PREFACE

This book was originally conceived as a fifty-page technical guide for reporters covering the Simpson trial. As we assembled our material and talked with people, it became clear that just providing information on the scientific aspects was not enough, and that more than a media guide was required. In order to understand what is happening with DNA in the courtroom, it is necessary to examine the context and environment in which science and the law meet.

The DNA war is a clash of the different approaches and interests of law and science. It would be difficult to think of two disciplines that have more disparate approaches to seeking the truth. Scientific truth evolves by the building of consensus through peer review and replicating experiments. For the law, truth is less absolute and more relative to the case at hand. Legal truth is achieved through adversarial argument and judgement. The DNA war is a dramatic, hard fought conflict between these two worlds.

In this short book we have tried to provide a brief overview of DNA issues in advance of the Simpson trial. We are simultaneously working on a more comprehensive book, Silent Witness: DNA, Crime and Justice in America, which will tell the full story of the DNA war, the people who fight the battles, and the true crime stories that put a human face on forensic science.

Let us emphasize at the start that we strongly believe that DNA testing properly performed belongs in the courtroom. We share this view with the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, the National Academy of Sciences and the vast majority of scientists in America. The continuing controversy over the admissibility of DNA evidence makes little sense except to the very few people who benefit from continued confusion.