Error Rate
Under Daubert standards, the court will take into consideration the known or potential Error Rate of a methodology. The court's assessment of a methodology's error rate impacts on its accuracy and reliability.
The error rate for a methodology is a measure of how often it will produce a "false positive" or "false negative" conclusion, even under circumstances in which the methodology was faithfully executed. In other words, an error rate is the 'inherent' propensity of a methodology to produce errors.
The determination of error rate is more appropriately applied to the chemistry and biology sciences. These sciences apply methodologies that cannot sufficiently distinguish individual elements from its "group". For instance, a chemistry test for the determination of iron may not sufficiently distinguish it from other Group VIIIb elements. An error rate is expected because of the inability of the test to individualize iron, or because the shared properties of these elements contribute to errors in the methodology.
Unlike other sciences, the Identification Sciences utilize a methodology that has no inherent error rate. The use of ACE-V methodology will take the practitioner to the correct conclusion without subjecting the person to methodological errors. The inclusion of the independently-conducted Verification phase is the Friction Ridge Identification science's control for exposing any methodological error.
The error rate for a methodology is a measure of how often it will produce a "false positive" or "false negative" conclusion, even under circumstances in which the methodology was faithfully executed. In other words, an error rate is the 'inherent' propensity of a methodology to produce errors.
The determination of error rate is more appropriately applied to the chemistry and biology sciences. These sciences apply methodologies that cannot sufficiently distinguish individual elements from its "group". For instance, a chemistry test for the determination of iron may not sufficiently distinguish it from other Group VIIIb elements. An error rate is expected because of the inability of the test to individualize iron, or because the shared properties of these elements contribute to errors in the methodology.
Unlike other sciences, the Identification Sciences utilize a methodology that has no inherent error rate. The use of ACE-V methodology will take the practitioner to the correct conclusion without subjecting the person to methodological errors. The inclusion of the independently-conducted Verification phase is the Friction Ridge Identification science's control for exposing any methodological error.