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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stop

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Speaker 1: Work dot com. Hey, so, I just wanted to let

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Speaker 1: you know that Christian and I ended up talking about

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Speaker 1: this topic for a really long time. So we decided

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Speaker 1: to split the episode in two, and this is going

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Speaker 1: to be the first half of our discussion. You can

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Speaker 1: tune in again next time to hear the second half.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick and I'm Christian Sager. So our co host

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Speaker 1: Robert is away this week. He's on vacation, and the

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Speaker 1: two of us thought that this would be a good

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Speaker 1: opportunity to talk about a little side project that we've

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Speaker 1: been working on for like six months now, longer than that.

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Speaker 1: Are you talking about that breeder reactor we've been working on?

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Speaker 1: That's our side side project. This one is is a

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Speaker 1: little bit more on the books. This is the one

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Speaker 1: where we've been looking into d I Y for forensics.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so Christian and I, well may Christian, I

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Speaker 1: want to give you all the credit because it's true

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Speaker 1: that you've had this idea of wanting to produce a

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Speaker 1: video series for How Stuff Works showing how you can

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Speaker 1: do your own forensic science investigations just like you'd see

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Speaker 1: Uh well, I don't want to say just like you'd

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Speaker 1: see on c s I, because it turns out all

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Speaker 1: all that stuff you see is mostly Faye garbage. Um,

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Speaker 1: but like a forensic investigator would do it a crime scene,

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Speaker 1: So so how you can use tools available to you

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Speaker 1: to figure out what happened if say there's blood spatter

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Speaker 1: all over a wall, or if there is a fingerprint

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Speaker 1: left on a surface. And so the first one that

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Speaker 1: we did was like a demo because we wanted to

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Speaker 1: like kind of test it as a proof of concept, right,

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Speaker 1: And we took one of our studios here at how

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Speaker 1: Stuff works and we covered the walls with paper. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we got a mannequin head and put some fake blood

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Speaker 1: packets on it. Yeah. And then um, we've basically had

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel Baumb from Forward Thinking come in with Thor's

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Speaker 1: hammer mulenir, which we just have laying around and just

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Speaker 1: pound on this mannequin's head so that the blood would

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Speaker 1: splatter as if it was a person being hit with

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Speaker 1: a real hammer. It's to see how the blood was splatter.

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Speaker 1: And we were testing basically the premise that you of

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Speaker 1: how blood splatter analysis works and there's some math to it.

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Speaker 1: So then we subsequently did the stringing, which they've probably

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Speaker 1: seen on these forensic TV shows like C S I,

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Speaker 1: where they string crime scenes and there you're trying to

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Speaker 1: identify the trajectory of the blood that hit to leave

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Speaker 1: the stained pattern that you find. Yeah, exactly, so you

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Speaker 1: can sort of figure out both where the crime happened

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Speaker 1: and what the like height. And I guess like three

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Speaker 1: dimensionally is the best way to explain it, right, you

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Speaker 1: can explain where it happened in the room, but also

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Speaker 1: the height of the blow. Uh. And so we did

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Speaker 1: it and it it worked, um sort of. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was a mess with all of the complications we have. Ye. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean we definitely weren't as prepared for how difficult

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Speaker 1: it was as I thought. And then we posted some

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Speaker 1: photos to the stuff to blow your mind social media accounts,

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Speaker 1: and at least one, maybe two people popped up if

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Speaker 1: you're listening, thank you. Um they were blood spat spatter

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Speaker 1: analysis experts, and they gave us some advice. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: we still we've just been so busy with everything else

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Speaker 1: that we do here, we just haven't been able to

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Speaker 1: get to the rest of it. But the idea was

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Speaker 1: we were going to take this and we're gonna extrapolate

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Speaker 1: it out into like a four maybe five part series

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Speaker 1: that was going to be a locked room murder mystery

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Speaker 1: where each episode Joe and I tried to solve a

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Speaker 1: crime by doing d I Y forensics in the room.

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Speaker 1: And we were going to do the blood spatter one,

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Speaker 1: We're going to do paper chromatography. We were talking about

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Speaker 1: dusting for fingerprints with super glue, which is really interesting.

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Speaker 1: We were going to talk about decomposition of bodies and

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Speaker 1: how do you figure out the time of death. Then

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Speaker 1: we got into looking at some other stuff. We had

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Speaker 1: to bite marks, hair and fiber analysis, stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: and we were like, how valid actually is this? I

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Speaker 1: mean not not just beyond like us doing the I

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Speaker 1: Y version of it with like ziplock, Baggies and tweezers

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Speaker 1: here in our studios, but like, how actually valid is this?

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Speaker 1: And Josh Clark from Stuff you Should Know started talking

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Speaker 1: to us about it, and he was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of really bad pseudo science in this,

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Speaker 1: and he sent us a great article. This is something

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Speaker 1: that Josh and I had talked about several times before.

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Speaker 1: Actually it's sort of a running conversation we have about

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Speaker 1: problems that keep emerging in forensic science. Absolutely. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: he pointed this out to us, and we thought, you

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Speaker 1: know what, uh, why don't we do an episode of

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Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind about this was so we

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Speaker 1: can sort of get our thoughts clear, really do a

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Speaker 1: deep dive on the research, and then maybe one day

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Speaker 1: we'll return to this video series and we'll make sure

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Speaker 1: that the stuff that we're doing, first of all, is valid.

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Speaker 1: But that second of all that we can what I'm

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Speaker 1: hoping to do with it is also somehow within this

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Speaker 1: locked room narrative that we're going to construct also tell

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Speaker 1: the audience like you can't rely on hair evidence, for instance,

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Speaker 1: right or bite marks because there's a lot of subjectivity

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Speaker 1: to how that's done. Right now, So that's what we're

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Speaker 1: here to talk to you about today, is the pseudoscience

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Speaker 1: and the sort of false interpretations and there's there's just

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Speaker 1: a lot of problems with forensic science, and I think

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Speaker 1: people within the field that would acknowledge that as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it certainly has been openly acknowledged. So one resource

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Speaker 1: that we're gonna be referencing throughout this episode is this

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Speaker 1: massive compilation research document put together by the National Research

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Speaker 1: Council and published in two thousand nine called Strengthening Forensic

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Speaker 1: Science in the United States. And this was put together

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Speaker 1: out of a out of a commission I think funded

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Speaker 1: by Congress to look at the state of forensic science

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Speaker 1: in the United States and and take a scientific, analytical,

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Speaker 1: critical approach to it to say how well are we

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Speaker 1: using forensic science in our courts, Like how well how

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Speaker 1: scientifically established are the methods that are being used, how

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Speaker 1: often do they get the right answer as far as

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Speaker 1: we can tell, Because it has become more and more

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Speaker 1: clear that lots of traditional methods used in forensic science analysis,

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Speaker 1: the kind of science we would use to analyze a

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Speaker 1: crime scene, to identify a suspect, to demonstrate the guilt

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Speaker 1: of a suspect, etcetera. Uh, these things are in many

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Speaker 1: cases full of flaws. And I've seen it alleged that

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Speaker 1: really nuclear DNA analysis is about the only forensic science

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Speaker 1: discipline used in US courts that isn't thoroughly riddled with problems. Actually,

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Speaker 1: and we'll talk about it in this episode two. There

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Speaker 1: are even it can be vulnerable, but I think it's

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Speaker 1: generally considered the best. It is considered the best, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but there are issues with it as well. UM So

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Speaker 1: I got a question for you. Have you ever served

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Speaker 1: on a jury before? No, I haven't. I've I've had

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Speaker 1: you know, jury selection days, but I've never I've never

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Speaker 1: been picked for a jury. So a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 1: I was picked for a jury and I don't know

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Speaker 1: how this happened, but somehow I ended up foreman and uh,

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Speaker 1: little do they know what power they put in the

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Speaker 1: hands of this uh, this doom purveyor. It was a

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Speaker 1: real weird case and I won't take you all down

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Speaker 1: the long road of it, but I will say you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the people that came in it was a

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Speaker 1: it was a cocaine uh possession and distribution case, but

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Speaker 1: also a firearm possession case for felon who was not

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Speaker 1: supposed to be carrying firearms. Um. The they had a

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Speaker 1: cocaine expert come in from their forensics lab. And you know,

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Speaker 1: like with any rhetorical position, especially in the courtroom, I

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Speaker 1: mean this is where like a lot of the Greek

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Speaker 1: terminology for for rhetoric came from. They first started off

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Speaker 1: by presenting the ethos the quality of the character of

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Speaker 1: this woman. She gave us her how many years that

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Speaker 1: she had been working in the lab and in the field,

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Speaker 1: and what her degrees were, and what her training was,

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Speaker 1: and how many cases that she had looked at and

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Speaker 1: all that stuff to sort of establish upfront, this is

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Speaker 1: a person you should believe, right, And that's pretty much

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Speaker 1: standard practice when you're in a courtroom and somebody who's

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Speaker 1: a science expert comes or a forensics expert comes to

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Speaker 1: testify about a case. But what you don't know is, necessarily,

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Speaker 1: like the actual field itself, how much solidity there is

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Speaker 1: to the discipline. Yeah. So imagine you are on a

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Speaker 1: jury and it is eighteen thirty five or so, so

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Speaker 1: you are not the scientifically literate person you are today.

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Speaker 1: You are maybe a farmer who has been called in

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Speaker 1: for jury duty, and it's a murder trial, and the

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Speaker 1: prosecution brings on an expert witness to testify to the

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Speaker 1: guilt of the defendant. And the expert witness who comes

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Speaker 1: on says, look, here is a map of the different

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Speaker 1: organs on the human skull. And as you will see

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Speaker 1: in this sketch of the defendant's head, they have an

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Speaker 1: extremely pronounced organ of murdering, and that's a bump that's

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Speaker 1: right here on this part of the head, and the

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Speaker 1: principles of phrenology, we can demonstrate that this person is

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Speaker 1: by nature a murderer and will kill again if released.

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Speaker 1: Now we know that that sounds like complete bunk. And

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Speaker 1: wouldn't life be super easy if we could just touch

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Speaker 1: everybody's heads and figure out if there are murderers? It

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Speaker 1: would be much easier. It would also give you more

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Speaker 1: excuses when you're touching the heads and people are saying,

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Speaker 1: why are you doing? What do checking? Make sure? Make

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Speaker 1: sure I'm safe. I don't want to be in the

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Speaker 1: presence of somebody with a pronounced organ of destructiveness. Um

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Speaker 1: but so, yeah, we all know today phrenology is nonsense.

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Speaker 1: But back then a lot of people would not have

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Speaker 1: had the knowledge to do that. And it's not because

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Speaker 1: they were stupid, they just didn't know. It's probably presented

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Speaker 1: in much the same way. This learned gentleman gets up

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Speaker 1: in front of you and says, I am an expert,

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Speaker 1: and all phrenologists agree. Um. So, in that case, if

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Speaker 1: if the judge has decided that this is admissible testimony

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Speaker 1: and you're on the jury, how would you know to

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Speaker 1: quite usenet And then even if you're the judge, the

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Speaker 1: judge might know not exactly. It's not a qualification to

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Speaker 1: be a judge to also have a science degree exactly.

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Speaker 1: Now we are going to talk, believe it or not,

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Speaker 1: about a real case where somebody tried to use phrenology

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Speaker 1: in the courtroom in the eighteen hundreds. But we'll get

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Speaker 1: to that actual historical example in a bit. First we

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Speaker 1: should back up, I think and and look a little

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Speaker 1: bit more generally at a sort of top down view

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Speaker 1: of what are some of the problems with forensic science

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Speaker 1: as it's used, especially in U. S courts today, but

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Speaker 1: this is going to apply to a lot of courts

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Speaker 1: around the world in the general sense. Yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: like as usual, because we're Americans and we're here in

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Speaker 1: the US, a lot of our research is focused here.

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Speaker 1: But the best resource that I was able to find

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Speaker 1: came from Popular Mechanics, and they had a really good

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Speaker 1: article on the myths of c s I and they

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Speaker 1: began by establishing that forensic science as we know it

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Speaker 1: it was mostly created by police, not by scientists, and

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Speaker 1: it's based more on common sense rather than scientific practice.

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Speaker 1: And we all know what common sense is. Common sense

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Speaker 1: is the reasoning faculty that tells you that the Earth

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Speaker 1: does not move and is flat. Yeah, b O B.

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Speaker 1: I'm downe with B O B. Well, I mean those

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Speaker 1: things are common whitest thing I've ever said on this show.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Uh yeah, I mean so common sense, as

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Speaker 1: we know from all kinds of fields of science, very

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Speaker 1: often betrays us. Common sense is useful for getting your

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Speaker 1: average stuff done day today, but it is not good

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Speaker 1: for for deducing truths that are obscure. Yeah. Right, So

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Speaker 1: this popular mechanics article goes in depth and it says okay,

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Speaker 1: and it and it points out DNA testing right off

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Speaker 1: the bat, and they said, DNA testing is is really good,

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Speaker 1: and it's made it possible for us to re examine

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Speaker 1: all this other biological evidence that we've taken from past trials,

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Speaker 1: so that more than two hundred people this is in

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Speaker 1: the US have had their convictions overturned because the DNA

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Speaker 1: analysis refutes the other biological evidence that was used in

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Speaker 1: the case. Fifty percent of these cases involved bad forensic

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Speaker 1: analysis contributing to their imprisonment, and they refer to this

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Speaker 1: as the c s I affects of this bringing up

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Speaker 1: the show. Yeah, the c s I effect, as I've

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Speaker 1: kind of come to understand, let me know, if this

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Speaker 1: is in line with what they're saying. As I understand it,

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Speaker 1: it's where juries tend to expect to encounter scientific style

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Speaker 1: evidence presented in the courts, or especially DNA evidence. Yeah. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And so it's a perpetuation of the media versions of

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Speaker 1: the forensic examiners solving difficult cases the science and cutting

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Speaker 1: edge tech. Right, Like, so when you think of c

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Speaker 1: s I and you think of, like, wow, this this

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Speaker 1: is how old I am, Like David Caruso throwing on

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Speaker 1: his sunglasses and whipping back his red hair, and then

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Speaker 1: there's like c g I zooming in on a dead body,

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Speaker 1: and like the explanation exposition about like how forensics works.

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Speaker 1: That's what they're expecting, right, They're expecting some David Caruso

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Speaker 1: slick type to show up and explain this to them.

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Speaker 1: There's an argument though, that this is a misconception that

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Speaker 1: absolutely sways jurors before they're really even in the courtroom. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: Like it leads to the misperception that generally the methods

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Speaker 1: leading to the prosecution, identification and prosecution of a defendant

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Speaker 1: are very scientific in nature. Not only that, but that

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Speaker 1: they all cases will have some kind of scientific quote

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Speaker 1: unquote scientific evidence, uh engaged or as evidence for them

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Speaker 1: to review. Yeah. So, but what's actually going on is

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Speaker 1: a little bit more difficult. Like like all things in

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Speaker 1: the world, America's forensics labs are totally overburdened and understaffed,

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Speaker 1: and a two thousand five studied by the Department of

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Speaker 1: Justice found that the average lab has a backlog of

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Speaker 1: four hundred and one requests. So that's why, Like, for instance,

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Speaker 1: that case that I was the forem and on, I

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Speaker 1: think it happened like a year year and a half

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Speaker 1: after they actually arrested the guy because they were waiting

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Speaker 1: on evidence. It took forever for them to actually get

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Speaker 1: to the evidence into Like in this case, they were

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Speaker 1: looking at the cocaine that was found on his person

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Speaker 1: to see what percentage of it was pure cocaine. Um.

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Speaker 1: So this isn't even getting into all of the state, city,

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Speaker 1: and now federal forensic departments that have been scandalized by

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Speaker 1: mishandling evidence or just straight up committing fraud. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, even outside of the science angle that we're

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Speaker 1: talking about. There are the pseudoscience angle we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: there's the mishandling of evidence which makes the science bad,

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Speaker 1: and then there's just people committing fraud, right, which is well,

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Speaker 1: I mean unethical. I guess you could encounter fraud in

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Speaker 1: any situation, like even in a even in a field

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Speaker 1: where all of the established methodology is well vetted, scientifically

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Speaker 1: valid methodology, you could still have somebody falsified data, somebody

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Speaker 1: who has like the quote unquote quality of character to

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Speaker 1: testify in a courtroom. But whatever, somebody somebody got to them.

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Speaker 1: But or than just telling people not to be liars,

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Speaker 1: there's really not as much to do about that. So

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Speaker 1: I think we're probably not going to focus as much

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Speaker 1: on fraud today, but it's just important to know that

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Speaker 1: it's out there, right, especially like next time one of

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Speaker 1: you is in the jury box. You know, just consider

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Speaker 1: these things that we're talking about today. Uh So, the

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Speaker 1: argument basically goes like this, the forensics science field, it

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Speaker 1: has a foundation that's very shaky and very subjective. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors says, look, there's

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Speaker 1: no advanced degree that's required to have a career in forensics.

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Speaker 1: Some people do, but it's not inquired. I think it

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Speaker 1: varies field to field because there will be for example,

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Speaker 1: like maybe like boards or licensing organizations that work in

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Speaker 1: different fields and they have different requirements. Sure yeah, especially

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Speaker 1: probably based state to state all that stuff. Um, And

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Speaker 1: one question I have and let's I don't want you.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can answer it right now or we

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Speaker 1: can think about it and come back to it the

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Speaker 1: end of the episode. But should it be should they

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Speaker 1: be required to have an advanced degree? Uh? Well, I

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Speaker 1: mean I think that's gonna very case to case again.

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Speaker 1: I think I think methodology is more important than credential ing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Um, Like you can have somebody with the

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Speaker 1: high school education and if they are rigorously forced to

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Speaker 1: follow certain methodologies, I would probably be okay, but still

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Speaker 1: believe it. Yeah. And or computer automated systems that are

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Speaker 1: forced to follow those rigorous methodologies too, which is something

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Speaker 1: that people are talking about. So it's been argued that

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Speaker 1: the body of research behind forensic science is just totally incomplete.

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Speaker 1: The methodologies aren't precise. Like I said, there's lying in

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Speaker 1: fraud today. We're mainly going to concentrate though, on whether

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Speaker 1: the science itself adds up so that you can take

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Speaker 1: valid conclusions from it and use it as evidence in

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Speaker 1: a courtroom. Right, pseudo science problems in the scientific method. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: We've had chemists who have faked results and gone to

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Speaker 1: prison for drug convictions. There's been sloppy work that's been

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Speaker 1: done than thousands of cases related to Saint Paul, Minnesota, Detroit, Michigan, Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: North Carolina, Houston, and more. I mean, this is like,

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Speaker 1: this is everywhere, but in two thousand five, this is

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Speaker 1: this is the what led to the paper that we

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Speaker 1: were talking about earlier. Congress commissioned the National Academy of

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Speaker 1: Science to examine the state of forensics in the US

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Speaker 1: in the U S law enforcement, and they this group

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Speaker 1: found in two thousand and nine that there were quote

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Speaker 1: serious deficiencies in the nation's forensics science system, and they

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Speaker 1: advocated for extensive reform. And they said, apart from d NA,

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Speaker 1: remember we're gonna come back to DNA later, there is

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Speaker 1: no single forensic discipline that has been proven with a

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Speaker 1: degree of certainty to be able to match a piece

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Speaker 1: of evidence to a suspect. Now that brings up an

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Speaker 1: important thing that I think may come up again. In

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Speaker 1: this episode, which is that some fields, as practiced, may

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Speaker 1: be better able to sometimes exclude the possibility of of

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Speaker 1: a defendant being gilt rather than matching. If that makes

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Speaker 1: any one example I know we'll talk about later. His

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Speaker 1: bite marks. Yeah, and that that's something I've seen pointed out,

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Speaker 1: is that while it might be hard to say, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this bite mark identifies that this truly is the defendant,

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Speaker 1: you could more easily say this makes it clear that

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Speaker 1: this bite mark was not left by the defendants. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's complicated, right, and it's uh, it brings me back,

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Speaker 1: as many of our episodes do episodes do lately, to

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Speaker 1: the wicked problems that Robert and I talked about earlier

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Speaker 1: this year, that just what's going on with forensics in

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Speaker 1: the justice system in general is a wicked problem. And

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna be solved with one answer, right,

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Speaker 1: but but it's worth looking at. Well. I mean, one

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Speaker 1: thing we can take comfort in is that this big

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine report is very extensive, and I hope

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Speaker 1: that this already has in some cases led to some

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Speaker 1: initiated reforms, and it will help lead to continued reforms

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Speaker 1: in the future. So it's not like nobody Reckon noises

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Speaker 1: this problem and nobody's doing anything about. Yeah, I suspect

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Speaker 1: that there are a lot of people who are working

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Speaker 1: very hard right now. You may even be listening to

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Speaker 1: the show who are like, hey, you know, we're doing

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Speaker 1: our best over here. So we get that. But but

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Speaker 1: it's also important to sort of walk through the process

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Speaker 1: and figure it out. The worst implication of this, though,

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Speaker 1: Joe is like, this is and and this is extrapolating

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Speaker 1: it out to. One reason why a lot of people

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Speaker 1: care about this now is because it's in our pop

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Speaker 1: culture right Cereal, the biggest podcast out there, Making a

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Speaker 1: Murderer on Netflix, all of all of which touch upon

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Speaker 1: these things. There's an implication that if the forensic science

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Speaker 1: is wrong, that there are innocent people who are jailed

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Speaker 1: for crimes they didn't commit, and subsequently there are guilty

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Speaker 1: criminals out there who are still roaming free to so,

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Speaker 1: um what we're going to talk about this group a

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Speaker 1: lot as well. The Innocence Project found that when prisoners

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Speaker 1: were exonerated by d n A, the real perpetrators were

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Speaker 1: identified in half of those cases, and in all but one,

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Speaker 1: the real perpetray Waters continued to commit crimes, serious crimes

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Speaker 1: after the innocent person went to jail. Yeah. So the

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Speaker 1: Innocence Project, if you haven't heard of it, it's an

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Speaker 1: advocacy organization, So it does you might say, probably have

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Speaker 1: an ax to grind in this issue, but but it's

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Speaker 1: also yeah, it's uh. I think it is abundantly clear

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Speaker 1: that that many innocent people have been convicted of crimes

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Speaker 1: they didn't commit. Many guilty people have been let go

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Speaker 1: on the basis of bad forensic evidence, or or have

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Speaker 1: been let go simply because somebody else has made to

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Speaker 1: cop for the crime that they committed. Um, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: and these people so so somebody who actually did a

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Speaker 1: murder is out roaming the streets because somebody else is

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Speaker 1: in prison for it. Yeah, And that's just one disappointing

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Speaker 1: but too terrifying, right, uh. And so another part of

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Speaker 1: the problem. And I don't think we're gonna have a

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Speaker 1: lot of time to dive deep into this today. But

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Speaker 1: it's also important to remember that the legal sciences don't

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Speaker 1: get as much federal funding as other disciplines when it

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Speaker 1: comes to research like this, so subsequently, there aren't as

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Speaker 1: many examples of statistically defensible research that these forensics. Forensic

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Speaker 1: examiners can rely upon that they can go back to

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Speaker 1: and that they have a depth of research in their field. Right,

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Speaker 1: And so one argument is we should fund them more

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Speaker 1: and too they should be broken out into their own division.

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Speaker 1: They shouldn't be beholden to police and prosecutors because right

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Speaker 1: now most forensic scientists work under the police and under

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Speaker 1: prosecutors um, which is obviously going to throw bias into

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Speaker 1: their work. Yeah, that's another thing that is that is

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Speaker 1: addressed by that big two thousand nine document is is

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Speaker 1: experiment or bias? I mean, this is a problem that's

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Speaker 1: also different in some sense from methodologies. Yeah. Absolutely, Well, actually,

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Speaker 1: I guess you could say it's part of methodology because

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Speaker 1: when you design an experiment in science, you part of

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Speaker 1: your methodology is to try to remove bias, for example,

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Speaker 1: by blinding or experiment or blinding people carrying out the

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Speaker 1: research shouldn't be aware. Let's explain what that means. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're not blinding a human being, right, experiment or blinding

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Speaker 1: for example, is you know, if you want to test

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Speaker 1: whether a certain type of artificial sweetener causes cancer. When

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Speaker 1: you're conducting the experiment, ideally the person performing the experiment,

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Speaker 1: shouldn't know what the hypothesis is, shouldn't know what the

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Speaker 1: samples they're using are. They should be sort of unlabeled

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Speaker 1: and identified later by like numbers that could be matched up.

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Speaker 1: So so that the if the experiment or has a

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Speaker 1: certain way that they maybe even unconsciously want things to

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Speaker 1: go in the experiment, that can't affect it because they

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Speaker 1: don't know what's going on and what's ex there's no

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Speaker 1: actual variables that they could unconsciously put into the into

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Speaker 1: the test, right. Yeah, but in many cases in forensic science,

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Speaker 1: that's not necessarily how it's practiced. A lot of times

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Speaker 1: the the forensic investigator in certain scenarios might know what

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Speaker 1: the hypothesis is. It's that this certain person is guilty

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Speaker 1: and here's what they did. But again that's one that

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Speaker 1: varies from field to field, so we can't say that

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Speaker 1: that's problem across the board. Yeah, So, like I'm thinking

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Speaker 1: like an example here, although I'm not I don't want

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Speaker 1: to accuse the woman in the case that I was

430
00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: a part of of of pseudoscience in any way. I

431
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:19,640
Speaker 1: have no idea one way or the other. But her

432
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: job was to prove that the cocaine that was given

433
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: to her had a certain percentage of pure cocaine in it,

434
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: so that this man could be charged for distribution. There's

435
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 1: like on the law, it has to be a particular

436
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 1: percentage so that it's legally enforceable. Um, you know, rather

437
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 1: than it being like, I don't know salt, I don't

438
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 1: know what people mix in with their cocaine nowadays, sorry, guys,

439
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,640
Speaker 1: not on the street as much as I used to be. Yeah,

440
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:48,359
Speaker 1: non dairy creamer and salt. The fair powdered here. Yeah, Um,

441
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 1: but she knew what her job was going into it

442
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:53,480
Speaker 1: when she was measuring right. So yeah, you mentioned that

443
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,120
Speaker 1: word pseudoscience, and I guess we should get into that

444
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. It's something that comes up on

445
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: this show fair often we talk about pseudoscience, But what

446
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:05,399
Speaker 1: what is pseudoscience for? For those who are you may

447
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: have heard the term, but you're not clear exactly what

448
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: it is. You're you're aware that it's maybe just false

449
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: information or something. But I think that in this case

450
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: it's very important to emphasize the specific definition of it

451
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:22,119
Speaker 1: because pseudoscience US standard Dictionary definition I found is a

452
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based

453
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 1: on the scientific method. So um, the scientific method with

454
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 1: reference to forensic science, as defined explicitly in that big

455
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 1: two thousand nine UH National Research Council report is quote

456
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: hypothesis generation and testing. So you've got a hypothesis going

457
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 1: in falsifiability and replications, so there are ways that you

458
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:51,680
Speaker 1: could show your knowledge is not true, and testing more

459
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: than once by different people to verify the results you get.

460
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: And then peer review of scientific publications, so testing your

461
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 1: findings against other experts in your field to see what

462
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: they think and if they can criticize your method. Now,

463
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 1: other than the peer reviewed aspect, this is pretty much

464
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: what we learned in science class in high school, right, well,

465
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: depending on Yeah, when you get your little research lab

466
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 1: book and you're filling out all your stuff for the

467
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 1: experiments that you perform in class and such like that,

468
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 1: this is what they're teaching us. The importance of that

469
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: the peer review stuff comes later when you're in I

470
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: guess higher education. But uh, it shouldn't be that hard,

471
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: you're right, But in a lot of cases that this

472
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 1: is exactly what they have found. Many forensic fields, or

473
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 1: certain forensic investigators don't always practice that their techniques don't

474
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 1: reflect this, or the rules of analysis they use don't

475
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: necessarily reflect this. They're not based on well replicated, falsifiable

476
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: scientific tests. They're more just kind of like knowledge, you

477
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: general wisdom, folk wisdom about here is what you'd expect

478
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: to see here, So kind of like, so I like

479
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:02,679
Speaker 1: to think about a scene that I love from TV.

480
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 1: But this is total pseudoscience, all right. But it's also

481
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:10,919
Speaker 1: like street cops right the wire, the infamous f words

482
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,120
Speaker 1: seen in the wire, you know what I'm talking about,

483
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: Right where bunking Meltier in the kitchen, and they're trying

484
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,199
Speaker 1: to figure out how a woman was shot through a

485
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: window in the kitchen, and so they're basically measuring with

486
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: pens and like I don't even know if they have

487
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: a measuring tape in that scene or not, you know

488
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. And they're measuring like what the

489
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: trajectory of the bullet might have been, what angle the

490
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: guy might have been shooting from, where she was shot,

491
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 1: where the bullet might have been lodged in the refrigerator door,

492
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: all this stuff. In the meantime, while they're swearing a bunch,

493
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: which is funny for us as the audience. But that's

494
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:50,400
Speaker 1: not science. Well, I mean, that's just them. They've got

495
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 1: some common sense and yeah, they've they've been on the job,

496
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: they've seen enough homicides that they have a bit of

497
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:58,440
Speaker 1: an idea on how to explore that scene. But that's

498
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:02,640
Speaker 1: not something that unst necessarily would submit to the courtroom, right,

499
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I can I can look at that scene

500
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 1: and say, I don't know, it seems like they're reasonable

501
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:11,240
Speaker 1: in the conclusions they're drawing. Yeah, but um, but yeah,

502
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 1: I mean one problem there is, for example, the lack

503
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: of quantitative evidence. Yeah, this is something that's often important

504
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: in science, is trying to find a way to represent

505
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: your findings with numbers so it takes the gut feeling

506
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 1: out of it. So instead of saying, yeah, that bullet

507
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: hole looks like it came from there. Instead what you

508
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 1: should be doing is putting a straight object through it

509
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: and measuring with a pro tractor exactly what the angle is,

510
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 1: so that it takes your gut feeling out of it.

511
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 1: You have a specific number that has been explicitly measured. Now,

512
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 1: I think if David Simon, creator of the wire, we're

513
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: here with us, he would argue that one of the

514
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: points of that scene also is that because the Baltimore

515
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: Police Department is so horrifically underfunded, this is how these

516
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 1: police have to go about doing their jobs because they

517
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,199
Speaker 1: don't have protractors or forensics teams that can come in

518
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: and do all that for them. Right. So, one important

519
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: point I think that we should make is that pseudoscience

520
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: isn't just any false knowledge or bad epistemology. It's a

521
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 1: specific type of thing. Like if a prosecutor on a case,

522
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,400
Speaker 1: you're on a jury, and prosecutor brings in a tarot

523
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: card reader, uh to turn some cards to show you

524
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 1: show you exactly how guilty, Uh, you know this guy

525
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: is of attacking somebody with a folding chair. That would

526
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 1: be a bad evidential standard. But I don't think I

527
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: wouldn't the tower came up, I'd be real worried. Huh.

528
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it pseudoscience because it's not trying to

529
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: dress itself in the wardrobe of science. And that that's

530
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: exactly what is so pernicious about some of these flawed

531
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: forensic science methods. They take on the credibility of the

532
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: scientific method without actually practicing the method in every case. Yeah,

533
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: and depending on how charismatic or rhetorically qualified uh, defense

534
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: or prosecutor could be. You know, it's very easy to

535
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: convince a jury that somebody is an ex it in

536
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: something that they just simply don't understand, you know, so

537
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: that's also worth considering. Yeah, um, all right, I want

538
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 1: to bring up one thing here that references another old

539
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: episode of ours too, which is um, Robert and I

540
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: did that episode earlier this year about cargo cult science

541
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: and our cargo cultism, and then we also talked about

542
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: cargo cult science with a concept from Feineman. H yeah

543
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: he was he semi involved in that. Yeah. Yeah. In fact,

544
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: we told a really fun story. Go back and listen

545
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: the episode. Everybody but told a fun story about Fineman

546
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: hanging out in a bathtub while people were doing reflexology

547
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: on each other. Uh anyway, Fineman always hanging out in bathtub? Yeah, exactly,

548
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 1: hot tub, I guess more than bathtub there. Um. But

549
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: so this also it made me think of what Robert

550
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: and I talked about as the Church of science quote

551
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: unquote in that episode two, that there is there is

552
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 1: a an idea of science as being almost like a

553
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: deity now days, right, that that that true knowledge and

554
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: true um ways to judge how the world works can

555
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: come from science rather than the old way that we

556
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: thought it did, which you know generally was from religion

557
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: or mythology. Uh. And this is an example of where

558
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 1: quote unquote science is a false god. Uh. You mean,

559
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: like the people who treat science sort of as dogmas

560
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: rather than as a method. Exactly when people say, I

561
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: hate when I hear this, when people say quote science says, yeah,

562
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 1: that's one of my least favorite phrases. Science doesn't say anything.

563
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 1: Science is a tool. It's not a it's not a

564
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: deity speaking pronouncements to you. And one of the people

565
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: one of the things scientifically literate people will know is that, um,

566
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:52,479
Speaker 1: you know, scientific results are tentative. You you learn something

567
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: through science, but then there might be new studies coming

568
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: out next year that say, actually, those previous studies were

569
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: flawed and here's the better answer. Yeah, I guess. Just

570
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: my general point is that, like, it's important to realize

571
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: that this is fallible and that you should apply critical

572
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 1: thinking to this when it's when it's put in front

573
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: of you as matter of fact, right, knowledge that is

574
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: cloaked in the garments of science ain't necessarily so just

575
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: because it's wearing those clothes. Absolutely, So Okay, I want

576
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: to bring this back though, because I don't want to

577
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: make it seem like we're just totally bashing forensic science

578
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 1: and it's all bad. No were to put your critical

579
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: lenses on, and there are examples of well researched science

580
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: being used in forensics. In fact, chromatography which was one

581
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: of the things we were going to do for the

582
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: We're gonna do paper chromatography for our little d I

583
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: y uh lab experiment. It's a method for separating complex

584
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: mixtures and it allows examiners to identify bodily fluids for

585
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: drug cases, and for the most part it's seen as

586
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: being well researched and backed up. Uh. The other one

587
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: which we mentioned is DNA analysis, which has set a

588
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: new scientific standard. But if you also have to remember

589
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: that quote, good science takes time, right, so you can't

590
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 1: just like whip up DNA evidence like you know, in

591
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 1: a flat Literally the TV show The Flash, I don't

592
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: know if you know this, the character the Flash is

593
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: a forensic scientist, and so whenever he's like, you know,

594
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: got work to do, he just super quickly like does

595
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: it all like in like thirty seconds or whatever. So

596
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: it's that's not a good example. Why does he make

597
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: the machines work faster? No, he just runs around really

598
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: quickly and like shakes like like like little pipettes and

599
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: stuff or test tubes really quickly. The machines work faster

600
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: because he is the machine. So he becomes a centerfuge

601
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah. As much as I love

602
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: the Flash, both TV show and just as a character,

603
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 1: it's like the worst example of what should happen in forensics.

604
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: SciTE um. Anyways, the DNA thing, it took thirty years

605
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: from the discovery of the double helix structure before it

606
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: could actually be used to confirm a positive identification of

607
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: an individual. Now it's broadly accepted and quantifiable, right, but

608
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: it took a long time. In fact, the most advanced

609
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 1: analysis has a one in more than a quadrillion chance

610
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: of a random match of two strangers DNA, So that

611
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: seems fairly reliable. Yeah. Yeah, Yet DNA only constitutes less

612
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 1: than ten percent of the case load in US crime labs, right,

613
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: So that's important to remember as well. What we really

614
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: need is the rest of forensics to be just as

615
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: rigorous and justice statistically grounded. Yes. Uh. And one thing

616
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: I do want to say, picking up on what you

617
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: said a minute ago about how we're not trying to

618
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: trash all these fields, is that I would say that

619
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 1: I think any field can be pursued in a scientific way.

620
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: So if we say something about major flaws in uh,

621
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: bite matching or something, or in fire analysis, that's not

622
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: to say that forensic ode ontology, this study of you know,

623
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:05,160
Speaker 1: dentistry in in crime cases, or that fire analysis are

624
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: not legitimate fields of study. There are totally legitimate ways

625
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: to study these, and there are lots of great scientists

626
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:15,839
Speaker 1: who do exactly that. The problem is that as practiced

627
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 1: in many in many court cases and forensic investigations, it's

628
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: full of bad methodologies or unverified knowledge. Yeah, and I

629
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 1: think you know that c s I effect that we

630
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier too, is perpetuated by by way

631
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: more than just like the sort of um police procedurals

632
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 1: like c s I that we're used to. I mean,

633
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: like I just mentioned the Flash that's not really a

634
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:40,959
Speaker 1: cop show, and yet like it throws in a dose

635
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 1: of that kind of stuff in there. Also thinking of

636
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 1: like a great TV show, Sherlock but it relies on

637
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: like lots of like examples of Sherlock Holmes conducting his

638
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,399
Speaker 1: own like at home forensic tests. Have you ever seen

639
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: this show before? Like I've seen was one where like

640
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 1: he's just like beating a corpse with like a horsewhip

641
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: or something like that, just just to see, like what

642
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: how long it takes bruises to form on a corpse? Right,

643
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: And it's like, Okay, like I get it that that's

644
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: an interesting like way narratively to show us that he's

645
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: conducting research and everything. But also like what but it's

646
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: funny that Sherlock is often used as a as a

647
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: you know, great symbol of scientific investigation because he uses

648
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 1: deeply unscientific methods a lot of the time. Sherlock Holmes

649
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: will you know, look at a few facts about you

650
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: and make deductions, right, That's what he does science of deductions.

651
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: Say well, your watches turned back to this time, which

652
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: makes me know that you were in this country and

653
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 1: this time zone. That's not scientific, that's just making an assumption.

654
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: But we love it. We eat it up right, like

655
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: as an audience. That's great fun because it makes the

656
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: world a lot simpler than it actually is. And it

657
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 1: man like, of course, like I would love it if,

658
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: like I could be Sherlock Holmes and just solve every

659
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: problem by just like kind of very quickly looking around

660
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 1: the room and knowing everything that's going on. But it's

661
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: not realistic. It's a fun story, but in terms of

662
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: like people's lives or whether or not they're guilty perpetrators

663
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 1: out there running around, it's not really how things work. Okay,

664
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 1: we need to take a quick break, but when we

665
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk about evidence standards for

666
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: scientific evidence in US courts and then a bunch of

667
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: specific examples of forensic science disciplines and what some problems

668
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 1: with them might be, including, uh, the aforementioned case of phrenology. Okay,

669
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 1: we're back, So Joe tell me and the audience what

670
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 1: is the fry test and how how why is it

671
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 1: pertinent to this forensic research that we're talking about here. Well,

672
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,320
Speaker 1: this comes up in a lot of discussions of forensic

673
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 1: science because this has been the legal standard for the

674
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: admissibility of scientific evidence in US courts for a long time. Now.

675
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: There are other standards that have in some ways superseded it,

676
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: but this was sort of the original one. So The

677
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: Fry standard essentially determines that for scientific evidence to be

678
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,320
Speaker 1: admissible in the court, it has to be quote generally

679
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: accepted by experts in the field in which it belongs.

680
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: So Fry came out of a murder trial in nineteen

681
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 1: three and which the defendant tried to demonstrate his innocence

682
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: by using a lie detector test to measure systolic blood pressure.

683
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: So this is an early lie detector test. And and

684
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 1: this guy is going to say, look, you know, I

685
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:29,399
Speaker 1: didn't do it. And here's a machine that shows I'm

686
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: telling the truth when I say that I didn't do it. Yeah,

687
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: you know what. I think. This is before the polygraph,

688
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: because William Marston invented that, and he is also the

689
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: co creator of Wonder Woman, the fun things that Christian

690
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 1: Sager knows in his little weird brain, the lasso of truth,

691
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:47,240
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, And that didn't happen until the late thirties

692
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: early forties. That's a whole other field of forensic pseudoscience

693
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 1: that that we can talk about. But so in this case,

694
00:37:55,920 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 1: the court rejected this evidence, writing quote, just the scientific

695
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:04,759
Speaker 1: principle or discovery crosses the line between the experimental and

696
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: demonstrable stages is difficult to define. Somewhere in this twilight zone,

697
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: the evidential force of the principle must be recognized. And

698
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: while courts will go a long way in admitting expert

699
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: testimony deduced from a well recognized scientific principle or discovery,

700
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: the thing from which the deduction is made must be

701
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 1: sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular

702
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: field in which it belongs. And that's where this general

703
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: acceptance doctrine comes from. It So, lie detector tests not

704
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: generally accepted by the relevant scientific fields then or now, really,

705
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: and yet we still see them in pop culture all

706
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 1: the time, right, And even if they were mostly accurate,

707
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: they're not legitimate scientific evidence to use in a court.

708
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: But even this is not fool proof depending on how

709
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: it's applied and interpreted. For example, what if a whole

710
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 1: field is just rotten to the core with pseudoscience. Um. So, again,

711
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: it might not come as a surprise, but most phrenologists

712
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,280
Speaker 1: consider phrenology a legitimate science. Yeah, of course they would.

713
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 1: And so if you don't, here we go, Yeah, here

714
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: we go. I see the next line coming up. I'm

715
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: gonna I'm waiting for the emails to come in. Right,

716
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 1: most people who own orgon energy accumulators probably think Wilhelm

717
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:20,279
Speaker 1: Reich is not pseudo science. Yeah, absolutely so those of

718
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 1: you who are long time listeners may know. Earlier in

719
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:25,240
Speaker 1: the year, Joe and I did an episode on Willhelm

720
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: Reich and organ accumulation and cloud busting, and we received

721
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: some nasty emails from people who are deep followers of

722
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:35,799
Speaker 1: Reich's belief. Yeah, they were not happy that we did

723
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: not see the genius in his method. Yeah, and I

724
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: I like to feel like we did a fair treatment

725
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 1: of that topic, but that they were upset. Yeah, well,

726
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: you know, we do our best, but but I don't know.

727
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 1: As we see, I don't think the organ accumulator has

728
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: much going on for it. Yeah, and neither do I.

729
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,760
Speaker 1: And I'm the one who owns VHS tapes and books

730
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: by that guy and has state at his estate. Uh So,

731
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,919
Speaker 1: in these cases Wilhelm Reich phrenology, it's obvious to us

732
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 1: what's wrong, because we're well aware of the these fields

733
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 1: and their faults. But what about in obscure sciences, you know,

734
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: things that are not popularly known to be uh, pseudoscience,

735
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: where an entire field could just be riddled with problems

736
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: and nobody on the outside would know UM. So in

737
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: nineteen the Federal Rules of Evidence were established, and this

738
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: brought in Rule seven oh two which is relevant to this,

739
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:36,359
Speaker 1: and it reads quote, if scientific, technical, or other specialized

740
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the

741
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness

742
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or

743
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 1: education may testify there too, in the form of an

744
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 1: opinion or otherwise. So this seems to massively just on

745
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: the face of it, this looks like it massively relaxes

746
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:01,720
Speaker 1: the standard um and and this led to much argument,

747
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: lots of back and forth between legal scholars like does

748
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: this embrace the Fry standard or does it reject and

749
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 1: replace it? And there were many fierce arguments, but eventually

750
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 1: Fry was superseded by the Daubert standard in the courts.

751
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: So the Daubert standard is much more complex and it

752
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: says um Essentially, the qualifications for the admissibility of scientific

753
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: evidence in the courts are whether you can test the theory.

754
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 1: That's an important thing, like it shouldn't be just unfalsifiable

755
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 1: knowledge that there's no way you could show if it

756
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:38,479
Speaker 1: was wrong. Second, whether it has been subjected to peer

757
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,479
Speaker 1: review in publication. That's another important one. What it's known

758
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 1: potential error rates are. So you know, you could have

759
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:50,399
Speaker 1: a totally valid field that has a known pretty high

760
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: error rate. I mean, it could still be valid as

761
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: long as you acknowledge what the known error rate is. Yeah,

762
00:41:55,719 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 1: and acknowledge that to the jury exactly. Um, the the

763
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 1: existence and maintenance of standards controlling its operation, right, so

764
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: you've got to have uh systems in place to to

765
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: make sure everybody's doing it right. And uh, and then

766
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: again whether it is generally accepted among the scientific community.

767
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: So who where did this come from? Yeah? Daubert was

768
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: established in nine case in which the plaintiffs were attempting

769
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: to show that a drug called ben Deckton had caused

770
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 1: birth defects in their children and uh, and it clarified

771
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: this rift between Fry and rule seven O two, saying

772
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 1: that seven O two, as enforced, should have all those

773
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: qualities I just mentioned, um, but also that that two

774
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: thousand nine National Research Council paper that's like that's like

775
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: the big daddy source that we keep coming back to.

776
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:52,840
Speaker 1: If you want to know everything about this. You should

777
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:58,479
Speaker 1: go read that very big. It's learning, it's huge, um,

778
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 1: and that they write that quote. The court also emphasized

779
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: that in considering the admissibility of evidence, trial judges should

780
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 1: focus solely on experts, principles, and methodology and not on

781
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 1: the conclusions they generate. And that seems that seems absolutely

782
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: crucial and correct to me. What should be important is

783
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: the method they use, not what they end up saying. Right, yeah,

784
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: and that's still I would say, or at least just

785
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,399
Speaker 1: from my experience, not exactly the case, you know, but

786
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: the two thousand nine documents says that. I mean, it's

787
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: been seven years since then, so hopefully it's better. But

788
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: I think that case that I worked on was probably

789
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 1: a couple of years after this. Yeah. But another thing

790
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: that this, uh, this indicates is that the court essentially

791
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: placed faith in the system by saying, look, we've got

792
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 1: an adversarial system. So you have prosecution and you have defense.

793
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: You have plaintiff and you have defense. Since there are

794
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: two sides, we can be sort of generous in what

795
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: kind of scientific evidence we accept. Because if the defense

796
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: doesn't like the prosecut uter's expert witness, they can call

797
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 1: in their own expert witness. Yeah, and so the court wrote, quote,

798
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,800
Speaker 1: vigorous cross examination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction

799
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: on the burden of proof are the traditional and appropriate

800
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 1: means of attacking shaky but admissible evidence. That essentially means

801
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 1: it's not the court, or rather, it's not the judge's responsibility. Uh,

802
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: it's this. It's on the responsibility of the prosecution and

803
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: the defense to argue rhetorically against the science. Yeah. So

804
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: the judge might have the ability to rule out a

805
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: phrenologist giving evidence, but in a case where that's not

806
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 1: as clear as phrenology, but just where the science appears

807
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: legitimate but might be shaky. Uh, it's incumbent upon the lawyers,

808
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: right that We'll let it in and we'll see if

809
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: the other side has something to say about that. All right, So, phrenology,

810
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 1: you've been you've been teasing around for knology. I know

811
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: you've been wanting to tell this story all episode. Okay,

812
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:57,919
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna take you back more than a fifty years.

813
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you the thirty four the United States,

814
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 1: in the state of Maine. We're up where Wilhelm right, Well,

815
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: he wasn't doing an eighteen thirty four but yet right

816
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 1: unconnected early rangely Maine. Yes, this is will not ring

817
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,359
Speaker 1: unconnected to Wilhelm Wright. In Maine in eighteen thirty four,

818
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: a nine year old boy named Major Mitchell was facing

819
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:24,759
Speaker 1: trial for a serious violent offense. He was charged with

820
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: assaulting and maiming another boy, an eight year old schoolmate

821
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: named David Crawford, and according to the allegations, Major Mitchell

822
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: had lured Crawford into an empty field with the intention

823
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 1: of whipping him and killing him. H Crawford had called

824
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: Mitchell names like a hog, a fool, and a steeler,

825
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 1: and then Mitchell began to punch Crawford until an adult

826
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: neighbor came by and separated them. Later, Mitchell found Crawford

827
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 1: walking along a road and forced him into some nearby woods. There,

828
00:45:56,200 --> 00:46:00,320
Speaker 1: Mitchell began torturing Crawford, he uh supposedly a acording to

829
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 1: the allegations, He filled his mouth with grass, stripped his

830
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,240
Speaker 1: clothes off, tied him up, beat him with sticks, tried

831
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,840
Speaker 1: to drown him in a stream, including damning the stream

832
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: to make the water deeper to make it easier to

833
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: drown him, and partially castrated him with a piece of

834
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: rusty taka. And this is what happens as you name

835
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 1: your child major. This is messed up. This is not yeah,

836
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 1: not a happy circumstance. That's a joke. By the way,

837
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that naming your child major will scientifically

838
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 1: lead to them being a scumbag. But eventually, but this

839
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,399
Speaker 1: is a nine year old kid. This is something weird

840
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: going on here. This would be extremely disturbing if an

841
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 1: adult did this to another adult, but this is a kid.

842
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 1: Doing this to another kid is just so messed up

843
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: and um So, eventually Mitchell let Crawford go and Mitchell's

844
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 1: legal defense was taken up voluntarily by this Portland's lawyer

845
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: named John Neil. Now Neil didn't just do this out

846
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: of like pity or kindness. Neil happened to be a

847
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 1: proponent of the budding science quote science and quotes there

848
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: of phrenology. So for for the audience out there, and

849
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 1: this is my imagination of phrenology at the time. I

850
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: have an inkwell at home that is a bust of

851
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:17,359
Speaker 1: a head and it has all the phrenology. You know

852
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:20,799
Speaker 1: that the stereotypical like phrenology drawings of like which part

853
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 1: of the head does, which it contains which emotions. So

854
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 1: those of you out there who are wondering what does

855
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:28,879
Speaker 1: this phrenology they keep talking about, think of those like

856
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 1: those illustrations of like a profile of a head and

857
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 1: it's like carved up kind of like kind of like

858
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: those like depictions of like what parts of a pig

859
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: are good to eat? Right? Yeah? Yeah, and it shows

860
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 1: like okay, and this part this is where anger is

861
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,839
Speaker 1: and in this part, this is where compassion is. Oh yeah,

862
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 1: it's great. So, uh, it's not great, it's awful, but

863
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:50,799
Speaker 1: it's great. It's great fun to look at it. So

864
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: phrenology might in a primitive way be considered a predecessor

865
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 1: to neuroscience, and that it linked mental faculties and personality

866
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: traits to the physical makeup of the brain. Uh, who

867
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 1: you are as a product of your brain. That's not

868
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: a bad starting place for for science. But from there

869
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 1: it sort of becomes the body builder bro science of

870
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 1: the brain. Uh. So you know how when you lift

871
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 1: heavy weights use certain muscles, those muscles get bigger over time.

872
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: I have no idea what you're talking about, at least

873
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 1: in theory, at least in theory. Uh, you know, and

874
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: so you can often tell how strong a certain part

875
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: of a person's body is by looking at how big

876
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:31,360
Speaker 1: the muscles there are. Well, phrenology sort of takes the

877
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 1: same principle to the brain. It positive that the brain

878
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 1: is covered in these topographical regions. Quote organs, organs right,

879
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 1: that are responsible for particular aspects of personality your behavior.

880
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 1: So if you had a lump or a raised contour

881
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 1: on the part of your head that chronologists legal labeled

882
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 1: the organ of hope or the organ of secretiveness, those

883
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 1: personality traits would be super pronounced in you. So if

884
00:48:57,800 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: one of these guys you know, pulled the let me

885
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:01,799
Speaker 1: tell you to the gun show line, the guns would

886
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:04,399
Speaker 1: probably refer to something like the organ of benevolence, let

887
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 1: me show you my head bumps. So like what what

888
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,440
Speaker 1: I mean phrenologists. Even at that time, people knew like

889
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: if you get hit in the head with a baseball bat,

890
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 1: bump forms on your head like oh like, depending on

891
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:21,760
Speaker 1: where you got hit in the head, your momentarily turned

892
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 1: into a more benevolent person or a more aggressive person.

893
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: That is almost exactly what the defense argued in this case. Okay,

894
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: hit it so phrenology is now considered completely discredited. There's

895
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:36,399
Speaker 1: no evidence at all that these cranial organs had any validity. Uh,

896
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 1: And you can't accurately predict people's behavior by measuring bumps

897
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 1: on their heads. But the defense in this case argued

898
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 1: that Mitchell had suffered an injury to the skull when

899
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: he was young, quote, whereby the portion of the brain

900
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:54,799
Speaker 1: called by phrenologists the organ of destructiveness was prematurely enlarged

901
00:49:54,840 --> 00:50:00,480
Speaker 1: and a destructive disposition excited. Man, if it was that

902
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:04,919
Speaker 1: easy to make children into little monsters, right, like you'd

903
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:07,799
Speaker 1: be able to very easily like create like an army

904
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: of homicidal maniacs, but just like whacking them on a

905
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 1: certain part of their head. Well that that's not actually

906
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: completely off. And I want to get into that in

907
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 1: a minute. Because so in this case, they observed a

908
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: lump behind Mitchell's right here, and they said, look, you know,

909
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:25,880
Speaker 1: the organ of destructiveness is enlarged. Uh. The crime was

910
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 1: a result of this enlarged organ of destructiveness. The enlargement

911
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:33,439
Speaker 1: was due to circumstances beyond Mitchell's control. He just got hurt. Um,

912
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 1: so he shouldn't be held responsible for the crime. And

913
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: the judge wrote, quote, where people do not speak from knowledge,

914
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:43,280
Speaker 1: we cannot suffer a mere theory to go as evidence

915
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 1: to a jury. So the judge actually pretty wisely in

916
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: this case ruled like this, This like old main judge,

917
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 1: though it sounds like people do not speak from knowledge.

918
00:50:56,719 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 1: It's like in pet cemetery. Yeah, exactly, you don't want

919
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: to go on that road of phrenology. That's a bad

920
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:08,240
Speaker 1: road of phrenology. Okay, yeah, those are a terrible main accent.

921
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. No, mine is not just as equally bad,

922
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:14,239
Speaker 1: and I'm from New England. But this does raise an

923
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:17,839
Speaker 1: interesting question like how to outsiders and lay people determine

924
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: what is knowledge and what is mere theory, and how

925
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:23,959
Speaker 1: to judges do it by the preferred nomenclature of today,

926
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,760
Speaker 1: I think most scientists would prefer to say mere hypothesis

927
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:31,719
Speaker 1: than mere theory. But either way, um, neither judges determining

928
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: admissibility nor jury members listening to an expert witness testify

929
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 1: typically have exhaustive knowledge of these disciplines. So what do

930
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: you do? Yeah? But then again, I do think this

931
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:47,400
Speaker 1: case raises important issues that are still relevant today because,

932
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:51,880
Speaker 1: for one, for one thing, courts today will take real

933
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:56,279
Speaker 1: evidence about, say injuries to the brain or illnesses that

934
00:51:56,320 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 1: affected the brain into consideration when thinking about somebody's responsibility

935
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:03,400
Speaker 1: for a crime. What if you, you know, normal person,

936
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: not a violent person, suddenly one day get the urge

937
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:08,160
Speaker 1: to go out and start beating people down with a

938
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:11,719
Speaker 1: folding chair. And then they discover that you've got a

939
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:15,319
Speaker 1: tumor on your brain rick flair disease. The the this

940
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,879
Speaker 1: tumor may well be changing your behavior in a way

941
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: that it's kind of hard to hold you personally responsible for, right,

942
00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:25,920
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's shaky, but yeah, well, I mean

943
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:27,480
Speaker 1: that's how a lot of the courts would look at it.

944
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:29,799
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you'd feel the same way if you were, Like,

945
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: you'd be like, this isn't me. I don't know why

946
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: I did that. That doesn't feel like a part of

947
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 1: me at all. And then they discover, well, there's a

948
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 1: tumor in your brain that's changing the way your brain works.

949
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:43,280
Speaker 1: Can you remove the tumor? Well, maybe you can, maybe

950
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: you can't. Yeah, I mean I guess like whether or

951
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:50,440
Speaker 1: not you're responsible, you're still responsible. But then then it changes,

952
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 1: like what the punishment would be right, like, like, you

953
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:58,880
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily send somebody like that to jail, but they

954
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:00,880
Speaker 1: would need to be ice lated so that they're no

955
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,839
Speaker 1: longer doing this if yeah, I mean hopefully they could

956
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: get treatment and other things would be a brain injury.

957
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:10,360
Speaker 1: You've probably heard the story of Phineas. I was just

958
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:12,239
Speaker 1: about to bring up Phineas. We talked about him on

959
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 1: the show all the time. Phineas Gage. He's this guy.

960
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 1: What what you're with that? Do you remember? I can't remember,

961
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 1: but I do remember that when I was in a

962
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: junior high school that our school had a DARE program

963
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: and they would often talk to us about the repercussions

964
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:29,799
Speaker 1: of drinking and driving, and they gave us all t

965
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 1: shirts that had a picture of a skull with a

966
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,880
Speaker 1: metal rod shoved up through it, and it was to

967
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: remind us about Phineas Gauge and how his brain changed

968
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 1: because of the rod. If you're not familiar with this incident,

969
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:47,400
Speaker 1: he was a railway worker working on a railroad and

970
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:50,320
Speaker 1: and there was some accident and explosion shot a metal

971
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 1: rod through his head and his personality completely. Yea, he lived,

972
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:56,759
Speaker 1: It didn't immediately kill him, but he was not the

973
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 1: same man. And this brain injury had altered something physical

974
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 1: about the way his brain works, and he was no

975
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:06,759
Speaker 1: longer morally or in terms of character, the same person. Right,

976
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:08,840
Speaker 1: And so like in my instance with these T shirts,

977
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:11,239
Speaker 1: Dare was trying to use this as a metaphor for like,

978
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:13,879
Speaker 1: this is what happens when you drink is you're no

979
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:19,080
Speaker 1: longer the same person. Subsequently you shouldn't drive, right, Okay,

980
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 1: But but this is another way that I think neuroscience

981
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:24,359
Speaker 1: may come into forensic science in the future, because like,

982
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:27,800
Speaker 1: the more we understand about neuroscience, the more we understand

983
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 1: about what things of physical changes in the brain can

984
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: lead to certain behaviors with with pretty reliable predictive power,

985
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: you know, you say, like, oh, we've discovered that most

986
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 1: of the time you see this physical process in the brain,

987
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: people start behaving in this way. Uh. Certainly, especially like

988
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 1: when you're talking about depression and anxiety. Yeah, exactly, do

989
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:55,240
Speaker 1: those things start changing our idea of how responsibility works

990
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 1: in the courtroom? Uh? So, Like if we say that

991
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 1: you know, somebody who Phineas Gage had a bar goes

992
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:02,719
Speaker 1: through his head, or somebody had a tumor in their brain,

993
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:05,440
Speaker 1: and this directly seemed to lead to a change in

994
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: their behavior that caused criminal activity or something like that. Uh,

995
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,600
Speaker 1: and what what if it's not an injury or an

996
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 1: illness but just some inborn condition. This is just how

997
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:19,400
Speaker 1: your brain was born. Yeah. Yeah, it's complicated stuff again,

998
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:22,920
Speaker 1: wicked problems right, Like like it's not it's not even

999
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 1: just as easy as like having the forensic science be perfect,

1000
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 1: because even then you get cases like what you're these

1001
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 1: hypotheticals that you're putting out. Yeah, it's very complicated to

1002
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 1: decide what's right and wrong. Yeah, and since we ran

1003
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:37,919
Speaker 1: so long, we're gonna have to call it right there.

1004
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:39,799
Speaker 1: So here, here's what we're gonna have to leave off

1005
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 1: the first half of this discussion, but to hear the rest,

1006
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:45,440
Speaker 1: you can simply tune in again next time. And in

1007
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:48,319
Speaker 1: the meantime, you can find us on social media such

1008
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:51,799
Speaker 1: as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumbler, where our handle is

1009
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 1: some variation on blow the Mind. You know what kind

1010
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 1: of weirdos we are. You'll be able to tell if

1011
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:58,520
Speaker 1: it's our accountant, I'm quite sure. And of course you

1012
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: can always catch always say and do. It's stuff to

1013
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:03,000
Speaker 1: blow your Mind dot com. And if you'd like to

1014
00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 1: email us to get in touch with ideas for future

1015
00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 1: episodes or feedback on this one. You can reach us

1016
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:20,440
Speaker 1: and blow the mind at how stuff works dot com

1017
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:22,880
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

1018
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot com. Remember remember,