The Division of Investigative Oversight within the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is responsible for conducting oversight review of institutional inquiries and investigations of possible research misconduct. It is also responsible for determining whether Public Health Service findings of research misconduct are warranted. Although ORI findings rely primarily on the scope and quality of the institution’s analyses and determinations, ORI often has been able to strengthen the original findings by employing a variety of analytical methods, often computer based. Although (...) ORI does not conduct inquiries or investigations, it has broad authority to provide assistance to institutions at all stages of their reviews of allegations. This assistance can range from providing advice on best practices, to legal assistance, to suggestions for how best to investigate specific allegations. When asked, ORI can also conduct certain forensic analyses, such as a statistical examination of questioned digits or a simple examination of a questioned figure in Photoshop. ORI will not provide opinions or render judgment on such analyses while the institution is still conducting its investigation. Such analyses can be done without knowing much else about the case. (shrink)

Following its determination of a finding of scientific misconduct the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) will seek redress for any injury sustained. Several remedies both administrative and statutory may be available depending on the strength of the evidentiary findings of the misconduct investigation. Pursuant to federal regulations administrative remedies are primarily remedial in nature and designed to protect the integrity of the affected research program, whereas statutory remedies including civil fines and criminal penalties are designed to deter and punish (...) wrongdoers. This commentary discusses the available administrative and statutory remedies in the context of a specific case, that of former University of Vermont nutrition researcher Eric Poehlman, and supplies a possible rationale for the legal result. (shrink)

Occasional reports in the literature suggest that biological samples collected and stored for scientific research are sometimes accessed and used for a variety of forensic purposes. However, donors are almost never informed about this possibility. In this paper we argue that the possibility of forensic access may constitute a relevant consideration at least to some potential research subjects in deciding whether to participate in research. We make the suggestion that if some type of forensic access to research collections is (...) likely to be perceived by the subjects as a reason against donating their biological materials, there are good ethical reasons to make this type of access impossible or at least severely restricted. We also provide an ethical argument for the claim that, if a total ban on this type of forensic access cannot be achieved, potential research subjects should be informed about the extent to which this type of forensic access is possible. (shrink)

Scientific evidence is often more reliable than other types of evidence commonly used in criminal trials – i.e., eyewitness identifications, confessions, and informant testimony. Nevertheless, despite its obvious value, forensic science has not always merited the term “science.” Three developments in the 1990s focused attention on its shortcomings: the advent of DNA profiling, the Supreme Court's “junk science” decision, and a number of wellpublicized crime laboratory scandals. In light of these developments, and in order to take full advantage of (...) the power of forensic science to aid in the search for truth, a number of reforms are needed: Crime laboratories should be accredited, lab procedures should be standardized, and basic research needs to be conducted on many commonly used techniques. Court procedures also require improvement: Defense experts should be more readily available to indigent defendants, and more comprehensive pretrial disclosure of the substance of expert testimony should be provided. (shrink)

This article challenges stereotypical conceptions of Law and Science as cultural opposites, arguing that English criminal trial practice is fundamentally congruent with modern science’s basic epistemological assumptions, values and methods of inquiry. Although practical tensions undeniably exist, they are explicable—and may be neutralised—by paying closer attention to criminal adjudication’s normative ideals and their institutional expression in familiar aspects of common law trial procedure, including evidentiary rules of admissibility, trial by jury, adversarial fact-finding, cross-examination and the ethical duties of expert witnesses. (...) Effective partnerships between lawyers and forensic scientists are indispensable for integrating scientific evidence into criminal proceedings, and must be renegotiated between individual practitioners on an on-going basis. Fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars with a shared interest in forensic science should dispense with reductive cultural stereotypes of Science and Law. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo de este trabajo es describir la situación actual y las proyecciones de la comparación forense de la voz en Chile, a la luz de los estándares internacionales que se enfocan en la producción de evidencia confiable, que pueda ser utilizada en los tribunales de justicia. Para ello, en principio, se dan a conocer los fundamentos científicos que caracterizan esta rama de las ciencias forenses y, luego, sobre esa base se analiza y comenta la situación de Chile y (...) sus proyecciones, tanto en la práctica como en la investigación forense. Abstract: The objective of this work is to describe the current situation and the projections of forensic voice comparison in Chile, in the light of international standards that focus on the production of reliable evidence that can be used in the courts of justice. To do this, first, the scientific foundations that characterize this branch of forensic sciences are disclosed and, then, on that basis, the situation in Chile and its projections are analyzed and discussed, both in practice and in the forensic research. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction How it Works Sources of Error and Uncertainty DNA Typing Results as Legal Evidence The Legal Reception of DNA Typing DNA Typing and the Judicial Assessment of Scientific Evidence Social Impact: Criminal Investigation and Adjudication Conclusion Notes.

The United States Supreme Court has long recognized the value of scientific evidence - especially when compared to other types of evidence such as eyewitness identifications, confessions, and informant testimony. For example, in Escobedo v. Illinois, the Court observed: “We have learned the lesson of history, ancient and modern, that a system of criminal law enforcement which comes to depend on the ‘confession’ will, in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses than a system which (...) depends on extrinsic evidence independently secured through skillful investigation.” Similarly, in Davis v. Mississippi, the Court commented:Detention for fingerprinting may constitute a much less serious intrusion upon personal security than other types of police searches and detentions. Fingerprinting involves none of the probing into an individual's private life and thoughts that marks an interrogation or search. Nor can fingerprint detention be employed repeatedly to harass any individual, since the police need only one set of each person's prints. Furthermore, fingerprinting is an inherently more reliable and effective crime-solving tool than eyewitness identifications or confessions and is not subject to such abuses as the improper line-up and the “third degree.”. (shrink)

For decades, courtrooms around the world have admitted evidence from forensic science analysts, such as fingerprint, tool-mark and bite-mark examiners, in order to solve crimes. Scientific progress, however, has led to significant criticism of the ability of such disciplines to engage in individualization i.e., “match” suspects exclusively to evidence. Despite this, American courts largely reject legal challenges based on arguments that identification evidence provided by these forensic science disciplines is unreliable. In so holding, these courts affirm precedent that it (...) is the adversarial system’s function to weed out frailties in forensic evidence, and find that criticism of the forensic sciences lacks sui generis qualities. This article provides an independent critique of relevant American case law, from which three themes emerge. These themes are (1) the law’s misuse of science; (2) law’s scepticism towards change; and (3) law’s narrow construction of rationality, which generates reductionist concepts, and divorces science from its social context. As such, this article shows how the American judiciary’s approach to this global issue provides a contemporary illustration of key institutional tensions between science and law, and offers some recommendations for reforms that aim to facilitate the legal process to utilize the most reliable forensic science evidence possible. (shrink)

This paper utilizes the framework of Karl Popper’s 3-world ontology to make the case that forensic science is a specialized coding system that establishes meaningful connections between the world of biology and the world of human society . Forensic science is a cross-disciplinary endeavor that uses scientific methods to determine what transpired in a crime so the legal system can determine how to prosecute the offender. On a Popperian analysis of forensic science, world 1 consists of evidence gathered at (...) the crime scene, which enables investigators to develop a detailed reconstruction of the incident for consideration under the legal and ethical codes of society, which are products of world 3. Understanding forensic science in this way serves two purposes: first, it extends Marcello Barbieri’s code biology into the realm of philosophical considerations in science, law and ethics; and second, it situates forensic science within the larger context of debates in contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

Many epistemological terms, such as investigation, inquiry, argument, evidence, and fact were established in law well before being associated with science. However, while legal proof remained qualified by standards of ‘moral certainty’, scientific proof attained a reputation for objectivity. Although most forms of legal evidence continue to be treated as fallible ‘opinions’ rather than objective ‘facts’, forensic DNA evidence increasingly is being granted an exceptional factual status. It did not always enjoy such status. Two decades ago, the scientific (...) status of forensic DNA evidence was challenged in the scientific literature and in courts of law, but by the late 1990s it was being granted exceptional legal status. This paper reviews the ascendancy of DNA profiling, and argues that its widely-heralded objective status is bound up with systems of administrative accountability. The ‘administrative objectivity’ of DNA evidence rests upon observable and reportable bureaucratic rules, records, recording devices, protocols, and architectural arrangements. By highlighting administrative sources of objectivity, this paper suggests that DNA evidence remains bound within the context of ordinary organisational and practical routines, and is not a transcendent source of ‘truth’ in the criminal justice system. (shrink)

In this paper, a case study is conducted to test the capability of the Carneades Argumentation System to model the argumentation in a case where forensic evidence was collected in an investigation triggered by a conflict among art experts on the attribution of a painting to Leonardo da Vinci. A claim that a portrait of a young woman in a Renaissance dress could be attributed to da Vinci was initially dismissed by art experts. Forensic investigations were carried out, and evidence (...) was collected by art history experts and scientific experts. The expert opinions were initially in conflict, but new evidence shifted the burden of proof onto the side of the skeptics. This paper presents an analysis of the structure of the interlocking argumentation in the case using argument mapping tools to track the accumulation of evidence pro and con. (shrink)

The United States Supreme Court has long recognized the value of scientific evidence – especially when compared to other types of evidence such as eyewitness identifications, confessions, and informant testimony. For example, inEscobedo v. Illinois, the Court observed: “We have learned the lesson of history, ancient and modern, that a system of criminal law enforcement which comes to depend on the –confession— will, in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses than a system which depends (...) on extrinsic evidence independently secured through skillful investigation.” Similarly, inDavis v. Mississippi, the Court commented:Detention for fingerprinting may constitute a much less serious intrusion upon personal security than other types of police searches and detentions. Fingerprinting involves none of the probing into an individual's private life and thoughts that marks an interrogation or search. Nor can fingerprint detention be employed repeatedly to harass any individual, since the police need only one set of each person's prints. Furthermore, fingerprinting is an inherently more reliable and effective crime-solving tool than eyewitness identifications or confessions and is not subject to such abuses as the improper line-up and the “third degree.”. (shrink)

A moral dilemma exists in biomedical research relating to the use of animal or human tissue when conducting scientific research. In human ethics, researchers need to justify why the use of humans is necessary should suitable models exist. Conversely, in animal ethics, a researcher must justify why research cannot be carried out on suitable alternatives. In the case of medical procedures or therapeutics testing, the use of animal models is often justified. However, in forensic research, the justification may be (...) less evident, particularly when research involves the infliction of trauma on living animals. To determine how the forensic science community is dealing with this dilemma, a review of literature within major forensic science journals was conducted. The frequency and trends of the use of animals in forensic science research was investigated for the period 1 January 2012–31 December 2016. The review revealed 204 original articles utilizing 5050 animals in various forms as analogues for human tissue. The most common specimens utilized were various species of rats, pigs, mice, and rabbits although different specimens were favored in different study themes. The majority of studies were conducted on post-mortem specimens. It is, however, evident that more needs to be done to uphold the basic ethical principles of reduction, refinement and replacement in the use of animals for research purposes. (shrink)

As the public profile of bioethics rises, and as litigation about issues ranging from assisted reproduction to gene therapy multiplies, the presence of bioethics experts in a litigation context has become more common. Dozens of appellate opinions refer to bioethics testimony in the lower courts. Today's technical advisory services for attorneys advertise bioethics experts along with experts in scientific fields. A single bioethicist has served as an expert in more than fifty cases. In all likelihood, opportunities for bioethicists to (...) fill the role of testifying expert will grow as medicine and biotechnology become more complex. Bioethics experts have also been involved in several other kinds of litigation-related activities, including investigation, consultation with attorneys, preparing reports that express expert opinions, and explaining and defending these opinions by deposition.Despite the growth of these activities by bioethicists, they have never been free of controversy, have recently been received with little enthusiasm by the judiciary, and could become highly problematic in the future. (shrink)

Advancements in digital technology have made it easy to alter faces using editing software, posing challenges for industries in verifying photograph authenticity. Digital image forensics, a scientific method, is employed to gather data and determine the veracity of faces. This study assesses the effectiveness of digital image forensics in detecting fake digital faces using tools such as Foto Forensics, Forensically Beta, and Opanda IExif. Foto Forensics analyzes JPEG picture compression levels to detect image edits, revealing (...) metadata differences compared to the original photo. Forensically Beta examines digital characteristics like color and noise levels to identify alterations. Opanda IExif scrutinizes image metadata, disclosing information about the camera used and subsequent changes. All three forensic methods effectively identify fake digital faces. Analyzing metadata differences and contrast variations between the original and altered faces proves to be an effective method for spotting alterations. Digital image forensics enhances legal and investigative processes, serving as a valuable tool for identifying digital face manipulation. Stronger digital security measures, including improved encryption, authentication, and legal regulations, are needed to protect against facial photograph manipulation. Updating legal and regulatory frameworks for digital security is vital to address increasingly sophisticated techniques used in facial photograph editing. As digital technology advances, continuous development and improvement of forensic techniques are crucial to detect digital face fabrication. Given the growing complexity of digital editing tools and the ease with which facial images can be altered, reliable methods are essential. Digital image forensics provides a systematic approach to gather data and verify the authenticity of digital photographs. (shrink)

This paper deals with the concept of practical wisdom and its applications in the field of jurisprudence. The starting point is the Aristotelian idea that a skill to understand and apply law is an embodiment of practical sense. racticality of law has many dimensions. One important dimension is contextuality. Contextuality appears as the situation dependence of interpretation. Hence, the ultimate content of law is context dependent, too. I try to elucidate the essence of practicality of law and its interpretation by (...) examining a precedent of the Finnish Supreme Court (KKO 1997: 87). It is a case involving the distribution of an estate among heirs. The main idea of that decision is that the proper values of inheritance‐shares depend on the utilization values of them and the whole economic situation among heirs. What is just depends on a situation. Taken seriously, the practicality and contextuality of law forces us to adopt an unconventional conception of jurisprudence. First, it is doubtful if one can point to any scientific method at all. Second, according to this conception, legal dogmatics is not a description of law. Rather, it is a skill of argumentation, the skill of taking considered steps from different kinds of arguments to conclusions. The purpose of legal dogmatics is to offer valid and useful arguments to be used in different situations. (shrink)

The field of scientific image integrity presents a challenging research bottleneck given the lack of available datasets to design and evaluate forensic techniques. The sensitivity of data also creates a legal hurdle that restricts the use of real-world cases to build any accessible forensic benchmark. In light of this, there is no comprehensive understanding on the limitations and capabilities of automatic image analysis tools for scientific images, which might create a false sense of data integrity. To mitigate this (...) issue, we present an extendable open-source algorithm library that reproduces the most common image forgery operations reported by the research integrity community: duplication, retouching, and cleaning. We create a large scientific forgery image benchmark with enriched ground truth using this library and realistic scientific images. All figures within the benchmark are synthetically doctored using images collected from creative commons sources. While collecting the source images, we ensured that the they did not present any suspicious integrity problems. Because of the high number of retracted papers due to image duplication, this work evaluates the state-of-the-art copy-move detection methods in the proposed dataset, using a new metric that asserts consistent match detection between the source and the copied region. All evaluated methods had a low performance in this dataset, indicating that scientific images might need a specialized copy-move detector. The dataset and source code are available at https://github.com/phillipecardenuto/rsiil. (shrink)

This book charts the historical development of 'forensic objectivity' through an analysis of the ways in which objective knowledge of crimes, crime scenes, crime materials and criminals is achieved. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, with authors drawn from law, history, sociology and science and technology studies, this work shows how forensic objectivity is constructed through detailed crime history case studies, mainly in relation to murder, set in Scotland, England, Germany, Sweden, USA and Ireland. Starting from the mid-nineteenth century and continuing to (...) the present day, the book argues that a number of developments were crucial. These include: the beginning of crime photography, the use of diagrams and models specially constructed for the courtroom so jurors could be ‘virtual witnesses’, probabilistic models of certainty, the professionalization of medical and scientific expert witnesses and their networks, ways of measuring, recording and developing criminal records and the role of the media, particularly newspapers in reporting on crime, criminals and legal proceedings and their part in the shaping of public opinion on crime. This essential title demonstrates the ways in which forensic objectivity has become a central concept in relation to criminal justice over a period spanning 170 years. (shrink)

The vision of legendary criminologist Cesare Lombroso to use scientific theories of individual causes of crime as a basis for screening and prevention programmes targeting individuals at risk for future criminal behaviour has resurfaced, following advances in genetics, neuroscience and psychiatric epidemiology. This article analyses this idea and maps its ethical implications from a public health ethical standpoint. Twenty-seven variants of the new Lombrosian vision of forensic screening and prevention are distinguished, and some scientific and technical limitations are (...) noted. Some lures, biases and structural factors, making the application of the Lombrosian idea likely in spite of weak evidence are pointed out and noted as a specific type of ethical aspect. Many classic and complex ethical challenges for health screening programmes are shown to apply to the identified variants and the choice between them, albeit with peculiar and often provoking variations. These variations are shown to actualize an underlying theoretical conundrum in need of further study, pertaining to the relationship between public health ethics and the ethics and values of criminal law policy. (shrink)

Feminist analyses address the way differences between the sexes are conceptualized and operationalized in society. In this paper, I discuss how violence by men and women is conceptualized as different in the psychological scientific discourses of forensic mental health. I suggest that these empirical discourses perpetuate assumptions of difference and discourage examination of similarities. Specifically, I will argue that neutralization techniques are frequently used that reduce women’s agency and responsibility for violence compared to their male counterparts, and compared to (...) nonoffending women. I discuss the implications for violence research and interventions for violence perpetrators. (shrink)

In France between 1780 and 1815, doctors opened a broad correspondence with medical faculties and public officials about foetal anomalies . Institutional and legal reforms forced doctors to encounter monstrous births with greater frequency, and they responded by developing new ideas about heredity and embryology to explain malformations to public officials. Though doctors achieved consensus on pathogenesis, they struggled to apply these ideas in forensic cases, especially with doubtful sex. Medical networks simultaneously allowed doctors to explore obstetrical techniques, as licensing (...) regulations forced practitioners into emotional encounters with child anomalies. Doctors thus developed a new ethics for treating monstrosities, viewing them as pathological specimens, forensic objects, and obstetrical tragedies. (shrink)

This article takes as its point of departure the idea that the adoption of managerial principles to ensure the quality of DNA evidence is an accident of history which has changed the ways forensic biology is conducted and forensic biologists think. I begin by defining managerialism and tracking its entry into the contentious world of forensic biology, asking how it is that a focus on efficiency and precise process control is affecting these labs. My analysis unfolds in two parts. I (...) first look at the external inspection routines that assure quality in forensic labs and the degree to which these routines represent ‘‘self” rather than ‘‘peer” assessment. I next look at the internal lab quality assurance routines that facilitate managerial control of technical and scientific workers, noting that QA is a trope flexible enough to govern both the numerically auditable and quasirobotic activities of technicians along with the less tangible more consensus-based human interactions of scientists. Illustrating that ‘‘science” is being pushed aside by management imperatives, I examine the consequences of this new emphasis for both the lab workers and the criminal justice system. (shrink)

This paper argues that judges assessing the scientific validity and the legal admissibility of forensic science techniques ought to privilege testing over explanation. Their evaluation of reliability should be more concerned with whether the technique has been adequately validated by appropriate empirical testing than with whether the expert can offer an adequate description of the methods she uses, or satisfactorily explain her methodology or the theory from which her claims derive. This paper explores these issues within two specific contexts: (...) latent fingerprint examination and the use of breath tests for the detection of alcohol. Especially in the forensic science arena, I suggest courts have often been seduced by superficially plausible explanations and descriptions of a technique or method, and permitted these to serve as a substitute for empirical testing. Thinking through these two examples illustrates both why evaluating the extent of testing should be the most important method by which courts assess reliability, and why, when other forms of explanatory evidence are readily available, we may nonetheless elect to make use of them. This paper suggests that these descriptions and explanations may at times usefully supplement evidence of testing, but should not generally be substituted for it. Finally, this paper embraces a kind of evidentiary pragmatism, in which the quantum of evidence required to establish legal reliability is determined not in the abstract, but in relation to the evidence that is, or ought to be, available as a result of reasonable research and investigation. (shrink)

ArgumentIn the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimony – the testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understoodfirstas related to the quality of the underlying scienceand thenin terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to (...) meet the minimal standard set by Helen Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino’s account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by individuals, not communities, at least in U.S. courts, we (may) need a way to evaluate individual scientific and epistemic agents. We suggest a means for making this evaluation that is derived from our infrastructural account of objectivity. (shrink)

Science studies has long been concerned with the theoretical and methodological challenge of mess—the inevitable tendency of technoscientific objects and practices to spill beyond the neat analytic categories we construct for them. Nowhere is this challenge greater than in the messy world of large-scale collaborative science projects, particularly though not exclusively in their start-up phases. This article examines the complicated life and death of the WATERS Network, an ambitious and ultimately abandoned effort at collaborative infrastructure development among hydrologists, engineers, and (...) social scientists studying water. We argue in particular against the “forensic imagination,” a particular style of accounting for failure in the messy world of large-scale network development, and against two common conceptual and empirical pitfalls that it gives rise to: defaults to formalism and defaults to the future. We argue that alternative postforensic approaches to “failures” like the WATERS Network can support forms of learning and accountability better attuned to the complexities of practice and policy in the real world of scientific collaboration and network formation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper discusses keys to the moral procurement, treatment and disposition of remains used for scientific research, specifically those donated to the University of Tennessee’s Anthropological Research Facility (ARF). The ARF is an outdoor laboratory dedicated to better understanding the fate of human remains in forensic contexts, and focuses its research on decomposition, time since death estimates, body location and recovery techniques, and skeletal analysis. Historically, many donations were unclaimed bodies received from medical examiners (although it will be (...) shown that this trend is changing), and it has been argued that the use of unclaimed bodies for medical or scientific purposes is a violation of autonomy since no consent was given by the individual. It is argued here, however, that the domain of autonomous choice extends to one’s own corpse only insofar as expressed wishes are made known prior to one’s death, and that in the absence of expressed intent toward final disposition, it is acceptable for institutions to receive donations from medical examiners or family members. This paper also discusses other philosophical issues related to donation, consent and autonomy, and the forensic benefits of research conducted at the Anthropological Research Facility. (shrink)

There is considerable interest in the use of neuroimaging techniques for forensic purposes. Memory detection techniques, including the well-publicized Brain Fingerprinting technique (Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, Inc., Seattle WA), exploit the fact that the brain responds differently to sensory stimuli to which it has been exposed before. When a stimulus is specifically associated with a crime, the resulting brain activity should differentiate between someone who was present at the crime and someone who was not. This article reviews the scientific literature (...) on three such techniques: priming, old/new, and P300 effects. The forensic potential of these techniques is evaluated based on four criteria: specificity, automaticity, encoding flexibility, and longevity. This article concludes that none of the techniques are devoid of forensic potential, although much research is yet to be done. Ethical issues, including rights to privacy and against self-incrimination, are discussed. A discussion of legal issues concludes that current memory detection techniques do not yet meet United States standards of legal admissibility. (shrink)

Derek Turner believes that a proper interpretation of Arthur Fine’s natural ontological attitude can help to reveal the nature of the difference between «historical» (geology, archeology, forensics) and «empirical» (physics, chemistry) sciences. From his point of view, the apparent asymmetry between these sciences is a consequence of different understanding of the possibilities to «manipulate» the objects of study and the role played by background theories. In our opinion, Turner’s concept is a good example of how profound and inviting the (...) instrumentalistic concept of science could be. First, it is «reflexive» in the sense that it constrained other instrumentalist theories (B. Fraassen’s constructive empiricism deeply flawed). And secondly, it is «constructive» – the emphasis that «the strength of arguments for or against scientific realism can vary depending on the scientific context» quite unexpectedly leads to the fact that «ideographic / nomothetic division is not very helpful», and to the fact that «epistemic disadvantage, but the same epistemic status». Reflections on the book: Turner D. Making Prehistory: Historical Science and the Scientific Realism Debate. Cambridge University Press, 2007. (shrink)

Almost everyone has an intuitive notion of what a random number is. For example, consider these two series of binary digits: 01010101010101010101 01101100110111100010 The first is obviously constructed according to a simple rule; it consists of the number 01 repeated ten times. If one were asked to speculate on how the series might continue, one could predict with considerable confidence that the next two digits would be 0 and 1. Inspection of the second series of digits yields no such comprehensive (...) pattern. There is no obvious rule governing the formation of the number, and there is no rational way to guess the succeeding digits. The arrangement seems haphazard; in other words, the sequence appears to be a random assortment of 0's and 1's. (shrink)

What could be more certain than the fact that 2 plus 2 equals 4? Since the time of the ancient Greeks mathematicians have believed there is little---if anything---as unequivocal as a proved theorem. In fact, mathematical statements that can be proved true have often been regarded as a more solid foundation for a system of thought than any maxim about morals or even physical objects. The 17th-century German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz even envisioned a ``calculus'' of reasoning such (...) that all disputes could one day be settled with the words ``Gentlemen, let us compute!'' By the beginning of this century symbolic logic had progressed to such an extent that the German mathematician David Hilbert declared that all mathematical questions are in principle decidable, and he confidently set out to codify once and for all the methods of mathematical reasoning. (shrink)

Human beings are strange animals. Although evolutionary theory has brilliantly accounted for the features we share with other creatures—from the genetic code that directs the construction of our bodies to the details of how our muscles and neurons work—we still stand out in countless ways. Our brains are exceptionally large, we alone have truly grammatical language, and we alone compose symphonies, drive cars, eat spaghetti with a fork and wonder about the origins of the universe.