D. = Post Hole Digger......Marie cracked up at this, but insists that the people being discussed in this context likely would screw that assignment up as well.

That said--an education is only as good as the person who obtained it. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, genius is 10% inspiration and 90% persperation, and the kind of people who fit Shooter 575's description seldom break a sweat, I'm sure. Ya gotta put in the hours in the real world--classrooms are often very sterile environments. Of all the things I learned in my B.A. program, the most certain was that the folks teaching the courses didn't get out much into the real world they were attempting to launch graduates into.

I once listened to an undergraduate wildlife biologist student talk about the need for modifying the Kalifornia "no jaw trap law" to allow someone with a biology degree to do research and predator control to help endangered species. She reasoned that, a biologist would be properly trained in their use rather than just some shmoe going around setting traps. I then asked the student if she had ever used a jaw trap (NO!) and had she ever been shown how to correctly place one (NO!). I then asked her why she would be more qualified to use jaw traps than someone who had done it their whole life and maybe been taught the craft by a father or grandfather who also had a lifetime of experience. The last question only got me a hateful look.

versifier
01-13-2006, 04:41 PM
Many Ph D's also qualify for the RCI (Rectal Cranial Inversion), but there seems to be a lot of contenders for it even outside of acedemia. Now, we all have our blind spots, even I might have one, but no one is more arrogant than a person who knows just enough to be dangerous. There was such an individual pontificating on a different forum recently (not a gunloads forum) who seemed to think, by virtue of some huge number of emails with an executive of a certain manufacturer, that everyone had to swallow his poorly reasoned and possibly dangerous opinion, and anyone who didn't was a fool. I pointed out to him that while he certainly had a right to his opinion, other intelligent people were equally free to review the same data and come up with their own conclusions, quite different from his. I said in conclusion, "I can swim, but exchanging a million emails with Flipper will not make me an oceanographer." Out came the flame thrower. God, I like it here in the Asylum.....

KCSO
01-13-2006, 04:45 PM
This is true, I was there...

At a County Agriculture meeting a recent resident of the PETA presuasion was haranging the locals for shooting and poisoning coyotes. Her solution was that they should be trapped in box traps and then neutered and released. Then an old farmer in the back stood up and said,"Lady you don't understand the problem, the coyotes are EATING the sheep".

StarMetal
01-13-2006, 04:56 PM
I saw on the news where PRC was talking about it's oldest inmate on dealt row. Said he was confined to a wheelchair and that he was too old and sick to be put to death. Huh, what, whatya mean, huh, hmmmmm. Hells sounds he's more then halfways there. Would take less of a lethal injection, would save money, not only on the injection but his medical expenses and care. What purpose does his living serve? I mean he wouldn't be on death row if he hadn't done something terrible bad.

On another note an elderly man in New Mexico caught a mouse in his house, live apparently, and took him outside to a burning pile of leaves he had going and tossed him in. Well the mouse caught fire, jumped out the fire, ran back into the house. Yup you guessed, burning it down.

Have a good day

Joe

StarMetal
01-13-2006, 06:00 PM
Funny, Jim mentions PETA and here just a few minutes ago watching Fox News, PETA representatives were on complaining about KFC's cruelity to chickens...hahahahahahahahaha too funny.

Joe

wills
01-13-2006, 06:16 PM
This is true, I was there...

At a County Agriculture meeting a recent resident of the PETA presuasion was haranging the locals for shooting and poisoning coyotes. Her solution was that they should be trapped in box traps and then neutered and released. Then an old farmer in the back stood up and said,"Lady you don't understand the problem, the coyotes are EATING the sheep".

They must have the Coyotes confused with the Carpetman

9.3X62AL
01-13-2006, 07:32 PM
KCSO--

Most public meetings are video-taped these days......if the meeting you describe was so recorded, that little vignette you related would be priceless to have!

Member in good standing of PETA--People Eating Tasty Animals.

Jumptrap
01-13-2006, 08:49 PM
This is true, I was there...

At a County Agriculture meeting a recent resident of the PETA presuasion was haranging the locals for shooting and poisoning coyotes. Her solution was that they should be trapped in box traps and then neutered and released. Then an old farmer in the back stood up and said,"Lady you don't understand the problem, the coyotes are EATING the sheep".

I bet the ewes are all smiling!

wills
01-17-2006, 09:46 AM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3591362.html

Scrounger
01-17-2006, 12:49 PM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3591362.html

Come on, Wills, find the pictures for us...

drinks
01-18-2006, 01:11 AM
Al;
Unless you have been following the story for the last 2 years, you have absolutely no conception of the amount of idoicy, incompentance, coverups, top to bottom and totally dishonest and nasty people in the Houston DA's office, Police dept. and so called "Crime Lab".
It makes the Keystone Kops appear to be a very model of decorum and honesty.
The state DPS lab has also been busted for being screwed up beyond belief.
It would be hilarious if it were not for people getting 10 to 40 years for something they did not do.
Dallas DA sent a bunch of wetbacks , mostly , up for a bunch of years for possesing bags of powdered gypsum, that had been planted on the wetbacks by paid snitches of an "Hispanic" special bunch of detectives , the lab at Dallas confirmed the gypsum as cocaine , no problem.
Really makes you wonder!

wills
01-18-2006, 01:26 AM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/crimelab/2714021.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/3571617.html