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Scientific Research Supporting the Foundations of Friction Ridge Examinations

The Fingerprint Sourcebook - Chapter 14


National Institute of Justice

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Introduction

When some people think of research, what comes to mind are images of individuals in white lab coats, looking up intermittently to take data measurements and jot down notes. This is a very limited and narrow view of research. Investigative reporters, attorneys, police detectives, engineers, authors, actors, and, of course, scientists, all perform research. The scientist, however, performs scientific research. Simply defined, research is an inquiry into any subject or phenomenon. Scientific research, then, can be defined as a scientific inquiry into a subject or phenomenon.

What makes an inquiry “scientific”? What is science? What is scientific method? What are the rules for a scientific inquiry? The answers to these questions are not simple, and are the subject of an entire realm of philosophy of science. This chapter will review some of these topics, relating the issue to friction ridge skin science. The reader, however, is encouraged to read more regarding the philosophy of science to better understand the complexity of science and scientific inquiry

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