Prosecution's Bug Expert Struggles On Stand:08/01/2002 Westefield Trial Nears Finish Lap!

Court TV ^ | August 1, 2002 | Harriet Ryan

[FresnoDA]

Someone 'splain??

Cuz DUSEK'S case hinges on it, I suppose...not enough BLOOD, FIBER and HAIR evidence..

[the Deejay]

"The "anus" relaxes at death ..that is one of the reasons people " loose " the bowels content at death (also attracting flies I would think)"

Exactly. Therefore, if DW had been driving the body around in the RV (as the prosecution contends), then there would have been a very terrible foul odor (to say nothing of a horrendous messs) discovered without the dog(s).

[truth_seeker]

The jury must be snoring around now.

Yesterday Court TV posted a poll result, wherein 78% of those responding felt this bug science would be ignored, it would wash. Obviously it is because it is complicated, highly technical, boring, subject to differing interpretations.

Despite what the SaveDave folks here wish to believe is happening, Dusek is re-inforcing that notion, for the jury to not place a very heavy reliance on bug stuff, IMO.

Mission accomplished for Dusek.

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

Well,if you are not a constant watcher, and haven't seen all the witnesses, then how can you deduct he is destroying the guys credibility? And why would you use the word "BASH"? WE are being critical...but it's OK for Dusek to BASH and BADGER the professional witness, right?

Excellent point, spec.

What's more is that after all this painful discussion of temps and dryness ad nauseum, Feldman will come back and show that the differences will not move the date even close enough to what Doofus wants.

Colossal desperation and attempt to BS the jurors.

[bolthead]

When given only two numbers, a high and a low, what is the difference between the mean and the median?

None.

Exactly...so why are we going through this exercise? Goff took highs and lows and computed what he called "medians". Hall criticized him for taking what he called "means". In this case they are the same, so why the attack?

Hall's point is when you have mean or median data you should use Accumulated Degree Days. Goff used Accumulated Degree Hours.

[Jaded]

Have you seen Dusek's witnesses?

[shezza]

Anderson did similar study. She used temperatures of 16.1C and 23C for one species and 15.8 and 20.7 for another species. She said flies develop twice as fast at the higher temp than the lower temp.

[agarrett]

  Sorry, Fres, but there is a significant difference between median and mean. The mean is the average of a bunch of numbers, the median is the value in the center of a sorted list of numbers. For different problems, one may be better than the other. On average, the median is less affected by outliers (points that have anomolously high or low values). The mean, on the other hand, is a better value for time averaging, in general.

  Now, all that said, in weather, the two are likely to be very similar (I was a weatherman in the Air Force for 3 years, so I have some knowledge of this subject.) The reason is that temperature generally smoothly varying - you don't get a lot of outlying points - frontal passages and thunderstorms are the most likely source of any anomolies, and even those don't tend to be extreme. As such, the practical difference between median and mean is unlikely to mean much in this particular example.

Drew Garrett

[VRWC_minion]

In this case the median and the mean are the same thing, because there are only two numbers (min & max). Either way, Golf miscalculated the median (or the mean).

It was my assumption that the errors highlighted had more than two numbers in their list.

I would have guessed that this bug guy should have been able to explain that.

[shezza]

Dusek: "How do you pick which temperatures to use when you make your calculations?" Used Kamal, Greenburg, and Anderson to make calculations. Used their numbers and their data to make his computations.

"I used all of them."

[Jaded]

Median, I thought it was that strip of grass and cement between two roads going opposite directions that kept you from having a head on collision.

[shezza]

Calculate number of degree-hours or degree-days for the insect to develop.

[agrandis]

Thanks for your input - very valuable here. So - is it your opinion - that both sides could deal with the mintutia of this entomological stuff and slant it a bit one way or the other - go back and forth forever - but basically - it's obvious - she was not there back in early feb. but placed there in mid feb.?

I think the minutia of any science could be used to make a case one way or another, when a jury is involved. But the thing that is important to me in this case is that the colonization of decomposing humans by insects only has a limited number of varaibles that can change the timing. The timing for each species is amazingly consistent (according to much controlled study in many places). Weather is the biggest variable, I think, but weather is pretty easy to pin down, and the effects of various weaether are well-known and again, consistent.

In this case, it seems that the prosecution is having to really stretch the reasonable doubt, if you will, to make it come out that the body was found at a date before DW was put under surveillance. There are only so many days that the date can reasonably be pushed back. I think mummification of the body in a way that would delay blowfly colonization as much as they say it has would be very unusual. I personally know of no cases where this has happened, other than true mummification of bodies (like those found thousands of years later). I suppose it isn't saying much to say that I don't know of any such cases, because I am NOT a forensic entomologist, but I think it is an indication that it is not a well-known or common phenomenon. It appears to me that the prosecution is stretching, and now muddying, the data.

There is another possibility, however. It could be that the surveillance of DW was far from thorough in mid-Feb., and nobody would admit to such a fact. Speaking just for me, I would believe such a scenario before I believed in an odd, unprecedented delay of the colonization of a body by blowflies under given temperatures and humidity.

I didn't say that very well, as I'm doing a bunch of other things right now at the same time, but maybe that helps clarify my opinion.

[the Deejay]

Will we be shopping for Halloween masks or our Thanksgiving turkeys, by the time we get to CLOSING ARGUMENTS?

[shezza]

Data will be the same fundamentally regardless of which study (temp range) used to calculate. Take developmental rate expressed as accumulated degree-hours or degree-days--whether or not ambient that you're worried about is 60 degrees or 80 degrees, calculations remain consistent.

[Freedom2specul8]

I got a message that says this thread has been moved to chat...WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

[YaYa123]

You're absolutely right...I shouldn't have used the word "bash".

[agarrett]

The average and mean are two entirely different numbers.

  No, they're not. Mean and average are the same. Average is the arithmetic mean, and we can take other mean values, geometric being the most common. However, if it is not specified, mean alone is the arithmetic mean.

Drew Garrett

[VRWC_minion]

Hall's point is when you have mean or median data you should use Accumulated Degree Days. Goff used Accumulated Degree Hours.

Aren't they interchangeable ?

[FresnoDA]

Nice feign kim.....unbelieveable...