1. The controversy of fingerprint analysis
  • Fingerprint analysis (natural sciences) is considered to be a reliable and accurate forensic science technique because everyone’s fingerprint has unique features
  • It is not infallible – the FBI found fingerprint analysis could have a false positive rate to be as high as 1 error in 306 cases
  • Example: 2004 Madrid train bombings
    • Brandon Mayfield was falsely accused of the train bombing because the FBI made a false positive match
    • Three separate examiners matched his fingerprint to one on a bag of detonators
    • However, the FBI realized that the fingerprint also matched with someone else’s fingerprint who was in Spain at the time
    • They considered Brandon Mayfield as a good suspect because he converted to Islam and he was a lawyer for a man who attempted to join the Taliban (military organization in Afghanistan) – bias, intuition
    • In the wake of 9/11 they were all “red flags” for the FBI
    • According to professor Jennifer Mnookin, Forensic scientists can prejudice their work subconsciously and feel like they are part of a side if they know the case in detail
  • C.S.I effect (Human Sciences)
  • The exaggerated portrayal of forensic science on crime television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation influences public perception
    • They have high expectations and trust in scientific evidence 
    • Jurors expect to see forensic science in every case
  • “expert witnesses have often overstated the probative value of their evidence, going far beyond what the relevant science can justify”
  • “To a reasonable degree of scientific certainty” – convincing language (WOK)

2. Covid-19 discrimination against Asian Americans

  • Increasing violence against Asian Americans
  • Impact of Trump’s speech “Chinese Virus”
  • In February, an Asian American high school student in the San Fernando Valley was admitted to the emergency room after an attack by bullies who accused him of having the virus

3. Prescription of Opioids in the US

  • Should doctors prescribe opioids as painkillers?
  • Opioids epidemic – 250 million prescription every year
  • “Opioidphobia” – people with stage 4 cancer did not receive opioid, undertreating pain
  • Pseudoaddiction is a condition where a patient is experiencing severe pain, as a result of a chronic illness but the signs and symptoms of this are misunderstood – WOK: intuition, sense perception

Final Real-Life Situation:

Robert Lee Stinson is an innocent man who was wrongfully accused of rape and murder of a 63-year-old woman, Ione Cychosz. Cychosz’s body was discovered in a vacant lot close to Stinson’s backyard in November 1984. Bite marks, that were left on the body, were analyzed by Dr. Lowell T. Johnson, a forensic dentist, who concluded that the bite marks “had to have been made by teeth identical” to Stinson’s, and claimed that there was “no margin for error” in his conclusion. The State also called Dr. Raymond Rawson, the chairman of the Bite Mark Standards Committee of the American Board of Forensic Odontologists, who testified that the evidence in the case was “high quality” and “overwhelming.” Due to the false-positive result given by these two forensic odontologists, he was sentenced to life in prison. In 2005, the Wisconsin Innocence Project took up Stinson’s case and alleged that the forensic evidence was faulty and DNA evidence was reassessed that proved that Stinson is innocent.

Knowledge Questions:

To what extent is scientific evidence gained through the use of technology genuine?

To what extent does language make scientific evidence so convincing?

To what extent can scientific evidence be subjective?

TOK Concepts

  • Language
    • the language of mathematics
    • overstating their evidence – the convincing phrase “reasonable degree of scientific certainty”
  • Lack of accuracy
    • fallacies
    • weak judgment
    • casual reasoning (cause and effect)
    • subjectivity
  • Error rates – fundamentals of science

Other RLSs

  • Santae Tribble served 23 years in prison, with an additional five years for parole violations, in the murder and armed robbery of a D.C. cab driver that DNA testing later proved he did not commit.An FBI analyst testified that one of the hairs from the stocking mask linked Tribble to the crime and “matched in all microscopic characteristics.” The prosecution then emphasized this analysis in closing, saying that there was perhaps “one chance in ten million” that the hair could have belonged to anyone other than Tribble. Hair microscopy, an inexact science, cannot yield a “match;” the prosecutor exaggerated the analyst’s testimony and invented the impressive statistic.
  • Harward, who narrowly escaped the death penalty, was convicted primarily on the testimony of two forensic dentists who said that Harward’s teeth matched marks left on the rape victim. During the course of his prosecution 6 forensic dentists falsely claimed that Harward’s teeth matched a bite mark on one of the victims.  New DNA evidence definitively proved Harward’s innocence and pointed to Jerry Crotty as the real assailant.
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