Saving Us from Ourselves: Re-creating Forensic Science
A reprint of an article that's barely available. By Max M. Houck and Lawrence Quarino
Historically, forensic science did not originate from a culture of research; rather, academicians and medical specialists applied their knowledge of basic science for questions of criminal activity.1 This has led to those involved in non-forensic academic circles to sometimes view forensic science as “only an applied science” or a lesser area of study.
In these academicians’ view, because forensic science is not a basic science — seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone — they fail to see its value as discipline. On the forensic side, some practitioners feel that academicians misunderstand and misapply forensic science because they have not worked in a forensic laboratory (“Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.”). We, along with many others, think these two viewpoints must change.
For example, assume that someone asks, “What is the error rate for fingerprints?” The answer from certain quarters is, “The error rate of the method is zero.” Any scientist knows that no method in science has a zero-error rate — it is simply not possible. Every measurement has some inherent error; that is the entire reason for statistics. In any series of measurements, each of those measurements will be off by some amount. Knowing how much they are off and in what direction they are off gives a better sense of what the true measurement is. By saying, “There is no error in this,” you are willfully blinding yourself to the nature of science and to what needs to be done for that discipline. “No error” is not an empirically provable answer and, therefore, outside the realm of science. This answer is of a legal mindset, not a scientific one. Undoubtedly, forensic fingerprinting can be conducted as a science and an error rate can be deduced, as several research efforts suggest.2 When a forensic expert says to an academic, “You could not possibly understand the subtleties or what I do,” a red flag should fly. If a method is scientific, it has to be able to be learned, communicated, and replicated. These are some of the hallmarks of science.3
Conversely, when academicians look down their noses at an applied science, they ignore the potential that forensic science offers to research and teaching.4 Forensic scientists historically have been too busy working cases to conduct research — that has not been their jurisdictional mandate — although it is their scientific mandate. The fundamental principles and theories that allow forensic scientists to perform their work have not been made explicit. This, however, does not mean they do not exist.
Marcel Proust said, methodology, when made explicit in writing, is like a price tag on a suit of clothing. Indeed, our discipline’s philosophy is inherent in every measurement we take. The physicist P. W. Bridgman stated:
In general we mean by any concept nothing more than a set of operations; the concept is synonymous with the corresponding set of operations.5
If you take a measurement, you have to have a theory of some sort; otherwise, how would you know what measurement to take? For example, if you're measuring length, some reason or some principle tells you length is important. And if that length is measured in millimeters, then scale is important, as opposed to doing it in inches, yards, or miles.
As forensic scientists, we have not had the time or the leisure to tease out the philosophy or theories and make them apparent; concepts, such as individualization6 (a set with one and only one member as a source) and exchange7 (when two objects come into contact, information is exchanged), point the way. Academia has done this with their theories, but that is part of what they do: knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Forensic scientists need to be more open about examining their discipline and their methods. They should allow academicians to point out a few holes that could be patched. By the same token, academicians need to roam out of their “ivory towers” and talk with forensic practitioners so they will be able to understand what it is that they do. A fundamental difference exists between what forensic scientists do and what chemists and biologists do. The two sides need to step across that artificial line. It is interesting to note that in its early history, chemistry suffered the same sort of bias as an applied science.8
If they do not cross that line themselves, they will be dragged across it. The pressures on the profession will be so great from the legal side that the forensic scientists will have no choice but to go to the academicians to adopt more scientific process es. Just saying you are a scientist does not make it so. Regurgitating what has been handed down from forensic generation to forensic generation is not instruction — it is indoctrination. Likewise, forensic science academic programs will not be perceived as valid unless what is being taught is what happens in a forensic laboratory. Academicians who have never worked in a forensic laboratory will be at a disadvantage unless they have spent time with forensic professionals. Instructors who are one chapter ahead of the students in the textbook do not serve the students or the forensic community very well. A sabbatical program, where academicians spend six months in a forensic laboratory and forensic bench workers spend that time doing research at a university, would serve a huge benefit. Laboratory directors, however, often say they cannot spare an employee for that long — how can they afford not to? As a discipline, forensic science would seem to have ignored its professional mandate and drifted more toward “forensic” than staying anchored in “science.”
The Forensic Science Educational Program Accreditation Commission (FEPAC) has addressed some problems in forensic science education, but other subtle issues persist.9 The FEPAC accredited programs have curricula based on the FEPAC standards. Within those standards are individual items, such as a class on “forensic chemistry” or “evidence processing.” What do those classes mean? Who is instructing these classes? Is it an academician with no professional experience or a forensic expert who is lecturing received dogma? Programs must have a valid, verified curriculum in order for the students to really learn. And if you do not have practitioners — with or without Ph.D.s — involved in the program, you're not going to have a valid curriculum. For instance, can a program in trace evidence, those items of evidence that because of their size or texture are readily transferred, be really viable if it does not have forensic scientists to explain fiber identification as well as the chemist who can explain polymer chemistry? The reluctance of colleges and universities to put non-Ph.D. forensic scientists on tenure tracks or even to hire non-Ph.D.s at all impedes the legitimacy and development of forensic programs. Institutions that see forensic science a “fad” major and do not invest in their programs as they would any other discipline, are only cheating themselves and their students.
There is a difference between training and education, between technique and science, between a positive set of methods and an open scientific discipline. We have to remember those points as we move forward. If we do not, both academicians and professionals are going to be missing out on opportunities to improve. Merging the theoretical and the practical, which works only when both academics and professionals cross the boundary of professional culture, is key towards re-creating the profession and science of Forensic Science.
Max M. Houck is the Director of the Forensic Science Initiative, a program that develops research and resources for the forensic industry. Houck is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and Director of Forensic Business Research and Development in the WVU College of Business and E onomics. He is a Research Fellow at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia. Houck is the Chairman of the Forensic Science Educational Program Accreditation Commission and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal Forensic Sciences, Journal of Forensic Identification, and Science and Justice.
Lawrence Quarino is the Director of the Forensic Science Program at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He received a doctorate from the City University of New York and a Master of Science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He spent eleven years as a supervising forensic biologist at the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office and three years as a forensic scientist with the New Jersey State Police. He currently serves as a Commissioner with the Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission and on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Criminalistics.
Originally published in Forensic Magazine Feb/Mar, 2008, pages 39-41.
Postscript
This article I wrote with Larry was brought up recently at the laboratory directors and educators meeting I attended in Philadelphia and commented on in this Substack. I didn’t have a copy, so I leaned on the Florida International University Forensic Research Library to hunt it down (disclaimer: FIU is my day job). Shameless plug: The Forensic Research Library is free; all you have to pay is attention.
I still agree with much of this. Individualization is an intellectually barren concept, however; uniqueness is given, but individualization cannot be proven. The gap between the profession and academia persists (hence, the recent meeting) but there are more than two players in this. The lab directors point to the forensic programs, but the universities themselves need to be made aware of the issues being discussed. Human resources and student advising centers also should be at the table or at least have the outcomes of these kinds of meetings brought to them. I’ve had students who were given completely wrong information about getting jobs in forensic organizations by student advising centers who thought they were doing the right thing. I’ve also had human resources filter out completely acceptable (and sometimes preferred) candidates based on a misunderstanding of the qualifications or the job description. This is not to absolve the forensic organizations or academia of blame in this (if blame is the right word), but that there are adjacent forces at work that cause confusion and misunderstandings.
I’m working with colleagues at FIU to create a survey for forensic organizations to determine what skills they think are important for new hires in biology and chemistry. From that, I hope we can work backwards to fundamental curricula that everyone recognizes as important for forensic work, without shortchanging students’ education. Universities are not trade schools (and there’s nothing wrong with trade schools; many students are choosing that career path. I’d like to make what my plumber makes) and forensic organizations do not want robots (insert AI joke here). Nevertheless, coming to agreement about what an education in forensic science means to having a career as a forensic science professional is a fundamental issue. Chemistry has done it and so has biology. If we can’t do that, maybe we’re not a real science after all.
Thorwald, J., Crime and Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966.
See, for example, Wertheim, K., Langenburg, G.., and Moenssens, A. “A report of Iatent print examiner accuracy during comparison training exercises.” Journal of Forensic Identification, 56(1) 2006.
Kuhn, T.S., The Structure of Scientific Revolution, 1st edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Nose, RF, “Science on the bridge.” Conservation Biology, 14(2) 2000.
Bridgman, PW., The Logic of Modern Physics. New York: Macmillan, 1927; p. 5, original italics.
Kirk, P.L. “Criminalistics.” Science, 140 1963.
Locard, E., Manual of Police Techniques, 3rd edition. Paris: Payot 1939.
Pyenson, L., and Pyenson-Sheets, S. Servants of Nature. New York: Norton & Company, 1999.
National Institute of Justice. “In short, Addressing shortfalls in forensic science education.” May 2007. <www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij>. The FEPAC standards can be found at www.aafs.org.