Name: Forensic Science: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Uploaded: 2017-10-16T05:09:32.000Z
Duration: 18 min 51 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Basic passive voice

You know that thing that was almost solved

how we increasingly solve crimes using forensic evidence.

It's that thing that is just a staple of TV crime shows.

The bite marks match those of the monkey found at the scene.

from one of the crossover episodes where the team from Law & Order,

worked a case with the cast of Monkey Law and Monkey Order.

on TV and in real life forensic science plays

an important role in criminal convictions.

Prosecutors often complain about a so called C.S.I. effect,

where jurors expect to see forensic evidence in every case.

is as reliable as we've become accustomed to believe.

A report in 2009,by the National Academy of Sciences

do not meet the fundamental requirements of science.

And a report last year by a Presidential Science Council agreed saying that,

the value of their evidence, going far beyond

It's not that all forensic science is bad,

it's reliability is dangerously overstated

and one sign of that is that forensic experts in court

are often nudged to use one very convincing phrase.

To a reasonable degree of the scientific certainty...

To a reasonable degree of scientific certainty...

Within reasonable scientific certainty...

Are you able to say that within a reasonable degree

does have a persuasive ring to it. Unfortunately,

as that Presidential Council pointed out,

it has no generally accepted meaning in science.

It's one of those terms like, basic or trill

that has no commonly understood definition.

I mean I do feel trill, so I'm guessing it's awful.

is confidently presented, terrible convictions can happen.

who have been exonerated by DNA testing since 1989,

there was some misapplication of forensic science

and there are people behind those numbers.

Take Santae Tribble, who was convicted of murder

thanks to an FBI analyst who testified that his hair

the evidence was presented, as being rock solid.

And that's the way  they presented it to the jury

and the jury took it for granted that, that was my hair.

would possibly know that much about hair?

whoever stalled Amanda Seyfried at the 2009 Oscars.

without loosing any of their body or bounce.

Stunning! Stunning! Stunning! Stunning! Stunning! Stunning!

The jurors in Tribble's case, were actually told

that it could be someone else's hair, and guess what?

Because once DNA analysis became available, his lawyer tested

Nine of the  hairs had come from the  same source,

looked at that and analyzed it, didn't recognize that it was dog hair?

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Forensic Science: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

discipline

absolutely

phrase

present