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by sigstoat 2684 days ago
this is nonsense.

there are certainly a number of forensic fields which are garbage.

other portions are fine, and are effectively analytical chemistry applied to legal cases. are you aware of a lot of double blind studies in analytical chemistry? what would that even mean?

2 comments

How much of the conclusions drawn from these investigative techniques are justified entirely by analytic chemistry, and how much goes beyond that? Using an example from a related article, there's a substantial difference between being able to say what's the chemical element composition of a particular bullet and being able to identify the particular manufacturing facility and batch it came from. The latter relies on a whole lot of assumptions about the ammunition industry.
>what would that even mean?

I gave an example at the top level comment. Apply the test (blind) to known innocent samples too, and see whether it implicates them.