It really is amazing what science can tell us about the world we inhabit. The technology that flows from this is also remarkable; take Curiosity as a case in point. However there is a dark side: a willingness to change beliefs and behavior in favor of anything that represents itself as science.
If you follow Radley Balko's blog, The Agitator, you will have followed the startling career of Michael West, who portrayed himself as the foremost of expert in bite-mark analysis and whose testimony sent many to death row. Bite mark analysis has been controversial for a long time. There is little evidence to show that there is any reliability in matching bite marks on a body to a unique person. Finally, even Michael West has given up on it.
One can only hope that the many convicts who were sent up on the basis of this fraud committed in the name of forensic science are at least given a chance for a retrial.
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