User blog:PullingoffMasks/Why research is damned fucking important to do

Subheading: This is a very angry post coming from the angle of a trained forensic scientist who has seen to many good writers play fast an loose with the myriad disciplines within the forensic sciences...and is sick of people thinking they know ALL about the forensic scienceS when all they do is watch CSI and other bullshit shows.

''This has been taken from my writer's advice blog. ''

CSI Effect (or the jury don't know shit about forensics, despite them thinking they do)
Ah.

CSI. That golden standard of shit programing on television. Mostly white, somewhat conventionally attractive 20-40 somethings work doing fancy things in lab for the police. Sometimes, they’re on scene. Sometimes they’re in the lab.

But you can bet that every time the fucking dipshit writers will manage to fuck up the science, fuck up with representation of police powers (US and UK), fuck up how to process a scene, and fuck up with what scientist should be doing what.

Eh.

That’s fine, isn’t it? I mean, it’s just television. Nobody will ever take it as representative of real life.

Right?

I’m not being too privileged in that assumption, right?

…Except, sadly, people do.

And since in the US/UK, you have the right to be tried before a jury of your peers (ignoring all the weighting and icky stuff that comes with this assumption), you are usually dealing with folks who haven’t had the forethought to duck out of jury duty and usually don’t know anything, outside of what CSI and it’s ilk have ‘taught’ them.

Which a very big issue.

Why?

Well, let’s put it this way. CSI/Dexter/Bones/SVU/etc. is to forensic science as House/Grey’s Anatomy/ER/Scrubs is to medical science.

While at some point, there was something resembling the truth at the core of the episode, it’s been so fucked over it’s not real any more.

It also, due to it being…well, fiction, makes up methods, speeds up the due process of SCIENCE, and ignores the slight fact that fingermarks and DNA are only ever as good as the databases behind them.

(And this isn’t even going into how they process scenes, which, frankly, would destroy any trace evidence and remove it’s validity in court)

On the due process of SCIENCE!

Most forensic analysis techniques take ‘forever an’ a fuck’ when compared to their fictional counterparts.

As examples: I’ve seen CSI (the show) turn a DNA analysis around in under (a mentioned) 4 hours. This doesn’t happen in reality. Ever. A good example of this is both the Lockerbie bombing and 9/11…Lockerbie’s initial recovery took a month of on scene work, and the better part of 2 years for analysis (and this is pre-DNA being ‘a thing’). 9/11 is still having analysis work done on recovered remains, as there was a promise made by Mayor Guilliani that EVERY single remain found would have DNA analysis done on it. …The initial analysis of recovered remains (mostly anthropological and dentistry related) took over a year to get into. What I’m saying, in an incredibly profanity ladened rant is: Don’t be that guy.
 * DNA analysis, due to advances in technology, usually can be turned around within 2-10 days, dependent on priority and quality of the sample. It takes even longer to get a match, given that (in the UK at least)
 * A complete skeletal analysis (assuming sampling for histology slides and DNA) can take anywhere from a day to 21 days…depending on what you’re doing to the poor sot, how experienced the person doing the skeletal analysis is, and what else needs to be done for the situation.
 * A search of a ‘simple’ closed scene (think a murder in a house) will take you the better part of a day…and any analysis from that can take up to a month to be completed.
 * Mass fatality incidences, which usually end up with forensic pathologists, dentists/odentologists, anthropologists, chemists, photographers, and/or engineers being called to the scene, can take YEARS to fully analyze after the initial on scene stuff has been done.

Great, you know a little about an immensely vast field that’s got a ridiculous amount of subfields in it. That’s fuckin’ wonderful.

But you don’t know squat.

Read, you do NOT know enough to challenge an expert witness on their chosen topic of focus. Most defense lawyers don’t either, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue.

You also are not owed flashy science by the expert witness. A lot of forensics is very dull and dry science…it’s really hard to make “I analyzed the skeleton for signs of carnivore scavenging” any more exciting than it already is.

You are also not owed exact measurements by the expert witnesses. Chemistry, toxicology, and pathology are more exact than fingermark analysis, DNA analysis, and forensic anthropology.

But there is no way in the nine layers of hell ANYONE can tell you down to the amounts that are usually flung about on procedural CSI type shows. (Note this especially applies for aging adult skeletons, where ‘exact’ is usually an age range including anywhere from 5 to 20 years in the brackets)

You, as a potential jury member, and as an author, do have some obligation to make sure you are fully aware of the fact that CSI is one of the worst shows out there for basing your assumption of forensic science off of.

Educate yourself, be aware that you’re NOT going to understand everything out of an expert witness’ mouth (as hard as they may try), and just…be aware that CSI type shows cause horrible bias in the jury.