Prediction in forensic science: a critical examination of common understandings

In this commentary, we argue that the term 'prediction' is overly used when in fact, referring to foundational writings of de Finetti, the correspondent term should be inference. In particular, we intend (i) to summarize and clarify relevant subject matter on prediction from established statistical theory, and (ii) point out the logic of this understanding with respect practical uses of the term prediction. Written from an interdisciplinary perspective, associating statistics and forensic science as an example, this discussion also connects to related fields such as medical diagnosis and other areas of application where reasoning based on scientific results is practiced in societal relevant contexts. This includes forensic psychology that uses prediction as part of its vocabulary when dealing with matters that arise in the course of legal proceedings.

• Publication year

  2015

• Venue

  Frontiers in Psychology

• Publication date

  2015-06-02

• Fields of study

  Law, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00737PMID 26082739PMCID 4451237
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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