A comment on the PCAST report: Skip the "match"/"non-match" stage.

Morrison, Geoffrey Stewart; Kaye, David H; Balding, David J; Taylor, Duncan; Dawid, Philip; Aitken, Colin G G; Gittelson, Simone; Zadora, Grzegorz; Robertson, Bernard; Willis, Sheila; Pope, Susan; Neil, Martin; Martire, Kristy A; Hepler, Amanda; Gill, Richard D; Jamieson, Allan; de Zoete, Jacob; Ostrum, R Brent; Caliebe, Amke

Morrison, Geoffrey Stewart; Kaye, David H; Balding, David J; Taylor, Duncan; Dawid, Philip; Aitken, Colin G G; Gittelson, Simone; Zadora, Grzegorz; Robertson, Bernard; Willis, Sheila; Pope, Susan; Neil, Martin; Martire, Kristy A; Hepler, Amanda; Gill, Richard D; Jamieson, Allan; de Zoete, Jacob; Ostrum, R Brent; Caliebe, Amke.

Afiliación

Morrison GS; Independent Forensic Consultant, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Adjunct Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Simons Foundation Visiting Fellow, Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. Electronic ad
Kaye DH; Distinguished Professor and Weiss Family Scholar, Penn State Law, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States; Regents' Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University College of Law and Department of Life Sciences, Tempe, AZ, United States.
Balding DJ; Professor of Statistical Genetics, Centre for Systems Genomics, School of Biomedical Sciences, and School of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Taylor D; Principal Scientist of Forensic Statistics, Forensic Science South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia; Associate Professor of Biology, School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
Dawid P; Emeritus Professor of Statistics, Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom.
Aitken CGG; Professor of Forensic Statistics, School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Gittelson S; Forensic Statistician, Statistical Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, United States.
Zadora G; Associate Professor, Institute of Forensic Research, Krakow, Poland; Senior Lecturer, Chemometric Research Group, Institute of Chemistry, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland.
Robertson B; Barrister, Wellington, New Zealand.
Willis S; Director General, Forensic Science Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.
Pope S; Independent Consultant, DNA Principal Forensics Ltd., Reading, England, United Kingdom.
Neil M; Professor of Computer Science and Statistics, Risk Assessment and Decision Analysis Research Group, Department of Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, London, England, United Kingdom.
Martire KA; ARC DECRA Fellow & Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Hepler A; Senior Analyst, Innovative Decisions, Inc., Vienna, VA, United States.
Gill RD; Professor of Mathematical Probability, Department of Mathematics, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Jamieson A; Director and Consultant Scientist, The Forensic Institute, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom.
de Zoete J; PhD Candidate (ABD), Department of Mathematics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Ostrum RB; Senior Forensic Document Examiner, Forensic Document Examination Section, Science and Engineering Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Caliebe A; Forensic Statistician, Institute of Medical Informatics and Statistics, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.

Forensic Sci Int ; 272: e7-e9, 2017 Mar.

Article en En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-27817943

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

This letter comments on the report "Forensic science in criminal courts Ensuring scientific validity of feature-comparison methods" recently released by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The report advocates a procedure for evaluation of forensic evidence that is a two-stage procedure in which the first stage is "match"/"non-match" and the second stage is empirical assessment of sensitivity (correct acceptance) and false alarm (false acceptance) rates. Almost always, quantitative data from feature-comparison methods are continuously-valued and have within-source variability. We explain why a two-stage procedure is not appropriate for this type of data, and recommend use of statistical procedures which are appropriate.

Palabras clave

False alarm; Forensic statistics; Likelihood ratio; Match/non-match; PCAST report; Sensitivity

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