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Anonymous Coward writes:

In 2009, a National Academy of Sciences committee embarked on a long-overdue quest to study typical forensics analyses with an appropriate level of scientific scrutiny--and the results were deeply chilling. Aside from DNA analysis, not a single forensic practice held up to rigorous inspection.

Far from an infallible science, forensics is a decades-long experiment in which undertrained lab workers jettison the scientific method in favor of speedy results that fit prosecutors' hunches. No one knows exactly how many people have been wrongly imprisoned--or executed--due to flawed forensics. But the number, most experts agree, is horrifyingly high. A complete overhaul of our evidence analysis is desperately needed.