Document Type
Review
Publication Date
1996
Abstract
David A. Schum's Evidential Foundations of Probabilistic Reasoning, 2 C.G.G. Aitken's Statistics and the Evaluation of Evidence for Forensic Scientists,3 and Bernard Robertson and G.A. Vignaux's Interpreting Evidence: Evaluating Forensic Science in the Courtroom4 all have something to tell us about how to use and evaluate evidence. Although the books are addressed to different primary audiences5 and their authors come from a variety of disciplines and from distant points of the English-speaking world,6 all three help draw the connection between underlying theory and presentation in the courtroom. Though Schum uses numerous examples from litigation and discusses the legal literature of probability and evidence, he focuses primarily not on forensic matters but on the broader question of inference "in our work and in other parts of our daily lives" (Schum, p. xiii). Accordingly, he examines in depth the structure of inference, emphasizing conventional probability theory and alternatives to it. Aitken and Robertson and Vignaux, by contrast, essentially assume that the conventional theory is valid and apposite. They concentrate on the question of how to apply that theory in assessing and presenting evidence, especially scientific evidence, in court.
Recommended Citation
Friedman, Richard D. "Assessing Evidence." Review of Statistics and the Evaluation of Evidence for Forensic Scientists, by C. G. G. Aitken, Interpreting Evidence: Evaluating Forensic Science in the Courtroom, by B. Robertson and G. A. Vignaux, and Evidential Foundations of Probabilistic Reasoning, by D. A. Schum. Mich. L. Rev. 94, no. 6 (1996): 1810-38.