February 5, 2004
On a COMPLETELY different subject, today geometric morphometrics
claims yet another applications domain, this one wildly unprecedented. A
Los Angeles Superior Court jury was persuaded to sentence a convicted
murderer to life without parole, instead of the death penalty, based in
part on geometric morphometric evidence (specifically, my 3 hr of
testimony about the hypervariability of the corpus callosum of the brain
in fetal alcohol damage). The same sort of likelihood ratio test that
we are used to using for species-level classifications worked in this
case to supply 77:1 posterior odds for the presence of prenatal alcohol
damage in the prisoner.
I know of no previous forensic application of our toolkit, let
alone one so dramatic. The transcript of my testimony will be posted
shortly on some University of Washington web site; I'll send this group
a link to it when it exists, so you can all tear apart the pedagogy.
So will we end up throwing some future workshop at a law school?
Fred B.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PS. I didn't use MANOVA in the death penalty case.
Seriously, I appreciate the many fascinating responses to my
provocation. My follow-up comments should come over the weekend -- this
forensic news has me most pleasantly distracted for the next 24 to 48
hours. FB
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