Doug

It has been grand and enjoyable. Where we may not agree, I do respect your thought on this and other topics.

I would bet the 921 committee did not think the words consider and formulate would have such a difference in meaning. I leave it to them to address the subject.

If I were to walk into the kitchen and say the fire had to have started from a failure in one of the 10 appliances in the kitchen, I have just developed 10 hypotheses. It is simple to me but guess I cannot communicate it very well. They do not become infinity because there are only so many reasonable items in the room that can cause a fire.

I cannot argue that 921 does not say specifically there must just be one hypothesis for you have a valid hypothesis. What it does say is, “Once the hypotheses regarding the “cause” of the fire have been tested, the investigator should review the entire process, to ensure that all credible data are accounted for and all credible alternate cause hypotheses have been considered and eliminated.” In this the wording the committee states, “all credible alternate cause hypotheses have been considered and eliminated” adequately states the committee’s intention that there be only one creditable hypothesis shall remain after the process is complete. The question then becomes can one have more than one hypothesis and still meet the intent of 921. After reading this wording I think the intention of the committee to have only one remaining hypothesis is solid.

There is no question apposing experts will be giving conflicting hypothesis. As to both being supported by the same data I would bet you would never get them to agree that the other’s hypothesis is supported by the data. Just think if this did happen in the courts. By the way it was good information but I noticed that it never said they were both equally correct.

You are right the previous example was poor. I think the one mentioned above is much clearer.

You can say the absence is not evidence is not evidence. This is one were we will have separate opinions.

Sorry, I guess I am not all there anymore. The word heater was used five times in the cause section. The word presence was used four times. The two words were never directly associated with each other. Give me the section and I will read it in context with what you are saying.

For what it is worth, and again it may not be much, here is something I read and believe is accurate when discussing science and the scientific method.

"The process known as the Scientific Method outlines a series of steps for answering questions, but few scientists adhere rigidly to this prescription. Science is a less structured process than most people realize. Like other intellectual activities, the best science is a process of minds that are creative, intuitive, imaginitive, and social. Perhaps science is distinguished by its conviction that natural phenomena, including the processes of life, have natural causes--and by its obsession with evidence. Scientists are generally skeptics." (from Biology by Neil A. Campbell)

Jim Mazerat
Forensic Investigations Group