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Is The 'CSI Phenomenon' Good For Science?
Tycoon Guy writes "With CSI: Crime Scene Investigation airing its 100th episode this week, I wonder, how do Slashdot readers feel about the show, and its two spinoffs? On the one hand, they've caused a boom in the popularity of forensic science college courses, and they glamorize geeks bent over microscopes, rather than smarmy lawyers. On the other hand, they may also promote an inaccurate view of science: prosecutors throughout the country now worry about juries that refuse to accept eyewitness accounts or even outright confessions, and instead exclusively demand the kind of forensic evidence they see on CSI. But of course, in the real world, you don't get a test like that in mere seconds - or without spending a substantial amount of money. So where does CSI rate on the geek scale for you?"
I have not watched much of the show, but I don't much care for shows that wrap everything up in a neat little box and make people think that all crimes are solved in an hour, give or take commercials. There is some cool technology, however.
I hate sigs.
Um, I don't watch it. Futurama is my standard for geek shows.
Yes. No. Maybe. I stand behind my answer..s.
vampirical
watching a CSI episode you notice the box of Diamond Evolution One gloves on the bench and think "good choice, those are my favorites, as well..."
I love the CSI, although I came to in way late. Nice thing is that Spike TV shows 2 reruns back to back at 7 each night.
Television influencing people into having twisted world-views!? Never!
Does anyone else *love* infinite resolution? I want a 320x200 security camera that can zoom in on someone's drivers license from 200 yards.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
I enjoy the show, although they all seem to follow the same recipe, that is everyone denies everything untill they have a minute info, then they give in a little, then spill the beans at the end of the show.
As for forensic in a jury, What a juror must understand is more about it, and truths from the popular show. Jurors are human too, so they will relate, or be swayed by personal oppinions, like strong family bonds, or a strong bond to their children.
It's in between Blind Date and Joe Millionaire.
I say we just grow up, be adults and die.
I think the show is good for science, but as you stated can be bad for the judiciary system. Is it ever a bad thing to have the populice become enamored with knowledge?
Your concerns about the judiciary system are warrented though but I wonder if that will ever be too big of an issue that we have to deal with.
Its good to have the public have some knowledge of forensics. The OJ jury didn't believe overwelming forensics and set him free. Juries should also be smart enough to know hen to believe eyewitness accounts. oops, hoping for to much, why should I expect juries to be smart
"brxref
Sure, there is a lot of junk science, but I think anything that stimulates interest in the justice system, and that helps to reduce the stigma surrounding jury duty, should help to grow the pool of willing potential jurors. Otherwise, the only people you get on juries are the ones too stupid to figure out a good excuse to get out of jury duty.
For years, jury duty has been seen as a nuisance to get out of however possible. Now, there is a real trend toward seeing jury duty as your civic responsibility, and taking it seriously, and even getting excited about it. I think overall this is good for the criminal justice system.
1) anything that promotes interest in science (no matter how glamourized and unrealistic) is a boon.
2) Jury instruction should be enough of a factor. Also, your reliance on the veracity of eye witness testimony is amusing, considering how unreliable IT is.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I watched ten minutes of an episode of CSI before I had to switch the channel because I started to get a craving for pork rinds. I HATE PORK RINDS! Seriously, if you want to see forensics investigators at work, CourtTV, The Science Channel, Discovery and TLC have a number of shows that can tickle your itch and won't treat you like a complete doofus.
Network TV - you can always count on us..... TO SCREW IT UP!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
1)revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, or false earnestness (a tone of smarmy self-satisfaction -- New Yorker)
2)of low sleazy taste or quality (smarmy eroticism)
Jesus I'm stupid.
They get the science and technology wrong as often as right. It seems like every other episode where they enhance three pixels of an image to get a recognizable face in a reflection. Or there was the CSI:Miami where they got a saved email off of the wireless router that the person had connected through. At least when they got image data out of the NTSC overscan, they were using a real concept, even if the amount of overscan they recovered was vastly exaggerated.
This navy study
and here, and again.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
A population that loves Sci-Fi that includes a solution for everything byr eversing polarities.
My buddy is a prop guy on CSI. For the most part the stuff they use is real, and he is trained on it... and then David Caruso is told how to use it by him.
We can't start worrying about a little creative license when trying to tell a story... the point is made that smart can be exciting, even sexy without having to worry about following the instruction manual to the T.
Kids will be inspired to learn about these things, investigate, solve puzzles either way.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Yeah, you don't get much more scientifically accurate than the X-Files. ;)
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Forensic evidence is one of the most powerful tools available to law enforcement because it is relatively irrefutable.
While things may not work like they do in "CSI" in real life, the sway towards the forensic can only help ensure that the proper people get sent to jail.
The popularity may also help increase funding for CSI departments nationwide. Most CSI departments are woefully underfunded and undermanned.
Besides, just imagine if they had been able to get O.J.'s DNA or fingerprints off of the inside of those gloves...
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
As for the submitter's question, eyewitness accounts are usually the absolute worst forms of evidence. It's especially bad when the witness doesn't actually know the defendant.
And I would say relevations regarding the liberties taken by cops with the Bill of Rights and Miranda have shaken faith in confessions more than shows like CSI have.
I'd say that having juries full of self-styled experts based on TV knowledge ain't great. But it's better than it was in the 90's, when you could snow over a jury with science evidence debate they don't understand. Used to be an easy way to get reasonable doubt.
All in all, I don't think education is a bad thing, and as I said CSI doesn't do a bad job. As long as the juries don't think they're experts, it should be OK.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
... but they overglamourize the job. The CSI people don't do the detective work... they do the crime scene work.
For an even worse example of something similar, look at the show "Crossing Jordan" where a medical examiner is doing detective work (umm... your job is looking at and studying corpses).
Maybe if the show had a detective, an ADA, and dedicated most of its time with the CSI team and showed how they interact with the other two, it would work better... think "Law & Order" with just a focus on CSI...
Actually, Navy NCIS does a good job. Good combo of detective work and their medical examiner and CSI are both big parts of the show. Very nerdy aspects... not a lot of junk science.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
As a faculty member at a small college, I cannot believe how many prospective and first year students approach me and tell me they are interested in forensic psychology, criminal profiling, etc.. How many of these jobs are actually out there? Aren't there only a few criminal profilers in the entire FBI? Is there any reason to expect that the number of job opportunities in this area are going to increase in the coming years? Fortunately college-level chemistry courses have a way of weeding out students quite quickly... If I had a penny for every poor pre-med student who took organic chemistry and then showed up in my office to ask me about psychology as a possible major... Heck, the only reason I went into Psychlogy was because of the old Bob Newhart show. I thought it would be great to be married to Suzanne Pleshette and live in downtown Chicago...
As for prosecutors worrying about CSI making juries expect TV-like evidence, the judge sets the jury's expectations. In general, juries in the United States are seriously flawed due to the exemptions provided to most educated professionals. The bigger picture issues are more important than whether jurors are expecting to see CSI-style evidence.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
When I do notice huge technical issues (not the little ones like instant DNA and computerized fingerprint/palmprint searches), it makes me wonder how many people believe this stuff. Even worse, it makes me wonder what I've picked up from shows in other subjects and assumed to be based on fact. I catch things on CSI, but I don't know enough about medicine or law to know what's made up. How much of my perception of law is completely fictional?
Just for fun, here are a couple of my favorite CSI science facts:
- NTSC overscans allow you to see footage that takes place 30% outside the normal video
- If you zoom in on a photo of a person, you can find a reflection in their eye. Zoom in on the reflection, and you can see facial features on the people standing behind the photographer.
The original CSI is my favorite, as I can't stand David Caruso from the Miami show, and CSI: NY it too new to form an opinion (which is slipping to dislike right now). My one wish is that they would do more theft type episodes and move away from all murder. Case in point was an episode last season that involved the theft of some priceless antiques. Awesome episode. Not a drop of blood, but the process of how the determined who was the thief was fascinating.
That said, the CSI craze has caused an outbreak of stupidity. Recently, a friend received a stolen check where she works. Since she is the general manager of the store, she had to go to the bank and work out the details. The bank teller (besides being an ass) made the comment that my friend shouldn't "touch the check too often as they might get her fingerprints" and she would get in trouble. Honest truth, those were the bank teller's words. My friend responded with "CSI fan, eh?"
I have another friend that can't stand the show on the grounds of how unrealistic it portraits criminal investigation. Being he was a prosecutor for numerous years, his main beef is that the CSI officers are never involved with the interrogation of the suspects and that the usually hand over their evidence to the investigating office. He then does all the foot work. He also says that the CSI folks don't carry firearms, but he concedes that might vary from office to office. He really dislikes the Miami show since the Caruso character is ordering police officers around all the time, which he says never happens.
There you go, the $0.02 from some guy off the street.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
I prefer the "real" forensic science shows on Discovery, TLC, and A&E. They tend to focus more on the hard work and real science involved in the forensic process than in the neat-hour-long drama. These shows usually have interviews with the actual detectives and scientists who work cases which I find interesting. CSI is boring; heavy on the drama, light on the science.
I love watching CSI as it is one of the more interesting crime shows, as well as the fact that it puts "science" in a more exciting role than "mad scientist", or crazy experiments.
However, the one thing that bothers me the most about the show above all others, is the fact that they like to do autopsies in the dark. They have the autopsy theatre in the basement with no lights on except for a dim bulb hanging over the body. How do they expect to see any markings on the body that way?
When I used to work as a researcher doing autopsies, we had a insanely bright room with white walls and lights that were brighter than the sun. Also, over the body we had a giant fume hood to take the smell away. And for forensic autopsies (which I have only observed), they usually have hoses washing over the bodies to keep the maggots from climbing over the area you are trying to examine.
Other than that, I love the show.
Live forever, or die trying.
We can only hope. A key lesson I took away from law school is that the unreliability of eyewitness testimony and the relatively high rate of coerced and/or false confessions present huge problems to the fair administration of criminal justice. Most of the cases of people exonerated by DNA evidence after serving years in prison were originally put away on faulty eyewitness testimony or coerced confessions.
Of course prosecutors don't like forensic technology! Their job isn't to be fair, it's to convict at all costs. (Doesn't matter if it's the wrong person, as long as *someone* was convicted of the crime.)
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Back in May of this year, NPR did a story on the popularity of CSI, and how the show compares to the way investigations are carried out in reality. The differences are pretty stark, but the excuse is that reality doesn't make for a gripping crime drama.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I think of Jurassic Park where the little girl is staring at the computer with some 3D file system view and says, "This is a UNIX system, I know this" and I realize that most shows are not very accurate. I imagine CSI's view of forensics is about as accurate as Jurassic Park's snapshot of UNIX. But it is entertaining anyway.
That however was indeed a Unix system, running SGI's 3d File viewer called FSN
worry about juries that refuse to accept eyewitness accounts
Eyewitness accounts are notoriously innacurate and misleading. A number of studies have found that people who witness criminal situations (and hence are under stress) cannot remember (and can even "invent" specifics about) the incidents.
or even outright confessions,
Confessions are also not reliable. Once again, under stress, an individual can be suggested to confess to thing he or she has not done (which is why you should take advantage of your rights and stay silent until your lawyer is present). A number of the cases that have recently been overturned by DNA evidence involved confessions. Yet years later we can prove these people are innocent.
If these CSI-educated juries are prone to be more cautious in making decisions about guilt, then IMO it's probably a good thing.
I go there. I don't study anthropology for grad school but I know some who do. But so many kids want to be forensic anthropologists because of Bill Bass and the Body Farm that they have to tell them the cold hard facts: There are no jobs in the real world. Tennessee has less than 20 state forensic anthropologists working at any one time in a population of 5+ million. UT now trains cops to do the work at a summer academy. Academics do the research and develop the techniques and the cops implement them.
When you hear something like that, how am I supposed to buy into the biochem stuff (an area I am not too familiar with) they toss around?
I sure have cleaned up my evidence-leaving ways, seeing all the good tips on these reality shows.
Heck, if the witness-relocation program didn't keep moving me about, I'd be caught by now, for sure!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
No, that's Crossing Jordan.
But I like how on the cop shows, the cops do all the work, question witnesses, etc. Then on the detective shows, it's the detectives who work the evidence, question witnesses, etc.
Then you have CSI, a show about the crime lab, and even after having an episode where one of the main characters says, "we're just the crime lab; we don't question witnesses," all the crime lab folks do the detective work, question witnesses, etc.
Crossing Jordan, like Quincy, is about a medical examiner who, can you guess...follows up on evidence, searches crime scenes, questions witnesses, etc.
I am actually more interested in how many criminals are getting way better at hiding their tracks, like the woman in the article.
Like most Slashdotters, I read a lot of fiction and watch a lot of movies. There is so much out there about how to do a crime, do it right, and do it without a trace, that I really wish law-enforcement agencies the best of luck--because they desperately need the best of luck.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
All that, and the characters are fairly annoying and shallow. Expecially the main guy and his one liners: "Speed kills". It's like a licensed game, you figure you've got the name, so why spend time on effort, in this case, writers.
Lawyers help you navigate complex deals, interract with the diverse laws of states and nations, and can keep your rights from being overrun by the RIAA.
Nicely worded, counselor. That neatly sidesteps the fact that lawyers were the ones who got the laws made so complex that noone but a lawyer can understand it. Convenient. I suppose it all depends on what your definition of 'is' is, or something similar.
I have another friend that can't stand the show on the grounds of how unrealistic it portraits criminal investigation. Being he was a prosecutor for numerous years, his main beef is that the CSI officers are never involved with the interrogation of the suspects and that the usually hand over their evidence to the investigating office. He then does all the foot work. He also says that the CSI folks don't carry firearms, but he concedes that might vary from office to office. He really dislikes the Miami show since the Caruso character is ordering police officers around all the time, which he says never happens.
My wife is a pathologist and as part of her training she had to take a death investigators course. According to her, death investigators do nothing but gather evidence. No more, no less. Their job is not to solve the crime but to make sure all the evidence is recorded, catalogued, transported to the appropriate labs as needed, etc. They are not permitted (in general) to try to make conclusions from the data; that's the job of the detective assigned to the case. You are right that firearms are generally not carried, they definitely don't order the cops around and they certainly don't drive around in brand new Hummers!
Apparently applications for forensic examiners & assistant positions are up something like 100X in the last few years. Like JAG, Law & Order, ER and a bunch of other shows, CSI glamorizes a job that really isn't all that glamorous. I don't think it's entirely a bad thing, we do need people in those jobs but it isn't exactly giving people realistic expectations.
I agree wholeheartedly, those are indeed the best gloves. But when David Caruso strokes his face while wearing them, I cringe. I was trained in a Human Genetics lab, which means any contamination was a major headache, and we used nasty chemicals all the time. So he was either contaminating evidence, or giving himself cancer.
You can wavelet and fractalate and vigourously wave your hands in the air until the lift you generate pulls you alongside a cruising 747, but you can not get more information than exists out of an image.
Most zooming algorithms suck, compared to the true content of the image, which is why we can do much better with our eyes. We know that is a "car", so we don't interpolate, say, a tire with jaggy lines, we know it is round.
But ultimately, take a fuzzy, off-true "3" and "5" and zoom out/blur enough, and there is no difference between the two, thus, no way to "backtrack" to the original image. There is a fundamental limit, and CSI routinely passes it.
You can play with contrast and brightness and sometimes retrieve a number or something. But your human eyes are already as good as you can expect at extracting a "3" from an image with suitable brightness and contrast. If you can't already see it, no magic algorithm is going to help. (I'm confident in this case our brains are close enough to optimal on this problem that no significant improvement can be made, even in theory, on still images.)
That can't be good for science.
That can't be good for anybody.
Personally, I'd rather have juries believe in the forensic sciences, even if they are exaggerated in their portrayal on television... This is a much better state of affairs than having juries exhibiting characteristics of the OJ syndrome where they totally discount science and instead believe "if it doesn't fit they must aquit."
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(
What's really sad is that after 7 seasons + of the highest quality documentary filmmaking people still don't believe in aliens.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Scritching.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You're 100% correct (of course). But try playing with some of the best software out there sometime.
It is really amazing just how much information is in the low-res source file, encoded as slight changes in colour values. And the best software does an unbelieveable job of extracting that (making huge guesses along the way). Sure, the guesses do mean it will get it totally wrong occasionally and show things that were never there, but most of the time they're right.
Well duh! Being nearly legaly blind (and since when do lawiers tell me when I'm blind?), I know that I'd rather take my glasses off if I were going to jump. That way I wouldn't know I was about to hit until a few feet before impact.
--Forest C. Adcock--
Anyone else notice that all the outside scenes in the Miami offshoot are seen through a slightly orangeish filter, and the New York ones pass through a light bluish one?
IIRC, the dube was spiked with dust.
I have seen people do really weird stuf on dust.
No cannibalism, though...
You have to be very careful with the context of forensic evidence. I recently watched a show called "masterminds" where a jewel thief in Raleigh made a point of deliberately leaving behind tiny snippets of other people's hair, blood and skin, and tromping around the crime scene in huge boots leaving footprints that were 3 sizes too big, in order to throw off investigators. He was only caught when his fence tried to hawk part of the loot on EBay.
The interpretation of results can be highly subjective. There was a famous case a few years back in Canada where a well known doctor accused of rape willingly drew his own blood sample for investigators, which came up negative. They were sure he was guilty, but couldn't figure out how he had faked the blood test, as they had seen him draw the blood sammple from his arm right in front of them. As it turns out, he later confessed that he had inserted a sealed, plastic surgical tube into his arm from a small (unseen) incision further up his forearm ahead of time that contained a sample of somebody else's blood.
My rights don't need management.
As someone who has been forced to see every CSI ever, the Vegas series does not portray the Police as honest, hard-working or fair. Nor does it portray the Justice System are fair, why there was a Judge who was ordering evidence to be thrown out.
There's been cops leaving thier post, cops shooting civilians, court clerks killing suspects, cops gambling on duty, cops taking hookers home and so forth.
I enjoy the show, but from watching it I now sadly realize that I'm not good-looking enough to be a scientist. I am relieved to know that Las Vegas is the location of such vibrant intellectual activity (since I live there).
My wife turned to me and said, "It looks like they need to update their Anti-Virus"
Right in the center of the really busy screen was the Norton Anti-Virus "Update your Anti-Virus Definitions" window.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
http://refocus-it.sourceforge.net/
And why do none of the CSI techs never wear headcover while leaning over a crime scene looking for evidence; hairs, dandruff, etc?
It's a common site on modern British police procedurals-- everybody wears disposable white bunny suits at a crime scene.
Most TV show that suck. CSI sucks too. It is good for a chuckle if you really, really have nothing else to do and are too tired to go play on the internet.
I always get a good laugh out of the magic scanner machine. They rinse a q-tip into a little test tube, put the test tube into a rack, the rack gets roboticaly loaded into a machine, there is a couple of seconds of the sound of a dot matrix printer, and the "tech" says in a serious voice, "It's a piece of rubber from the tire of a 1989 green chevy pickup truck! There were only 1000 of this model produced of which only 17 are still on the road and only one is registered in this state. The owner is the suspects sister!"
At this point they confront the sister who admits that she really was in town after all and she did cut up the body, disolve it in lye, grid up the bones and throw the dust in the Atlantic, "but he was already dead."
Since one of the teeth didn't get ground up all the way they are able to put the tooth back into the magic scanner (cue more dot matrix printer sounds) and show he really died of poisoning on tuesday when the sister said that she saw him alive on wednesday.
They then connect to a national database that tracks the cash purchases of everyone in the country for the last 10 years (here we are treated to the sound of a 9600baud modem, dee,doo,deeeeeeeeee,doooo,dooooooooo!) to show that last August she bought some rat poison when she was in Chicago for a business trip and had an affair with the dead guy.
They confront her again and this time she admits she did it. We get about 20 seconds of the main character finally on a date with the cute scientist from out of town when his pager goes off (no nooky for you) and its time to watch an ad for a new cure for erectile disfunction ( when a quiet time becomes the right time) .
Every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward - T. Edison
I love when they take a pipettor, dip into a large beaker of solution left open on their benchtops and pull back a half-full tip with air bubbles in it, with big droplets hanging off the side, then squirt some of it into an unlabeled test tube. The show is great, but as a biologist, I cringe every time they do that.
Also, if you ever see a M.E. kneeling over my corpse, touching my hair and saying "oh, poor baby, who did this to you?" you have my permission to slap her! Or as David Caruso would say, "You have my permission...[dramatically puts sunglasses on]...to slap her."
I used to work in a really horrid section of Atlanta, and luckily, the local police were regular fixtures there. One night, I was talking to two officers when an older woman approached them, in near-hysterics, shrieking about how someone had broken the window to her house.
They told her they'd take a report, but that there was no way to fingerprint glass that had been shattered into very tiny pieces, so the chances of capturing the bad guy were minimal.
She then started screaming about a footprint that she found on the ground below the window and how she, "watches that CSI show" and knows that "they can make a plaster cast of the footprint" and whatnot. By the time she mentioned collecting DNA evidence, they were clearly getting bugged.
Thing is, cops are getting this ALL THE TIME. Everybody, no matter how small the infraction, wants a forensics van and a crack team of government scientists to bring out the big machinery.
More proof that television is rotting our brains.
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
Many anthropology programs are already dealing with a glut of students envisioning themselves doing the kind of work they watch on CSI, but it hasn't been that much of a problem since it only takes one class for them to be disabused of the notion. Although I and other anthropology students have found those people to be something of a nuisance, it isn't really a serious issue since anyone who sticks with that major won't be under any illusion that their job will mirror what they've seen on television.
(for the record I'm a cultural graduate and find physical/forensics to be incredibly dull)
You can wavelet and fractalate and vigourously wave your hands in the air
Fractalate!
Fractalate!
How did you know this would be my new favorite word? Honestly, if you had used "wavify" instead of "wavelet", I would have mailed you a ham out of sheer glee.
... it is just a TV show. It is an idealized version of reality. It is not meant to be a literal translation of forensic science. Not all forensic scientists are great looking, not all cases are solved... much less in a couple of days.
If you judge these kind of shows with extreme severity you can also rule out ER, Law and Order and almost anything else. CSI IS NOT A DOCUMENTARY!
These facts don't take away from the fact that it is a great show, with great writers and great actors. They manage to make it fresh everytime and the caracters are very well developed and motivate great empatic responses in the audience.
McGuyver wasn't science fact or reality based either, but we ate it up every week.
Cheers,
Adolfo
And TV shows about doctors convince kids to stay in school.
And TV shows about violence convince kids to stay out of trouble.
And COPS inspires the right people to join law enforcement.
And sex on TV is good for healthy population growth.
And American Media made me the genuine, sincere person I am today.
I actually am taking a class in Forensic Anthropology this quarter (from a Board Certified Forensic Anthropologist even) and I have to say, while I knew a lot of the stuff on CSI et al was crap, I'm almost getting to the point where I can't watch them anymore. The very first thing my prof told us on the very first day is WE DO NOT SOLVE CASES. It was in huge caps on her slide. As forensic investigators, we gather evidence and provide it to the police. THEY solve the case. For instance, in class we have an assignment where we are given parts of a skeleton and we must analyze them and put our findings in a case report just like our prof would write for her cases. On a rib, I noticed a fracture. My job is to document the fracture, say whether it is ante-, pere- or post- mortum and what kind of injury it is consistant with. It is NOT my job to say that the guy was punched in the ribs by the assalant 'cause he wanted the guy's wife or whatever. My job is to say that I have observed a peremotrum fracture of the left fourth/fifth rib which is consistant with blunt force trauma and then explain why (the pattern of fracture, etc). It bothers me to see these forensic investigators getting all Dragnet everywhere.
My prof actually discourages people from going into forensic sciences because really there aren't that many jobs. And she would know! Yes she's a well known forensic anthropologist working on some high profile cases (including the Peterson case) but she also teaches at a university. Doing case work is not her total bread and butter.
I'll also say that a lot of the people in my class are very influenced by the CSI shows and think that forensic work is all computers and microscopes and pretty things. They don't realize they have to deal with dead and bloated bodies, gunshot trauma, and other things that you shouldn't be seeing in slides at 9:30 in the morning (this morning it was maggots. Needless to say, I didn't have anything with rice for lunch). I don't think CSI will have the dalmation effect for forensic sciences (ie, people saw 101 Dalmations and went out and bought dalmation puppies because they were OH SO CUTE.. only to realize that they couldn't deal with the breed and gave the dogs away), but I will say I have to deal with a lot of tarts in my classes who I'd rather kick to the curb since they just want to wear tight little tshirts look pretty like they do on CSI.
This show has a record of being completely inaccurate. I know it is just a TV show and everything, but you have to admit that they are at least trying to uphold the image that this is how real cops solve real crimes.
In a physics class I took in college we watched a few episodes so the professor could point out all the stupid inaccurate references. In one episode some worker fell off of a building and died because his drill shorted out and electrocuted him and he fell over the railing. The cop was talking about how he was falling at a velocity of 9.8m/s squared. He was obviously refering to the acceleration of gravity, or the writers don't know the difference between velocity and acceleration. That is just one example of how they take reality and bend it to make the show interesting and dramatic.
Don't get me wrong though, I think it is interesting and fun to watch. Perhaps it might intrigue others and influence them to learn how things really happen. Either that or someone will copy one of the brutal murders off of the show...
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
But then, I never got into Alias either, so I may not have typical Slashdot tastes. Jennifer Garner's just too hard-faced and bony for my liking...
You must think in Russian.
The AC is obviously a fan of Yoda.
There are no commercials in Star Wars.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Maybe "sheer glee" is the jelly-like substance that canned hams are packed in?
If true, it would follow that sheer glee lies somewhere between solid glee and liquid glee. I would pursue this further, but all this talk of ham jelly is making me hungry and/or nauseous.
Every time they bring up wifi or computers, I wince.
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If you believe these shows, it's an easy and exact science. In reality, it's neither.
I've never seen the show indicate that time of death is that easy - they tend to use the word "about," and often provide a reasonable window. I've seen tmies where they set it up so the time of death was muddy enough to just let the alibi stand, at which point they had to build a case using other evidence.
If your 'little forensics training' indicates otherwise, please inform us... but if you really are trained, you'll know that these shows are quite wrong often on this detail.
True, some shows better than others. I've found CSI to be a bit better than a lot of shows. I've also seen them explore some interesting research, for example the work derived from the professor at the University of Tennessee who runs the "body farm." They also throw cutting edge intrumentation on the show occasionally, such as an episode solved by an "electronic nose." I can personally say that treatment in particular was dumbed-down and unrealistic, because I develop such devices. But they can't go in depth on the show, for time constraints, so introducing such techniques is a good start.
They are the first popular show that I know of to explain the science of what they're doing. They do sometimes get things wrong, but not usually, and the attempt is a good one. Blood spatter, glass fracture, and ballistics tests are examples of classic analyses they've introduced. Is it as easy as they set it up on the show? No, because you have to make it obvious to the viewer how it works.
These are short TV shows, with TV show hack script writers and limited schedules. Facts are frequently bent to make a better story. Real forensics experts have a hard time watching these shows, they're so full of mistakes.
I'm not saying CSI is a Nova special. I'm saying it's the best of TV fiction. And I think it has a net positive influence on people, if only that CSI has also made other, more informative nonfiction shows that much more popular. Shows that do in fact get the science right. And again, I don't usually see CSI portray time of death estimates as solidly as you suggest.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I took a class in forensic anthropology one summer as an elective. The professor had a Master's degree from the University of TN, and was the forensic anthropologist for a huge swath of western NY (at least a few million in population, not to mention lots of lakes a forests for things to be found in). Her day job was as a pathologist's assistant, because she only worked as a forensic anthropologist a few days a month when there was something to be done. Sure there were several full-time so called CSI's but they usually did very boring stuff.
XANDER: Not on a regular VCR they don't
According to Buffy, it's still possible to do this kind of crap, just not on a normal VCR.
Technoli
NCIS too. Gibbs (teh main character) can do no wrong. He storms into warehouses full of terrorists armed with AK-47s and greandes (they all miss), shoots a few shots from his pistol (it only takes 1 each) and walks away without a scratch. Not even his hair is messed up. He takes the most redicilous gambles and always wins. His hunches are always right, as proven by evidence later. He always hates the right people. He easily manipulates the evil (and stupid) terrorists without the reverse ever happening.
Warrants be damned; he's above them.
Illegal arrests and confinement? Illegal, taninted searches? Pah!
He gets into pissing matches easily and always wins.
Why doesn't he just put a bright spandex suit on?
I stopped watching this show after about 2 episodes, although not all my friends seem to hate it as much, so I still catch the occational scene; to remind me why I avoid it.
CSI is Scooby Doo for adults. I hate the fact that every single room has mood lighting and every line has to be dramatic. How do they see anything with the lights off?
It started out pretty good. The sets were nice, the hallways looked like a typical government building and they would have those impromptu meetings in the breakroom. It had a much better "workplace" feel to it. Now they work in their decorated offices that are _huge_ and filled with specimens instead of the normal, two guys to an office with white walls and flourescent lights (maybe a fake plant for some greenery).
They are trying to make every moment dramatic with lighting and script. Adding David Caruso to the cast is evidence of this. That guy does not have an off switch. I know nobody who acts like that - even the primadonnas in the lab laugh and spit food and behave like a human being most of the time. I don't watch CSI-Miami for that reason.
I think they should also show it more like how they typically work - with multiple cases going on. The character might have one thats in court, one or two in the lab waiting on results, and a new one that they are getting assigned.
The drama (and plot) should come from the interaction of the characters, not the science. The science should just be an interesting side show. When they started putting the science as the lead character, the show lost its appeal. If I want science, I'll watch Nova. I do not trust Hollywood with scientific accuracy.
Anyway, enough CSI bashing. CSI is on - Gotta go!
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
On a related note, as a graduate student in a biosciences lab, I always chuckle when I see one of the CSI lab techs at a bench - without fail there's a pipettor used in most episodes. Usually dispensing some sort of coloured mystery liquid. Obviously it can't be science without your trusty pipette in hand.
Seriously, any other science geeks get a kick everytime they see a lab coat and pipette?
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
I think I read about that in an article on CSI:Miami. It's just color psychology. Most people don't consciously notice the color cast, they just think the reddish place is getting more direct sunlight and is thus hotter (Miami) and the bluish place is getting more overcast/shade type light, thus colder weather (New York). It gives each show a different "feel". Same thing happens in the photography field. Look up color balance, color psychology and white balance.
You probably don't realize it but a lot of the commercial images and things you see on TV are passed through a slightly reddish filter or white balanced on a slightly blue object (thus subtracting blue, the same as adding red) to "warm them up". It makes skin tones look more vibrant and everything looks more inviting and appealing, psychologically speaking. That's why things on TV often look more "real" than the everyday things you see around you. Apparently the general public doesn't like the drabness of color accurate reality.
My class and lab were a while ago, so bear with me. Radar sends out a pulse that bounces off of objects and radiates in all directions. That radiation returns to the radar antenna at a greatly reduced level. That level is usually going to be lower than the level of static. With one radar pulse, you would see nothing. If the results from 10 pulses are added together the object in the distance will become very obvious. That's because static will average to 0 theoretically. The return pulse will add up faster than the static. I did a lab on this for which I still have the o-scope images downloaded in a report on a floppy. As well as this method works, it can only help so much. If a return pulse is too low it will not grow faster than the static as it is added up. The lower the return level the more pulses you need to see it.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
I always got the impression that this is done intentionally, for a variety of reasons:
For instance, finding a small piece of something in a rug with a light on can be fairly hard since your brain has to interpret all that visual information. However, if the area is dark, and you shine light around, the object is much more visible due to the sharp contrast. You'll notice this is why they use flashlights even in well-lit areas at times.
Who knows what's happening when they first get there. All clues and evidence are important, and for all one knows, turning on the lights might disturb something. Granted, this is reaching, buut that's the point. They try not to change the environment as much as possible so they don't contaminate anything. Again, reaching, but what if said killer left a blood spot on the bulb of the lamp in a room with the victim and Joe Schmoe Crime Lab Investigator comes in and snaps on the light... oops.. there goes the DNA sample that just burned up from the heat of the lighting coil in the lamp.
Each one of those reasons alone would be enough for me not to just turn on the light.
- Ghent