NAS Recommendation 10: Science Classes For Everybody

The tenth recommendation in the NAS report titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward” is intended to bring the values, standards, and principles of formal education, research science, and statistics to forensic science and to the court room in order to “correct some of the existing deficiencies.” I agree with this recommendation wholeheartedly. However, I think that some of the points made in the discussion will become lost, so I want to bring them to the forefront.

The recommendation calls for funding for graduate programs to attract life science and physical science students to forensic science. The recommendation also calls for funding to provide education to attorneys and judges on scientific evidence so that they are informed on the subject.

I came to forensic science from research science. I have an almost embarrassing number of degrees, literally thousands of rodents have died at my hands in the name of science, and I have spent years planning and carrying out research studies.

I know what formal education has to offer and forensic science has a definite need for it. The controls, the discipline, the standards, the methodologies, the statistics… all of these things are absolutely necessary to build each area of forensic science into the mature and fully validated science that it can be.

The fact of encouraging more formal education and attracting more students from the physical and life sciences is commendable. That is something that needs to be done in forensic science and those who work in the field of forensic science need to hear that and accept it.

This is not something to be taken lightly or to be set aside. Forensic scientists must adopt more stringent scientific methodologies in all areas and at all points of evidence handling and examination. Bringing in graduates of life and physical science programs will do a lot to further that goal.

However, there are things that you simply cannot learn in a classroom that must be taught in what the NAS Committee calls “intern-like transmittal of practices” or “apprenticeship.” And the mindset and temperament of the Ivory Tower does not always lend itself to the real world practice of working as a forensic scientist.

“Information’s pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.”- Clarence Day

In the lead up to its conclusion on this recommendation the NAS Committee states

“Training should move well beyond intern-like transmittal of practices to teaching that is based on scientifically valid principles.”

The Committee relates this sentiment a few times in different ways, but the inference is pretty much the same: you have to start basing forensic science training on scientific principles instead of treating it like verbal history and folk lore, just passing it from one examiner to another. And they are absolutely right.

When training relies entirely on passing skills from one practitioner to another in an informal apprenticeship-type situation, forensic scientists could be presumed to only be as good as the worst examiner in that chain.

However, in a field such as forensic science there is simply no substitute for on-the-job training. You are not going to get the same situations reproduced in a classroom that you have reproduced in the field. You won’t have the same fingerprint smudges or the same damaged bullets or the same drug samples polluted with bodily fluids. You also won’t have the same working conditions.

One drawback of a formal scientific education is that it teaches people to think of everything in a vacuum: control all variables except what you are testing for, plan everything to the greatest extent possible, and if anything is overlooked or goes awry it could invalidate your entire study. The realities of working in forensic science are the opposite of that. You don’t have control over much of anything.

In forensic science, you have to learn to work with what you’ve got. It is possible to do the research to validate the various fields and to apply the science to your day-to-day work as best you can. But when it comes to day-to-day work, you never know what is going to come across your desk. That is not something that most college-educated scientists are accustomed to dealing with.

Then there is the reality that not everyone can deal with the facts of what brings the evidence to forensic scientists. If you work in a DNA Unit, you will probably spend a lot of time reading police reports about sexual assaults that will give you nightmares. I was once sent to a multiple homicide scene to help the primary investigator who refused to go into the same room where the dead bodies were, and it wasn’t the first time that person had had that kind of problem. But that person has a science degree from a top university, so they are an ideal applicant when a crime lab is looking for new hires. If you work in a Narcotics Unit analyzing drug samples, you will quickly become familiar with the term “prison wallet.”

Ideally, the “apprenticeship” part of forensic science training will become just as structured and rigorous as the formal scientific education that the NAS Committee is advocating. In that regard, those who design apprenticeship programs for new hires and trainees should look to incorporate scientific-type methodologies into their training plans.

The fact of the matter is that forensic science really needs the help and input of different people who have a lot to offer in order to make things better. Research scientists are rarely well-suited to work in forensic science but they have a lot to offer in the way of standards, principles, and methodologies. It will take effort on their part to get them accustomed to working in typical situations faced by forensic scientists and they should look to practicing forensic scientists for assistance.

Practicing forensic scientists have a lot to offer in terms of basic know-how and expertise but they need to accept that they have a lot to learn from formally educated research scientists about what does and does not constitute science, peer review, and statistics. It will take effort on their part to learn how to incorporate these things into how they practice their science and they need to welcome the input of formally educated research scientists into their field.

Forensic science is a field that is truly unlike any other. Forensic science needs the rigorous discipline and support of true scientific methods and formal education. But it also needs practitioners with experience in the field and backgrounds in law enforcement and the military who bring experience that you can’t get in the classroom.

Crime doesn’t happen in a vacuum and while some crime scenes may have similar traits, every crime scene is different and, therefore, all evidence is different. Developing effective training programs will be dependent on both formal scientific education and effective, well-structured apprenticeship training.

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