But is it Anything?

✍ Scribed by W.J. Tilstone

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 227 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0015-7368
• DOI: 10.1016/s0015-7368(85)72356-0

✦ Synopsis

Journal policy promises anonymity to writers of Editorials, but, on this occasion, your Editor chooses not to conceal the obvious. Readers of the "Preliminaries", as the un-numbered pages of the Journal are termed, will see that I have moved from a University post in the United Kingdom to an operational post in Australia, and what follows draws on my experiences in these two roles to address the question of the development of forensic science-perhaps supplementing the excellent Guest Editorial by Dr Rodger in the previous issue of the Journal [I].

"But is it Science" asked if forensic science had the right to call itself a branch of science [2], and this question was waiting to haunt me on arrival in Australia. In brief, Edward Charles Splatt was convicted of murder in 1978; the means leading to his identification as a suspect, and the bulk of the evidence at trial, could be described as "forensic (science)". As a result of media pressure, a Royal Commission was established to review the circumstances of his conviction, and the Commissioner, Mr C Shannon QC, reported in August 1984 that Mr Splatt should be set free [3]. Some of the evidence presented by the defence during the Royal Commission, and discussed in detail by Mr Shannon, dealt with whether or not there is such a thing as forensic science. Thus Badger said "It is important to recognize that