Pediatric Field Of

Introduction

Pediatric forensic pathology is a field of forensic science. As such, it shares the frailties that many forensic sciences currently share. It was created by the justice system to serve its purpose and as such is an “uneasy partner” with the justice system; uneasy because the law demands a single casual theory in order to attach responsibility for precipitating or aggravating a victim’s condition while science can never supply absolute theories but rather presents findings in terms of probabilities. Forensic results in the relatively new field of DNA analysis represent the pinnacle of the scale of probability. Probabilities can be supplied in terms that approach absolute certainty. Nevertheless, even evidence of DNA analysis cannot be presented in terms of absolute certainty. As one moves down the scale from approaching absolute certainty to uncertainty, it is ironic that the terms in which evidence is presented appear to become more certain. For instance, bite-mark comparison, which has been recently tested and the results presented in the scientific...