Random stuff worth reading on the internet thread

[Pelado]

Seems like a dumb ruling.

How so?

[Bo Diddley]

Seems like a dumb ruling.

I'd like to see what evidence was presented.

[Northwestcoug]

I took it to mean all sorts of pattern matching is suspect--not just ballistics.

yes, the implication that all pattern analysis has some inherent bias. Humans tend to look for patterns naturally. Computer aided analysis could be better, but if the algorithms came from a human they can still be suspect.

Seems like a dumb ruling.

did you read the article? In the best case scenarios, the false positive rate of calling two fired cartridges/bullets an exact match is ~20%. If you include ‘inconclusive’ results (remember, as a policy the FBI crime lab doesn’t exonerate any bullet fired; it is either called an ‘exact match’ or ‘inconclusive’), that rate shoots up to ~50%. A coin toss.

This ruling is exactly the thing that hopefully will generate more rational use of forensics in court cases.

[Jeff Lebowski]

yes, the implication that all pattern analysis has some inherent bias. Humans tend to look for patterns naturally. Computer aided analysis could be better, but if the algorithms came from a human they can still be suspect.



did you read the article? In the best case scenarios, the false positive rate of calling two fired cartridges/bullets an exact match is ~20%. If you include ‘inconclusive’ results (remember, as a policy the FBI crime lab doesn’t exonerate any bullet fired; it is either called an ‘exact match’ or ‘inconclusive’), that rate shoots up to ~50%. A coin toss.

This ruling is exactly the thing that hopefully will generate more rational use of forensics in court cases.

Let both sides present evidence and let the jury decide. Blanket ban of an entire class of evidence doesn’t seem rational to me.

[Northwestcoug]

Let both sides present evidence and let the jury decide. Blanket ban of an entire class of evidence doesn’t seem rational to me.

This is the same attitude that let bite mark analysis fester in forensic cases for decades, and put innocent people in jail.

[Bo Diddley]

This is the same attitude that let bite mark analysis fester in forensic cases for decades, and put innocent people in jail.

Yeah, I totally agree with you after reading the article. I'd still like to see all the evidence presented at that hearing though. It would be interesting to see where AI could take the field of pattern matching.

[Scott R Nelson]

Yeah, I totally agree with you after reading the article. I'd still like to see all the evidence presented at that hearing though. It would be interesting to see where AI could take the field of pattern matching.

Noooo.....

It's not bad enough to have people coming up with faulty conclusions, now you want to trust computers running algorithms that nobody can clearly explain?

[Pelado]

Let both sides present evidence and let the jury decide. Blanket ban of an entire class of evidence doesn’t seem rational to me.

I definitely did not expect this position from you. According to the article, individual ballistics characteristics are not at all scientific. They have presumably resulted in a lot of unwarranted convictions of innocent defendants.

That said, they've probably also allowed for the conviction of guilty defendants who might have otherwise gone free.

[Bo Diddley]

Noooo.....

It's not bad enough to have people coming up with faulty conclusions, now you want to trust computers running algorithms that nobody can clearly explain?

Only after AI demonstrated the ability to reliably pattern match, and that it can do it more reliably than humans.

[Northwestcoug]

Another in the series of junk science in the courtroom. In this case, there's a former cop who teaches police departments around the country how to tell if someone who places a 911 call is lying or not. Along the way eager prosecutors and cops email how they can skirt the Daubert decision and get their findings admissible in court. The article does a good job showing how something that seems like just one piece of evidence becomes a lynchpin of conviction. It's a propublica article so it's long, but it's a good read:

https://www.propublica.org/article/911-call-analysis-fbi-police-courts?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

[Pelado]

Crazy.

[Scott R Nelson]

An article about who the Luddites really were:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024...nomy-familiar/

I learned something new from this.

[Northwestcoug]

Vaccines work. No invasive cervical cancer in Scottish women who were HPV vaccinated at ages 12-13. And for those who were vaccinated later, there was still a significant reduction in cancer.

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advanc...xt&login=false

[BigPiney]

Vaccines work. No invasive cervical cancer in Scottish women who were HPV vaccinated at ages 12-13. And for those who were vaccinated later, there was still a significant reduction in cancer.

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advanc...xt&login=false

That is awesome.

[USUC]

Vaccines work. No invasive cervical cancer in Scottish women who were HPV vaccinated at ages 12-13. And for those who were vaccinated later, there was still a significant reduction in cancer.

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advanc...xt&login=false

I sometimes get so shocked by comments on twitter I go into their profile to see if it's a bot. In one profile I viewed a woman said that she will not allow her kids to get the vaccines because she expects them to be chaste.