Digital forensic evidence examination is not a normal science at this time. This paper discusses the important issue of moving toward a science of digital forensic evidence examination. It highlights key areas in which progress has to be made in order for digital forensic evidence examination to become a normal science.

§13.1 The Forensic Sciences §13.2 The Admissibility of Forensics-Only Science §13.2.1 “General Acceptance” in Forensic Science Should Not Be a Sufficient Condition for Admissibility §13.2.2 “General Acceptance” in Forensic Science Should Not Be a Necessary Condition for Admissibility §13.3 Trace Evidence and Identification §13.3.1 Matches, Non-Matches, and Hypotheses §13.3.2 Exclusions §13.3.3 ...

The authors describe a new approach to decision-making in an operational forensic science organization based on a model, embodying the principles of Bayesian inference, which has been developed through workshops run within the Forensic Science Service for forensic science practitioners. Issues which arise from the idea of pre-assessment of cases are explored by means of a case example.

Two of a number of hypotheses loosely referred to as the CSI Effect suggest that the television program and its spin-offs, which wildly exaggerate and glorify forensic science, affect the public, and in turn affect trials either by (a) burdening the prosecution by creating greater expectations about forensic science than can be delivered or (b) burdening the defense by creating exaggerated fait...

I address today's meeting as a guest. I am a guest in the sense that my disciplinary background in sociology separates me from most of today's participants who are trained in one or several of the natural sciences as well as in the forensic applications of those fields of inquiry. I am trained only in the ways of a single social science, although a science which is intensely ambitious in its ef...