Arson Forensics Sets Old Fire Myths Ablaze

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/19/142546979/arson-forensics-sets-old-fire-myths-ablaze

by ALee • 15 years ago

73 32 15 years ago

pg• 15 years ago

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...

munin• 15 years ago

computer forensics is currently in much the same state that arson forensics was at the time Texas sentenced Willingham to death. as far as I know, it hasn't killed anyone, yet...

gwern2• 15 years ago

I don't know about killed, but every time I read a blurb buried somewhere about a child porn trial (based, invariably, on the contents of a computer), I think back to one or two known cases of someone planting CP on another computer and trying to frame the owner...

nobody31415926• 15 years ago

There was the company that sold the US a system to find hidden messages in Al Jazera videos - I think that got a few people a trip to the orange suited holiday camp before everybody discovered it was a con

colonelxc• 15 years ago

Speaking of errors in computer forensics:

http://wordpress.bladeforensics.com/?p=357

ldar15• 15 years ago

Magical thinking alive and well in america. The New Yorker paints a picture of good evidence finally being heard. Reality tells a different story.

"Days before the meeting, however, Gov. Rick Perry replaced the commission chairman with Bradley, district attorney in Williamson County. The session at which Beyler was scheduled to speak was canceled, and the fire expert never appeared before the body."

"But the Texas Forensic Science Commission panel heading the inquiry also found insufficient evidence to prove that state Deputy Fire Marshal Manuel Vasquez and Corsicana Assistant Fire Chief Douglas Fogg were negligent or guilty of misconduct in their arson work."

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Flawed-scien...

Nothing more powerful than magical thinking and politics combined.

Alex3917• 15 years ago

"Nobody ever set out to send an innocent person to prison for arson"

But they're sure happy to keep them there.

aptwebapps• 15 years ago

Correct. Or keep them in their way to the chair. Because to admit they were wrong would be embarrassing. This is the banality of evil.

mustpax• 15 years ago

As a foreigner it is absolutely fascinating to me how sound the basic tenets of the American justice system are and yet the system itself manages to be flawed and bizarrely vindictive. These arson convictions sure take a very interesting view of the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt."

gwern2• 15 years ago

As compared to... what? A northern European system, I'm guessing. They're the only ones which aren't prima facie equally flawed and bizarre (like Japan's 99% conviction rate).

mixmax• 15 years ago

That's actually an interesting question. I'm Northern European, and my first thought was that the parent is right - that'd never happen here - our system is just and fair.

On closer inspection however I see a lot of my own bias:

- I'm not American, and so I believe that my system is better than yours.

- I read sites like Reddit daily, which is infested with stories of wronddoing, police violence and what have you. Since a lot of the userbase is from the US and the site generally is US centric I'll be exposed to a lot more US based wrongdoing which will bias my opinion.

- The US has a larger population than Northern Europe, which means that even if the two systems are exactly the same there will be more injustices done in the US.

So which is it? I don't know, but I do know that if I hadn't stopped to think I'd agree with the parent poster.

nohat2• 15 years ago

It is interesting how long it has taken for forensics (even just some small aspects) to be approached in a scientific way. It is very disappointing when you consider how many people's lives and livelyhoods depend on forensics. I wonder what other systems depend on anecdotes and apprenticeships for expertise, that really ought to be approached scientifically.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

Software Engineering.

nohat2• 15 years ago

I am not aware of an attempt to scientifically approach software engineering generally (though it seems like the type of thing that would have been tried). I have seen some pretty scientific approaches to performance and efficiency. What do you think should be done? Perhaps more peer review. Blinded testing of code complexity and development difficulty for different code systems?

Darmani• 15 years ago

Institute for Software Research: http://www.isri.cmu.edu/

Software Engineering Institute: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/

Max Planck Institute for Software Systems: http://www.mpi-sws.org/

UW CSE Software Engineering Research: http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/software.intro.html

rdtsc• 15 years ago

> It is interesting how long it has taken for forensics (even just some small aspects) to be approached in a scientific way

I know someone who contracts out to forensics labs and police depts. The situation is basically a mess. "Experts" are selling "expertise" to people who are not familiar with the domain. So it just comes down to convincing the prosecutor, attorney, judge, a member of a jury, that you are an "expert". That can be done by clever sales techniques: look professional, know how to use lots of buzz words, and stuff like that.

Then the more a certain "expert" is invited to testify or to examine evidence they accrue "credibility" regardless if they ended up making shit up on the spot or not. This "expert" has been invited by appear at 10 trials, so they must be good. Or "look he worked with 3 police departments, he must be good".

The fundamental problem is those who are not experts in a domain need to find expert, so that opens a possibility for "clever salesmanship" therefore my friend's business...

da5e2• 15 years ago

shorter: flashover occurs faster than investigators thought. That is the sole myth the article even mentions.

ceejayoz2• 15 years ago

It links to a much more detailed article. Expecting a short radio piece to go into enormous detail is a bit unreasonable, and picking the biggest one - that fire investigators didn't even know how long a normal, non-accelerated fire would take to start - is pretty good at showing just how bad the state of the "art" was/is.

da5e2• 15 years ago

The title of the article was linkbait.

leeHS• 15 years ago

I'm a Forensic Biologist, working mostly on DNA evidence. This article does not surprise me in the least. The National Academy of Science is also not surprised. They issued a report about a year ago examining the forensic sciences in the US and found that many fields do not have enough core research. My favorite example is blood spatter analysis (think Dexter). This field is completely built around crime scene experience. It's only been within the last decade that some serious research has been undertaken to provide a scientific basis for the opinions offered in court.

Now, it's not bad if your particular field has a few areas that are still lacking in basic research. But you have a DUTY to express this in court. For example, in this case, the expert can say that based on his 40 years in the field, this is his opinion, but he should note that there is no scientific support, and he should always declare if there is any disagreement within the community.

Forensic science is an amazing field...unfortunately the practitioners tend to mess it up.

marquis• 15 years ago

This story was heartbreaking. How frustrating it is to be bound to our own shortsightedness, and worse - to know it.

Arson Forensics Sets Old Fire Myths Ablaze

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