How does forensic science today compare with forensic science 50 years ago, when you first entered the field?
Forensic science has advanced in ways I could not have imagined half a century ago. Everyone knows about the remarkable capabilities of DNA testing, although I have to say, not everyone knows about some of the limits of DNA testing. One of the cases in BEYOND THE BODY FARM really clobbered me over the head with those limits. But other forensic techniques fingerprint detection, ballistics, toxicology, and so on have also advanced by leaps and bounds. The questions and needs of the police help influence or drive research. In fact, those are what inspired me to create the Body Farm: police were asking me questions about decomposition and time since death that I couldn’t answer, so I started the research facility to learn more. One other sophisticated tool to emerge from the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Department is a computer program called ForDisc, which helps forensic scientists determine the sex, race, stature, and race or ethnicity of an unknown skeleton. ForDisc compares t
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