Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
14
Forensic Applications of Geometric
Morphometrics
In recent years, the forensic sciences have become enormously popular with the public
due to developments in DNA technology (
Lempert, 1997; Lynch, 2003
) its use in high pro-
file cases and the popularity of the CSI television series, which has raised public expecta-
tions of the performance of forensic sciences to the point that it has become a concern in
jury selection (
Schweitzer and Saks, 2007
). At the same time, there has been increasing
awareness of the tremendous variation in how forensic science is carried out in the USA
(
National Academy of Science, 2009; Budowle et al., 2009
). Some types of forensic science,
such as DNA and other chemical analyses, or methods from physical anthropology, are
based on large scale laboratory science outside the forensic community as well as exten-
sive use in the field by forensic agencies. Other areas of forensic analysis, including those
of bitemarks or footwear impressions, have been developed largely by forensic or clinical
practitioners based on clinical practice, case reports and anecdotal evidence. For these
areas of investigation, there is little evidence or background information drawn from
large-scale, systematic research projects and little involvement of scientists from national
laboratories or academic positions (
National Academy of Science, 2009
). Apart from DNA
and other chemically based analytic methods, a thorough knowledge of error rates and
repeatability in many forensic areas is often lacking (
National Academy of Science, 2009
).
There have been a number of high profile exonerations based on DNA evidence (see The
Innocence Project,
www.innocenceproject.org
, for examples). In addition to freeing a num-
ber of innocents, post-conviction DNA analyses have provided a one-time natural experi-
ment that permits the analysis of factors contributing to wrongful convictions overturned by
DNA. Several of the studies of these cases have indicated that errors in forensic science have
been prominent contributors to these wrongful convictions, perhaps partially because of the
high value placed on scientific evidence (
Saks et al., 2000, 2001; Findley, 2002; Huff, 2004;
Risinger, 2007
). The 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences (
National Academy of
Science, 2009
) was a critical look at the practice of forensic science in the USA, prompted in
