Expert forensic advice!

Bill Sikes · Post by **Bill Sikes** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:28 pm

This is a big problem with "expert advice". Who do you trust as "expert"?

Can you trust "experts" from the prosecution, or defence? Here is an

instance where you can't. There must be ramifications. Because "they"

"speak with authority", should their words be accepted as gospel?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manc ... 383307.stm

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:57 pm

But later he simply cut and pasted old reports together and changed details, the court heard.

Hahaha! Unreal!

Wasn't there a surgeon not long ago who was also caught for being a fraud??

K.Snyder · Post by **K.Snyder** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:34 pm

I'm having a hard time believing he had convinced everyone within the courts he knew what he was talking about...

He had to have tried to self educate himself in the field, surely.

Some random person off of the street would not be able to appear as competent in forensic science without knowing alot of the terms used and having some sort of knowledge about forensics.

Sounds to me like he was a little afraid of failure and didn't want to spend the time and money for a legitimate education.

Galbally · Post by **Galbally** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:39 pm

I think thats a very valid issue, and certainly there have been several well-documented instances where the expert witness evidence has been flawed or the witness themselves incompetent and not living up to the standards of evidence required even in their own professions. Also in our current culture, any prat can seem to come out with any kind of nonsense on television or the popular press and be believed by the usual suspects, a reflection on modern low levels of education and high levels of credulilty. I think partly people are gullible about people who are elevated for whatever reason to positions of authority (after all celebrity culture is based on this idea), but then there are also very good experts and rational voices out there, and usually you have a means of identifying whether someone is actually being completely forthcoming with their opinions etc. Its not a simple one to answer, and I think as in many things you have to look at it case by case, not generally, except to make the valid points you make about the problems of not questioning things in a rational manner enough, which is sadly endemic.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:54 pm

Bill Sikes;556706 wrote: This is a big problem with "expert advice". Who do you trust as "expert"?

Can you trust "experts" from the prosecution, or defence? Here is an

instance where you can't. There must be ramifications. Because "they"

"speak with authority", should their words be accepted as gospel?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manc ... 383307.stm

The first measure of a person's standing as an expert in a field is his recognition as such by the practitioners in that field. How can you accept a self proclamed expert without checking amongst his peer group.

The whole situation smacks of negligence within the judicial system.