Nineteenth Annual Darwin College Lecture Series 2004
Lecture 7 : February 27th 2004
Statistics and the Law
Philip Dawid
Pearson Professor of Statistics at University College London
Abstract
Recent cases involving multiple infant deaths and DNA
profiling identification have highlighted some of the problematic
issues that can arise when statistical evidence is introduced into
legal proceedings. It might appear that the concerns of Statistics
and those of Law have little common ground, but in fact both
disciplines address the same fundamental task: the drawing out of
sound inferences from evidence. I will describe the logic of
probabilistic reasoning and its application to cases at law, and show
how its all too frequent neglect or misapplication has led to serious
errors and miscarriages of justice.
Both Statistics and Law are faced with the problem of structuring and
making sense of mixed masses of evidence. The modern technology of
"Probabilistic Expert Systems" can be seen as an extension of the
century-old "Wigmore chart" method, used by lawyers to organise the
many items of evidence in a case and express the many kinds of
relationship between them. This technology is now being used to
provide a correct and efficient way of taking account of whatever
limited evidence may be at hand, a task that could otherwise be
impossible. An important area of application is the interpretation of
DNA profiles taken from relatives when that of the suspect (in a
criminal case) or putative father (in a paternity case) is
unavailable.
Finally I shall discuss the wider relevance of the use of formal
methods of reasoning about evidence, in the context of an
inter-disciplinary programme on "Evidence, Inference and Enquiry".
The lectures are given at 5.30 p.m. in The Lady Mitchell Hall,
Sidgwick Avenue, with an adjacent overflow theatre with live TV
coverage. Each lecture is typically attended by 600 people so you
must arrive early to ensure a place.
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