Response

Post #1

I believe the importance of the scientific method in the collection of forensic evidence is the hypothesis itself. The hypothesis is what one may think the outcome will be. As it relates to forensics, scientist generate hypotheses from the observations of physical evidence. ("scientific method (article)," n.d.). Tangible objects such as fingerprints, DNA, firearms and bullets are key to physical evidence. Evidence is gathered by forensic scientist to formulate a conclusion and provide proof to establish a person guilt or innocence. Forensic evidence is generally considered to be strong and reliable. (Houck & Siegel, 2015)

Scientific method consists of observation, a question, formulation of a hypothesis, a prediction and using the findings in court prosecution vs defense. ("Scientific method applied to forensic science," 2009). In court the prosecution will try to use test and findings to discredit the defense, and the defense will try to prove that the prosecution acquisitions are false. Often times the theories from either side are those of past history.

Post #2

The scientific method is used in all different fields of science to test a hypothesis. The scientific method is defined as, “the principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses,” (Merriam-Webster.) This method contains four main steps, including observation of a phenomena, formulation of a hypothesis to explain the observed phenomena, the use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, and performing experimental tests of the prediction by several independent experimenters (Mary Bernstein, 2009.)

I believe that taking the scientific method into consideration while collecting forensic evidence helps investigators consider what information certain pieces of evidence will be able to provide to an investigation. For example, if investigators are working a death investigation and it appears that the person suffered from a gunshot wound. There are no guns found near the victim’s body, however there was a gun found discarded near the residence. Investigators have observed a gun within reasonable proximity to a victim who suffered a gunshot wound, investigators could reasonably hypothesize this was the murder weapon. Investigators could then collect the firearm and conduct further testing to determine if the ballistics were a match to any projectiles recovered from the scene. If it does not match, then investigators know they do not have their murder weapon and will have to continue to work to find it and thus create a new hypothesis.

There are two methods of logical thinking these are inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is based on related observations to come to a generalized conclusion, whereas deductive reasoning is hypothesis-based science where one can predict specific results (OpenStax, 2020.)