Please also inform your colleagues in Law/Criminology and Forensic
Science of the following meeting
Many thanks,
John Marriott
ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY
GENERAL APPLICATIONS SECTION
Tuesday June 8th
Meeting starts at 2:00pm
Tea at 3:30 pm
Errol Street
Speakers
COLIN AITKEN (Edinburgh)
"Interpretation of relative frequencies for lawyers"
PHIL DAWID (University College London)
"Probability and Statistics in the Law"
IAN EVETT (Forensic Science Service)
"Logical forensic inference: is the law a ass?"
LORNA GOODWIN and DAMIAN SCHOFIELD (Nottingham)
"The presentation and treatment of statistical evidence in courts"
DETAILS
TITLE: Interpretation of relative frequencies for lawyers
AUTHORS: COLIN AITKEN (Edinburgh)
ABSTRACT
Relative frequency is often considered to provide a measure of the
strength of the evidence of a match. The problems associated with the
interpretation of relative frequencies will be discussed, with
illustrations, some right and some wrong, of various attempts to aid the
courts' understanding of the figures.
TITLE: Probability and Statistics in the Law
AUTHOR: PHIL DAWID (University College London)
ABSTRACT
Statistics and the Law share surprisingly many interests, including
interpretation of evidence, testing of hypotheses, and decision-making
under uncertainty. However their approaches and reasoning processes can
be very different. When legal evidence is itself probabilistic,
untutored intuition can be very misleading, and even trained
statisticians can fail to appreciate some of the logical subtleties and
pitfalls. I shall discuss some of these subtleties, with special
reference to recent cases involving sudden infant deaths and DNA
profiling.
TITLE: Logical forensic inference: is the law a ass?
AUTHOR: IAN EVETT (Forensic Science Service)
ABSTRACT
The literature that deals with the logic of interpreting evidence within
the context of a legal trial is now fairly extensive and there is a
broad consensus at the academic level - legal, statistical and
scientific - that the appropriate framework is Bayesian: the
implementation of logical reasoning in everyday court proceedings is
another matter. Recent judgments by the Court of Appeal tend to make
things more difficult for those who wish to present scientific evidence
in a logical, balanced and robust manner. Aspects of these judgments
will be discussed with reference to case examples.
TITLE: The presentation and treatment of statistical evidence in courts
AUTHORS: LORNA GOODWIN and DAMIAN SCHOFIELD (Nottingham)
ABSTRACT
Statistical and mathematical techniques are frequently called upon to
analyse, interpret and explain a range of evidence in the courtroom, in
particular complex forensic evidence. Although statistics have the
potential for uniformity, clarity and impartiality, there is still a
risk of misinterpretation and misuse, not only by the trier of fact but
also by the expert. Previous applications of statistical techniques in
the courtroom have highlighted this danger. The Courts have declined
unjustifiable and incoherent mathematics, expressing concern that
statistical techniques might be unfair to defendants. This presentation
will not only focus on some past cases of statistical misuse and the
reaction of the Court, but also introduce possible methods of
appropriate mathematical analysis of evidence.
In this digital era, computer-generated forensic animations are playing
an increasingly important role in the visualisation of forensic evidence
in court. This technology allows the visualisation of complex data,
placing it in the context of the accident or incident environment and
illustrating changes in the data over time. These visualisation
techniques have proved useful for further mathematical and statistical
analysis of the evidence
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Dr John M Marriott
School of Computing and Technology,
Nottingham Trent University,
Burton Street,
Nottingham, NG1 4BU,
U.K.
tel: +44 (0)115 8482127
fax: +44 (0)115 8482998
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