{"id":6778,"date":"2023-10-12T13:15:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T17:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/?p=6778"},"modified":"2023-10-12T13:15:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T17:15:06","slug":"is-it-really-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/2023\/10\/12\/is-it-really-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Really Science?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How scientific is bloodstain pattern analysis? Certainly if it\u2019s used in criminal trials it has to have a degree of credibility. Bloodstain pattern analysis or BPA is a subjective forensic science. In episode 5 of <em>The Staircase<\/em> we can see that the prosecution\u2019s expert claims that the bloodstains in the staircase could have only been caused by a beating. However, in episode 7 the defense\u2019s expert Henry Lee claims that it is impossible for these stains to be caused by a beating and that the only cause for these stains must be from an accidental fall. So if both experts seem to entirely disagree on their conclusions is BPA really scientific?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like most observational sciences, BPA is highly subjective. But whether a science is subjective or not, the fact that it still goes through the scientific method is not taken away. BPA uses the chemistry of blood and the physics behind falling liquids to analyze why a scene might look a certain way. Just like in any other science, experiments are done to test the hypothesis of the conclusion that might have been reached. For example in episode 5, the prosecution\u2019s expert tested his hypothesis of how the crime might have happened. He wore a white suit and recreated the crime to analyze whether the bloodstain pattern appeared the same as in the crime. He placed several objects with blood in them and beat them several different ways to see if any of them produced the splatter seen in the scene. In episode 7, Henry Lee also analyzed the blood and tested his hypothesis in front of the jury. He used pieces of cardboard and threw blood at them by coughing on them or just swiping the blood at the cardboard. They both had a scientific analysis of the evidence but I think that the prosecutor\u2019s expert has a bias towards the crime being a beating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think the tricky part about BPA is that the analyst might have biases when inspecting the scene and therefore might gear the conclusion to suit this bias. This issue can be overcome by gathering several opinions. But at the end of the day BPA is still science. (364)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How scientific is bloodstain pattern analysis? Certainly if it\u2019s used in criminal trials it has to have a degree of credibility. Bloodstain pattern analysis or BPA is a subjective forensic science. In episode 5 of The Staircase we can see &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/2023\/10\/12\/is-it-really-science\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[155089],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6779,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778\/revisions\/6779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ch115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}