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Statistical Thinking for Forensic Practitioners Short Course – Session 1

Type: Short Courses

Session 1 of this three-part CSAFE short course was held on March 26, 2021.

Presenter:

Hal Stern
Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Statistics, CSAFE Co-Director

Presentation Description:

Probability Concepts and their Relevance to Forensic Science is the first session in the three-session short course, Statistical Thinking for Forensic Practitioners.

Probability is the mathematical language of uncertainty. Probabilities are used to describe the frequency or likelihood of events or to characterize measurement uncertainty. In this first session, we introduce the laws of probability and their application in forensic settings. Specific topics include:

  • Definition and interpretation of probability
  • Basic laws of probability
  • Conditional probability and independence of events
  • Bayes’ Theorem and Bayesian statistics
  • Topics are illustrated with examples drawn from forensic science and relevant legal cases.

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