Communicating forensic genetics: 'enthusiastic' publics and the management of expectations

Abstract

[Excerpt] ‘One of the most important problems in forensic medicine’, write foren- sic geneticists Angel Carracedo and Lourdes Prieto, ‘is the so-called “CSI effect”’ (Carracedo & Prieto 2018: 4). Their description of the threat posed by TV shows such as Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) to their dis- cipline runs as follows: ‘[m]ost TV series present forensic evidence as infallible – one hundred percent reliable, with no margin for doubt – when reality is very different: the scientific validity of forensic tests is variable’ (ibid.) [...].