Metric forensic anthropology decisions: Reliability and biasability of sectioning-point-based sex estimates

Subjective decisions make human cognitive processes more susceptible to bias and error. Specifically, research indicates that additional context biases forensic anthropologists’ morphological analyses. To address whether metric analyses are also subject to bias, we conducted a pilot study in which 52 experienced osteologists measured a difficult-to-classify human femur, with or without additional contextual information. Using a metric sectioning-point sex-estimation method, participants provided a sex estimate for individual skeletal element(s) and, when given multiple elements, the combined skeletal assemblage. Control group participants (n = 24) measured only the femur. In addition to the femur, bias group participants (n = 28) either measured a female humerus and viewed a female-biasing photograph (n = 14) or measured a male humerus and viewed a male-biasing photograph (n = 14). We explored whether the experts in the different groups would differ in: (1) femoral measurements; (2) femoral sex-estimation conclusions; and (3) final sex-estimation conclusions for the skeletal assemblage. Although the femoral measurements and femoral sex estimates were comparable across groups, the overall sex estimates in the female-biased group were impacted by contextual information—differing from both the control and male-biased groups (p < 0.001). Our results demonstrate that cognitive bias can occur even in metric sex-estimation conclusions. Specifically, this occurred when the metric data and single-element sex estimates were synthesized into an overall estimate. Thus, our results suggest that metric methods are most vulnerable to bias when data are synthesized into an overall conclusion, highlighting the need for bias countermeasures and comprehensive statistical frameworks for synthesizing metric data to mitigate the effects of cognitive bias.     

Observer determination of the make,model, and year of questioned vehicles

Often, criminal acts involving a vehicle are caught on digital video surveillance systems. While potentially useful for an investigation, the recording conditions are typically less than optimal for the extraction of key information for the identification of the perpetrator, such as a license plate. Providing the make, model and year of a questioned vehicle is a common request for examiners, to narrow the field of potential suspect vehicles. This study seeks to compare the performance of a nonpeer-reviewed make, model, and year determination between two separate groups, specifically, trained forensic image examiners and nontrained individuals. Results show that even with varied image capture conditions and quality, the trained forensic image examiners more correctly and completely identified the test group of questioned vehicles make, model, and year.     

On the Undecidability of Legal and Technological Regulation

Law and Critique - Generally, regulation is thought of as a constant that carries with it both a formative and conservative power, a power that standardises, demarcates and forms an order, through...     

Analysis of off-farm work decisions among smallholder farm households in Burkina Faso

This article investigates off-farm work decisions by smallholder farm households. Using data on 1,101 households from Burkina Faso, it demonstrates that in addition to the usual household socio-demographic characteristics, remittances, access to information and beneficiary of specific training affect off-farm work decisions, as well as rainfall factors and idiosyncratic health shocks. Community characteristics such as accessibility and number of inhabitants are also key factors. While suggesting that off-farm work is less likely to be undertaken for accumulation purposes, these results have important policy implications. In particular, policy measures should consider each segment as a separate entity.     

What do forensic analysts consider relevant to their decision making?

In response to research demonstrating that irrelevant contextual information can bias forensic science analyses, authorities have increasingly urged laboratories to limit analysts' access to irrelevant and potentially biasing information (Dror and Cole (2010) [3]; National Academy of Sciences (2009) [18]; President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (2016) [22]; UK Forensic Science Regulator (2015) [26]). However, a great challenge in implementing this reform is determining which information is task-relevant and which is task-irrelevant. In the current study, we surveyed 183 forensic analysts to examine what they consider relevant versus irrelevant in their forensic analyses. Results revealed that analysts generally do not regard information regarding the suspect or victim as essential to their analytic tasks. However, there was significant variability among analysts within and between disciplines. Findings suggest that forensic science disciplines need to agree on what they regard as task-relevant before context management procedures can be properly implemented. The lack of consensus about what is relevant information not only leaves room for biasing information, but also reveals foundational gaps in what analysts consider crucial in forensic decision making.     

War-Power Reform in Australia: (Re)considering the Options

The decision to go to war in Australia remains the prerogative of the Executive. The lack of parliamentary authorisation of perhaps the most significant decision a democracy can make has seen sustained, but unsuccessful, efforts to reform legislation. In the wake of the costly invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, repeated calls for legislative reform of Australia's war powers have failed to find traction amongst Coalition and Australian Labor Party (ALP) leadership. Lamenting the lack of transparency and accountability in the current system, those favouring legislative reform would see authorisation of combat missions placed in the hands of Parliament. However, given the lack of support from either of the major parties, any legislative reform remains unlikely. Given this impasse, this article argues that a compromise option, in the form of a new war-powers convention, may be a small step towards democratising the decision of going to war. While not legally binding, this constitutional convention would represent an agreement by the major parties that overseas combat operations will be properly debated in Parliament.     

Three cheers for liberal modesty

ABSTRACT

Many liberals have been immodest in postulating that their own progressive, secular liberalism is the only one that can be justified in public reason. In Liberalism’s Religion, I articulate a more modest theory of liberalism and religion. While I personally endorse progressive secular liberalism, I argue that it is only one of the reasonable conceptions of liberal justice. This liberal modesty has profound, hitherto unnoticed implications for (i) the role of religious arguments in the public sphere, (ii) the legitimacy of religious establishment, and (iii) the justifiability of religious exemptions. In this article, I defend these three claims by providing replies to my critics.     

Designing a Choice Architecture for Regulators

The emergence of behavioral public administration has led to increasing calls for public managers and policy makers to consider predictable cognitive biases when regulating individual behaviors or market transactions. Recognizing that cognitive biases can also affect the regulators themselves, this article attempts to understand how the institutional environment in which regulators operate interacts with their cognitive biases. In other words, to what extent does the “choice architecture” that regulators face reinforce or counteract predictable cognitive biases? Just as knowledge of behavioral insights can help regulators design a choice architecture that frames individual decisions to encourage welfare-enhancing choices, it may help governments understand and design institutions to counter cognitive biases in regulators that contribute to deviations from public interest policies. From these observations, the article offers some modest suggestions for improving the regulatory choice architecture.