[mrguyorama]

Police LOVE using BS "science" in their work. So many "forensic methods" are just bogus, completely made up by one guy who tours the country selling his "method" to police departments. Most of them are even regularly used in court, despite being utter trash. As long as you can get an "Expert" to take some money to say it in court, a judge will allow it, and allow juries to believe it is as true as cops say.

[rossant]

That is true for a number of forensic methods, indeed [1]. For the sole issue of the controversial diagnosis of abusive head trauma (one forensic method among many other, which specifically involves sudden infant deaths or collapses), there may be thousands of wrongful convictions. Courts deserve better.

[1] https://cifsjustice.org/about-cifs/reform-in-forensic-scienc...

[2] https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-sha...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402

[Atheros]

And so trivial to falsify. In this case, put your own DNA in and see that the picture output doesn't look like you.

For fiber analysis, give the expert some fibers of known origin and see if they get it right. Give them some hair from one of 200 people; see if they can tell who it's from. None of that got done for decades. Police and judges clearly do not care.

[FireBeyond]

> completely made up by one guy who tours the country selling his "method" to police departments

... oftentimes that one guy is an ex-cop. No bias there.