The Chicken and the Egg: Research and Innovation Within Forensic Science

The chicken and the egg causality dilemma, or chicken and egg paradox, is a longstanding idiom that stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens. It seeks to probe, in a metaphorical sense, situations that lack clarity in what should be considered the cause and what should be considered the effect. The very nature of the postulation depicts a process of infinite regress, whereby the consequence of one action must depend on the other, and vice versa. To that end, forensic science is widely recognised as a discipline that is fundamentally underpinned by research, upon which the end goal, or application, must be objectively substantiated. In the practical sense, the application of these forensic ‘tools’ are exploited through innovative solutions that typically take the form of hardware, software, physical techniques, chemical processes, etc. Accordingly, how are new product/process innovations developed in a discipline that is built on the foundations of scientific rigor? Does forensic research solely drive forensic innovation? Do the latest forensic innovations drive the next generation of forensic research? Or do the two co-exist in a symbiotic manner that serves to benefit the process as a whole?