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9th International Crime Science Conference

By uctckeh, on 16 July 2015

We ran a session at the conference today with talks from Professor David Spiegelhalter (University of Cambridge) and Dr Gill Tully (Forensic Science Regulator). It was well attended and both speakers gave thought-provoking talks on how forensic scientists communicate their findings in court, and how we express uncertainty within legal (and other) contexts. Both were of the opinion that juries should be given probabilities in the form of statements, but that these statements should be standardised and as transparent as possible. Professor Spiegelhalter stressed the importance of expert witnesses being able to not only interpret statistical probabilities (i.e. likelihood ratios) but also be able to communicate them clearly. It was a fascinating session and seemed to generate a lot of discussion among the delegates present.

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