In this Quackcast we're chatting about the massively overblown impression that forensic science has in modern pop-culture media and how that can even affect reality when unscrupulous prosecutors use the public's misguided faith in “expert witnesses” and TV influenced ideas of the infallibility of forensic science to influence and sway juries when they shouldn't. Our perspectives (the Quackcasters), on this are fallible and limited because none of us are legal experts or forensic scientists of course, so we tried to focus on the pop culture stuff rather than real world examples too much.

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes was really responsible for massively popularising the importance of forensic science in popular culture. The search icon that is EVERYWHERE is the magnifying glass which has zero to do with “searching”, it's only in use because it comes from the image of Sherlock Holmes and his use of that device to look for forensic evidence in the form of fingerprints among other things. These days there are so many shows where forensic science is the main driving factor in all criminal investigations: Handwriting examination, bullet striations, DNA, Blood splatter patterns, wound examination, bone injuries, facial reconstruction of skulls, voice pattern recognition, polygraph tests, fingerprints, blood type, body language and facial expression examination, traces of hair and fibres, and so on and so on.

What they don't tell you is that many of those things have a massive failure rate, some are completely unreliable, and some don't even work at all, but according to popular media all of them are absolutely infallible. In reality not even eye witnesses are completely reliable and all these methods (the ones that actually work), are only used in conjunction with many others as prompts to further investigation, NOT to prove guilt on their own as they're often shown in pop-culture. They don't really even build a case, they just tell you where you should probably look so you can put together a timeline, establish where a person was, discover new people to talk to and establish the veracity of their story.

Do you know any examples of silly, overblown use of forensic science in pop-culture? Or examples in the real world even?
I remember when I went back to university to do post grad studies in the early 2000s, forensic science was ALL the rage because of its profile in so many popular TV shows that many people, mainly women, were getting degrees in it, because the degree had recently been created to cash in on that popularity. I had to wonder how many of them thought they'd really be able to get jobs on that field since Perth (where I am) didn't need hundreds of new forensic pathologists and Australia in general didn't really either…?

Another best-off from Gunwallace and this week it's - Fox Academy - Mysterious detective music. That's all I had written from when it was first aired! Haha! It's pretty much that though and it fits with our subject this week.
Reissue from 218, 10th of May 2015

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
The corkscrew maze - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/oct/07/featured-comic-the-corkscrew-maze/

Featured music:
Fox Academy The New Breed - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/FOX_Academy_The_New_Breed - by Dikran O, rated M

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS