Jim_Smith
New
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/ninety-five_per095821.html
"Ninety-five Percent of Forensic Scientists Agree..."
Michael Egnor May 5, 2015 3:12 PM
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In a stunning revelation the FBI has admitted that it provided flawed forensic testimony on hundreds of cases in the two decades prior to the year 2000. The FBI forensic experts falsely stated forensic matches that favored prosecutors 95% of the time in the over 200 cases reviewed so far.
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The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.
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It is primarily a scandal of the scientific community. The testimony clearly reflected a consensus within the community of forensic scientists who testify for the FBI. The fundamental scandal is that the FBI took scientists at their word -- that their scientific findings were consensus science, and therefore good science.
In the courtroom, scientists favored the prosecution (their employer) 95 percent of the time. This echoes government-funded global warming scientists' claim that "97% of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is occurring."
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No doubt the forensic scientists insisted, as climate scientists and evolutionary biologists still insist, that their findings were facts, and that there is a scientific consensus to support their proclamations.
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Consensus climate science and consensus evolutionary biology are no more credible than consensus forensic science. If anything, forensic scientists' ethical standards are higher than those of climate scientists and evolutionary biologists, who don't proclaim their theories in situations in which life and freedom are immediately at stake, who are unaccountable to the justice system, and who aren't under oath when they make their proclamations about scientific unanimity.
This lesson is clear: consensus science isn't science. Consensus science is groupthink, ideology-mongering, and censorship masquerading as science. Science is a continuous process of inquiry. We should reject "consensus science" in the courtroom, in the classroom, and in the public square.
"Ninety-five Percent of Forensic Scientists Agree..."
Michael Egnor May 5, 2015 3:12 PM
...
In a stunning revelation the FBI has admitted that it provided flawed forensic testimony on hundreds of cases in the two decades prior to the year 2000. The FBI forensic experts falsely stated forensic matches that favored prosecutors 95% of the time in the over 200 cases reviewed so far.
...
The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.
...
It is primarily a scandal of the scientific community. The testimony clearly reflected a consensus within the community of forensic scientists who testify for the FBI. The fundamental scandal is that the FBI took scientists at their word -- that their scientific findings were consensus science, and therefore good science.
In the courtroom, scientists favored the prosecution (their employer) 95 percent of the time. This echoes government-funded global warming scientists' claim that "97% of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is occurring."
...
No doubt the forensic scientists insisted, as climate scientists and evolutionary biologists still insist, that their findings were facts, and that there is a scientific consensus to support their proclamations.
...
Consensus climate science and consensus evolutionary biology are no more credible than consensus forensic science. If anything, forensic scientists' ethical standards are higher than those of climate scientists and evolutionary biologists, who don't proclaim their theories in situations in which life and freedom are immediately at stake, who are unaccountable to the justice system, and who aren't under oath when they make their proclamations about scientific unanimity.
This lesson is clear: consensus science isn't science. Consensus science is groupthink, ideology-mongering, and censorship masquerading as science. Science is a continuous process of inquiry. We should reject "consensus science" in the courtroom, in the classroom, and in the public square.