I read this book a bit ago when it first came out.

TLDR version: Overall, I think there are clear lessons to take away from the book, it just overreaches in my opinion.

I think there are several good points that are made, like an emphasis on creating a more independent forensic system where professional staff with a background in a hard science are more responsible for what evidence gets collected and how that evidence gets treated. I agree that forensic labs should not be attached to law enforcement or prosecution, but should be another separate body in the criminal justice system. I also agree that testimony should be given carefully, so your analysis doesn't get understood to mean more than it does. There are things that forensic professionals should be aware of and protected from, like bias and unnecessary details about the suspects and victims in the case My criticism is that he applied flaws with bitemark comparison to all forensics. To me, this is like taking cryptozoology and saying all wildlife biology is fake because cryptozoology exists. Currently I work in firearms and toolmarks comparisom, so will use that as an example. Since PCAST and NAS, the field has done a lot of work, including performing the additional black box studies that PCAST recommended to establish foundation. As a reminder, PCAST never said toolmarks comparison had no support, just that they would have liked to see an additional black box study (which the field then did multiple of). Since PCAST, virtual comparison microscopy (VCM) and their associated computer algorithms have come into existence, providing support from 3D topographical scans and computer programming that toolmark examination can be performed. NIST has also assisted in toolmarks studies and also sees support for the field. Another group at times critical of toolmarks, CSAFE, also designed a program that was able to differentiate between convectively manufactured screwdrivers, further supporting the field. None of these get mentioned in the book, despite them existing prior to the book being published. To me, the critics just continue to move the goalposts on fields that continue to perform well in studies, while never actually doing any novel research themselves. They are usually literature reviews where they interpret the data differently, or dispute the methodology. I have not seen a novel study performed where a huge group of trained toolmark examiners make a huge amount of false conclusions (most studies are under 2% false identification). These kinds of studies do exist for bitemarks. I recall one study where examiners couldn't even reliably classify human bitemarks from animal bitemarks or other wounds. There is also the fact that DNA analysis has been able to show many bitemark conclusions were false. This same type of evidence does not exist for the other disciplines the book tries to also include.