I think that’s a great idea. I bet alot of folks named, “Art” and “Ruth” would disagree, tho’.

Don’t forget the dog’s ability to bypass search and seizure rules.

“Durn it! We just knows youse gots drugs in there!”

“Oh look! Our dog, “Sir Alertsalot” has alerted! Start the search, boys!”

In the previous case, they had an arbitrary suspect, but needed a warrant to get DNA to make a match (My assumption, there).

LMAO!

It is peer reviewed. Ask any cop in locker rooms up and down the country and they’ll be delighted to tell you that it works because cops (and that includes canine cops) don’t lie.

What more proof could there be?

….the Bill Maher to our libertarianism

Quote of the day. Cheered me up after reading this article.

Right on. Unfortunately, our prosecuters, law enforcement, and judges aren’t real big fans of peer review. Back to the point of the post (figure I should be the one to get us back on topic since I kinda derailed the thread), fallability is something that authority cannot tolerate. Our justice (legal) system needs to have it’s incentives changed to honor peer review as opposed to placing such confidence on weak credentials. Like a dog.

How we do that is beyond me. Any ideas out there?

http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/jul/09/no-headline—anson_police_chief/

Read the comment (There’s only one)

The way this guy talks, it was a slam dunk case with no question as to guilt. I find it a little disturbing then, that they needed the dogs at all. It seems clear that the dogs were used to place him at the scene, and THEN the DNA evidence could come into play. What are the odds that a random crackhead off the street would be guilty?

The police are all too willing to find a suspect, then generate evidence against that suspect to the exclusion of all else. Then they look like ‘heroes’ and their careers are bolstered.

Nice. Forgot about that classic line. Perhaps I missed the follow up, but whatever happened with that case? Did they get the RV back? Are they going to have to come back to Mississippi to face any charges?

Your comment is definitely more precise than my angry rant. It is more accurate to say that scientific studies are being hijacked by those with more sinister motives. Emotions just get the best of us (me) sometimes.

It just gets harder and harder to distinguish real science and skepticism from hogwash since everyone claims so fervently that they are objectively scientific. Bullshit artists just ruin the good names of science, reason, etc by associating themselves with ideas they have little in common with. They are the Bill Maher to our Libertarianism.

Science has really lost all of it’s objectivity. As soon as people realized that they could legally exert power and influence by claiming that “science” can prove something, science turned into a religion.

I think you have your timeline backwards. The world started dark with everyone claiming they could prove something without proper evidence and using the claims to influence the law. The long march of science in culture hasn’t been to discover new toys; it’s been the pruning of BS in a systematic way. It’s the act of saying “this isn’t true because I haven’t proved it to be so” much more than saying “this is true because I have proved it to be so”.

This is another example of mysticism with a “scientific” label slapped on. Science hasn’t turned into religion. Religion is trying to re-brand itself using the hard-earned good name of science. The only thing that can defeat this kind of mysticism is science.

It’s a shame the vast majority of people writing, judging, and enforcing our laws don’t apply the scientific method (or even a skeptical eye) in their daily lives. Most of those people probably couldn’t construct a proper experiment, let alone see through poorly constructed experiments designed not to find the truth, but to convince an audience on a point.