NPR Report on the NAS Report

NPR authored an arti­cle point­ing out that the push to form a national foren­sic over­sight com­mit­tee has stalled. Could it be that the gov­ern­ment has more impor­tant things on their hands now days than the cre­ation of a new bureau­cratic body? The end result of which would undoubt­edly the rec­om­men­da­tion for leg­is­la­tion, or cre­ation of reg­u­la­tions, that dic­tate what will be con­sid­ered “sci­en­tific fact.”

Scientific debate amongst experts in a given field are what increase our knowl­edge of sci­ence. It’s the “Free Market” of sci­ence if you will. Scientists with oppos­ing views per­form exper­i­ments that either prove or dis­prove their hypoth­e­sis — it’s called the Scientific Method.

The cre­ation of a gov­ern­ment over­sight bureau­cracy to “dic­tate” what is accept­able will do more to harm the pub­lic in the long run, than the rare case with human errors paraded out in the press. Once healthy sci­en­tific debate is effec­tively “squashed”, there will be no force dri­ving the improve­ment of foren­sic science.

Consider the fol­low­ing com­ment be Gastonis, co-chair of the com­mit­tee who authored the report.

As a sci­en­tist, Gatsonis says he is dis­ap­pointed to see the turf bat­tles — but as a cit­i­zen he is not surprised.

It’s not a ques­tion of turf bat­tles. It’s a mat­ter of peo­ple who no prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence on the sub­ject mat­ter writ­ing a scathing report, bas­ing it on their own area of exper­tise. For exam­ple, imag­ine a group of podi­a­trists blast­ing the way heart dis­ease in treated.

As writ­ten before, the amount of time the com­mit­tee spent get­ting edu­cated on firearms iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was approx­i­mately 30 min­utes. The amount of time it takes to be trained in the field, even with a sci­ence and firearms back­ground, is between 2 — 3 years.

There isn’t a prob­lem with the sci­ence. The issues that we see have to do with “insti­tu­tional bias” and ana­lysts over-stating their conclusions/results in trial. In short, the prob­lem with foren­sic sci­ence isn’t the sci­ence, it’s the forensic.

One com­menter on the NPR web­site might have hit the nail on the head with this comment:

The Legos (thele­gos) wrote:

Maybe the panel mem­bers wanted cushy gov­ern­ment jobs in a new bureaucracy?

Monday, August 24, 2009 9:57:13 AM

Original arti­cle posted here:

The world of foren­sic sci­ence has been in tur­moil for the last six months since a pres­ti­gious panel released a study rais­ing seri­ous ques­tions about many foren­sic tech­niques from hair analy­sis to fingerprints.

Those tech­niques have col­lec­tively resulted in thou­sands of peo­ple land­ing in prison — and now groups within the foren­sic sci­ence com­mu­nity are fight­ing over what the next steps should be.

Physicist Thomas Bohan says sci­en­tists knew for years that many foren­sic tech­niques “lacked sci­en­tific eval­u­a­tion,” but there was no polit­i­cal will to do any­thing about it. Now the report by the National Academy of Sciences offers “an open­ing, an oppor­tu­nity,” Bohan says.

“It will be a ter­ri­ble shame if change doesn’t take place,” says Bohan, who is pres­i­dent of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

An Argument Over Next Steps

But every time there is a push for change, there are polit­i­cal bat­tles about what kind of change is best. The debate over foren­sic sci­ence is no different.

Crime lab direc­tors want big­ger bud­gets and more staff. Scientists want to start with research into which foren­sic tech­niques are valid.

Some key rec­om­men­da­tions from the peo­ple who wrote the report don’t have much sup­port from any­one. For exam­ple, the report rec­om­mends cre­at­ing an inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion to over­see foren­sic techniques.

“There is no entity like this right now,” says Constantine Gatsonis, who co-chaired the com­mit­tee that wrote the foren­sic sci­ences report. “And hence what you’ve seen is every entity pulling in [its] own way. My per­sonal opin­ion is that real progress is going to be very dif­fi­cult with­out such an entity.”

But that pro­posal now looks all but dead.

Scott Burns, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the National District Attorneys Association, says his mem­bers “don’t agree with set­ting up a national insti­tute of foren­sic sci­ence, another bureaucracy.”

Congress will make these deci­sions. And a Senate Judiciary Committee staffer — speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity because the mat­ter is still under dis­cus­sion — said that in this eco­nomic cli­mate it seems unlikely the gov­ern­ment will cre­ate a new body to over­see foren­sic science.

Accreditation, Certification And Further Research

There are some steps every­one appears to agree on, accord­ing to Burns, such as accred­i­ta­tion of all pub­lic and pri­vate labs, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of foren­sic ana­lysts and sci­en­tists and uni­ver­sal stan­dards for cer­tain foren­sic techniques.

Everyone also seems to agree that some areas will need fur­ther research.

For exam­ple, Bohan of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences points to shaken baby syn­drome. Parents and care­givers have been con­victed of mur­der on the the­ory that a cer­tain type of inter­nal bleed­ing is almost always caused by shak­ing a baby.

“We have respected peo­ple on both sides of the med­ical pro­fes­sion speak­ing very loudly and now with greater and greater vit­riol as to whether that the­ory is legit­i­mate,” Bohan says. “We’ve got to have some­body like the National Academy of Sciences look at all of the stud­ies that are put forth as val­i­dat­ing that the­ory — and see whether they’re valid.”

The money for such projects has to come from Congress, and all sum­mer con­stituent groups have been meet­ing with law­mak­ers and their staff, try­ing to win over the decision-makers.

“What is hap­pen­ing at this point is the var­i­ous con­stituen­cies are try­ing to see how best the report fits into their own agen­das,” Gatsonis says.

As a sci­en­tist, Gatsonis says he is dis­ap­pointed to see the turf bat­tles — but as a cit­i­zen he is not surprised.