Forensic science uses science to answer legal questions, with various disciplines including biology, psychology, and chemistry. Professionals are trained to evaluate evidence and generate factual reports to help law enforcement. However, the field is not infallible, and some practices have been debunked.
Forensic science is a broad discipline within the sciences and law enforcement community that uses science to answer questions relating to legal situations, including criminal and civil cases. Within forensic science, there are a number of individual disciplines, ranging from forensic anthropology to forensic veterinary science. Professionals in this field are part of an age-old tradition in which the facts of legal cases are scientifically analyzed to obtain information that can be used in investigations and eventual prosecution.
Numerous cultures have a long history of using forensic science in forensic investigations, ranging from Archimedes, who used buoyancy information to prove a gold crown was a fake, to Chinese investigators who tapped criminals by asking suspects to present agricultural tools and as a tool the flies settled, indicating the presence of blood. Interest in forensic science exploded in the 20th century with the general advancement of scientific knowledge including the development of tools such as DNA analysis and complex chemical analysis which proved invaluable to forensic science.
Within the field of forensic biology, which applies biology to living organisms involved in criminal cases, can be found forensic botany, forensic odontology, forensic entomology, forensic pathology, veterinary forensics, and forensic anthropology. Some other examples of forensic science fields include forensic psychology, forensic meteorology, forensic chemistry, forensic engineering, forensic psychiatry, forensic geology, forensic photography, forensic document examination, forensic chemistry, computer forensics, and forensic archeology.
Forensic science professionals have extensive training in their field of expertise, along with evidence management training to maintain the chain of custody and integrity of evidence. They are skilled at evaluating evidence from a crime scene using principles of the scientific method and can generate reports based on factual material that can help law enforcement members find criminals and successfully convict them. They may also testify in court about how evidence was collected, handled, and analyzed, and about the types of equipment used in forensic labs to gather information from evidence.
This field is far from a magic wand. It can take time and patience to get useful results from a forensic scientist, and forensic scientists are not infallible. Some practices within this discipline have been questioned and challenged for legal reasons, especially when they were new, and some historical trends in forensic science have been roundly debunked, such as phrenology, the study of bumps on the human head to gain insight about the character.
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