Forensic Pathology News
Dr. Young will post links to news articles that interest him about
forensic pathology, medical examiners, coroners and death
investigation in this section.
Pathology in the News
- A DNA database with 2% of the population can be used to find almost anyone
- The technique they used is called familial DNA testing. In past forms of DNA testing, a suspect were caught if their DNA was a perfect match to samples found at the crime scene. Familial DNA testing looks for partial matches, which can provide leads to make arrests. A new piece of research published in Science shows just how powerful that technique can be.
- I like to shop at the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office
- One of my new favorite gift shops is at the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. Cheekily named "Skeletons in the Closet," the gift shop is a great source for travel mugs that say "Bodily Fluids" and chalk outline beach towels. They used to sell body bags, but as I learned during a recent visit, those items have been phased out — once they stopped letting people engrave them with "mother-in-law," the products no longer flew off the shelves.
- Slip-up leads to charges for Arizona forensic medical examiner
- Words come back to haunt you, especially when uttered in court.
Pathology Links
- ACCPE means Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events. It is The Sherlock Effect.
- Whenever an expert states the past events that occurred on the basis of looking only at the physical evidence without reference to eyewitness statements, he or she is Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events. This is not only logically invalid and unsound, it never works in practice, Sherlock Holmes, CSI and Bones notwithstanding. Whenever ACCPE is listed in my comments to a news article, recognize one more tragic example of how this fallacy can destroy lives. ACCPE can also be understood as "backward reasoning,""effect-to-cause reasoning," or "abductive inference."
- American Academy of Forensic Sciences
- ForensicScienceDegree.org
- For further information on forensic science.
- National Association of Medical Examiners