Is Fingerprint Analysis a Science?

The Scottish Fingerprint Inquiry reported yesterday and one of it's findings was that the identification of fingerprints was opinion, not fact and suggests that it can't be considered scientific.For those of you who know nothing about this case, briefly, a fingerprint at a murder scene was identified as belonging to a police officer attached to the case. Said police officer denied ever having been in the murder house. On this basis, the officer was tried for perjury, but cleared when experts from the USA discovered the fingerprint never belonged to the officer in the first place and a terrible mistake had be made. Meanwhile, David Asbury was sentenced to life in prison for murder on the basis of yet another erroneous fingerprint identification in the same case!!!!!The Inquiry has determined that the police officer did not make the fingerprint in question and that the fingerprint which led to Asbury being convicted was similarly misidentified.The whole debacle took place in the 1990s, but we're only getting it cleared up now. The finding of the Inquiry that fingerprint identification is not science, but opinion, and should be stated as such in court proceedings will raise howls of indignation from fingerprint experts around the world. It's akin to declaring that DNA analysis is not science because someone made a mistake.So where do we draw the line between science and opinion? I've always held that in writing research papers, the only place for opinion is in the discussion of the results and said opinion has to be backed up by data from the paper or previously published data.Coffee house probably, but not very sure since it's nowt to do with evolution or creation, but does concern the validity of science in general.Edited by Admin, : Change title.

The Inquiry report goes into detail with regard to confirmation bias and circular reasoning. It's very interesting to see how this sort of thing manifests itself. I see a sort of equivalence in carrying out scientiic experiments without the inclusion of adequate controls. For example, the fingerprint examiners (FE) supposedly worked to a 16 point standard, i.e., they had to find 16 points in agreement and sequence and no unexplained differences before they could call it a identification. However they admitted that sometimes by the time they had found 7 or 8 points in agreement, they had alreay made up their minds and any differences they subsequently encountered must have an explanation, even if that explanation was unknown.A case was also made by one of them that he would examine only a target area and if the target area had 16 points in agreement he would disregard any differences outwith the target area. Now that worries me greatly because it doesn't matter how many similarities there are, a single, obvious difference precludes identity. That's exactly the same as evidence supporting a scientific theory - it doesn't matter how much corroborative evidence you have, a single piece of evidence contradicting that theory is enough to kill the theory.My contention is that fingerprint identification is science if it is practiced scientifically. What happened in the McKie case happened because the FE lost sight of that basic requirement of science. Declaring that all fingerprint identification is not science is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I think this goes to the heart of the case in Scotland. At the perjury trial the prosecution knew that the main evidence for the defence was to be based on fingerprints. Even knowing this the Scottish fingerprint experts were ill-prepared to demonstrate their findings, unlike their US counterparts. When questioned as to how they reached their conclusion that the prints matched one of the Scottish "experts" could only say "because I'm an expert!" They also declared that it wasn't their job to make juries fingerprint experts in 5 minutes. That smacks of arrogance.The very foundation of any science is the ability to defend your opinion, based on the evidence that led you to that opinion. Every single day scientists stand up and give presentations and are then bombarded with questions. Every day scientists submit their findings for scrutiny and publication.Since the OJ Simpson case defense lawyers are willing to challenge DNA evidence and this has resulted in greater stringency in collecting and analysing DNA evidence. Challenging DNA evidence is only possible because when evidence is given no-one testifies to 100% accuracy since there are all sorts of factors that can come into play, such as contamination.In the Scottish fingerprint case, the Scottish experts testified to 100% certainty which is, in fact, not the case. This mindset was ingrained in the legal system and defense lawyers had no idea of the complexities of fingerprint comparison. The lawyers now know and this may be the catalyst to bring fingerprint identification in Scotland up to standard.As to whether the Scottish FE had any formal scientific training, I really doubt it. Feast your eyes on this nonsense. When asked by the inquiry about how he went about matcing prints, one expert stated that he would identify a target area with similar features. He would then work from there until he found 16 features in agreement. Once he found the 16, he called it a match. If there were obvious differences outwith this area he ignored them on the basis that they weren't in his target area!!! This is what this expert testified to under oath and he saw nothing wrong with that! You couldn't make this up.

I think you've missed the point of the discussion. The fact is that, i te UK, prior to this case, FEs were not cross-examined, they did not illustrate the evidence on which they based their findings and they declared that they were 100% certain.Based on this the inquiry has declared that fingerprint comparisons are not science, paying no attention to the fact that the methodology of the Scottish experts in the Scottish case were sloppy. Neither does it take into account that nothing in science is a 100% certainty, with a few exceptions. Is the inquiry correct to declare all fingerprint examination is opinion and therefore not science based upon the failings of the Scottish experts?If you want more information the tanscripts of the hearings and copies of all exhibits used can be found on the inquiry's web sitehttp://www.thefingerprintinquiryscotland.orgThe final report can be found on that site also.

Just a quick reply cos I'm heading for bed.you say It's not commonplace here either, but this case was unique. Briefly the only evidence against the murder suspect was a fingerprint found on a tin containing cash in his bedroom. This fingerprint was said to have come from the murder victim and that the accused had stolen the tin of money when he murdered her. The problem was, his parents insisted that they had given him the tin, originally containing candy, a few years before. The entire prosecution depended on fingerprint evidence. By testifying at the murder trial that she had never been in the house, the police officer put the entire case against the accused in jeopardy because it raised the question of the validity of the fingerprint identification and the competence of the FEs.The accused was convicted of murder, but it was believed that the police officer had put the entire case in jeopardy just to save face. She had never been authorised to enter the scene of the crime, in fact it would have been very irregular for her to have done so. What they didn't consider for a moment was that she was telling the truth.It has subsequently been determined that the fingerprint on the candy tin did not belong to the victim and that the FEs had made TWO errors in one case. The conviction has been overturned.