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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday April 16 2017, @12:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-really-needs-independent-experts-anyway? dept.

Common Dreams reports

The Trump administration's anti-science bent has reached the Department of Justice (DOJ), with Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying [April 10] that the department is ending the National Commission on Forensic Science.

The 30-member panel was described by ThinkProgress as "a group of scientists, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other experts tasked by the Obama administration in 2013 with raising standards for the use of forensic evidence in criminal proceedings".

In its place, a senior forensic advisor will be appointed "to interface with forensic science stakeholders and advise department leadership", Sessions' statement said.

[...] "The reliance of law enforcement on questionable science and the overstatement of the reliability of that science has been a leading cause of the wrongful conviction of innocent people", said National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) president Barry Pollack on Monday. "The reason the National Commission on Forensic Science has been so important is that it includes leading independent scientists, allowing an unbiased expert evaluation of which techniques are scientifically valid and which are not. NACDL is terribly disappointed that even while acknowledging the crucial role played by the National Commission on Forensic Science, the Attorney General has chosen to disband it."

Additional Coverage:

Previous: Forensic Hair Matches: More Junk Science from the FBI


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:57PM (#494912)

    that showed the near constant funding of R&D at the federal level (which let us note is a significant increase in inflation-adjusted dollars)

    How can we trust the "facts" of someone who gets "inflation" backwards?

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:41PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:41PM (#494986) Journal

    How can we trust the "facts" of someone who gets "inflation" backwards?

    I suppose you could think instead. Let us note here that the graph of federal spending was in dollars per GDP fraction and near constant for the last three decades. GDP for the US grows considerably faster than inflation, hence, from that graph dollar amount adjusted for inflation grows faster than inflation as well.

    I'll note this is the second time a graph in this thread has been significantly misinterpreted by an AC.