Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Identity By The Numbers: Cancerous Lesions And Likelihood Ratios, William Daniel Cawley

Masters Theses

The use of Bayesian theory has been gaining popularity within the forensic anthropology community for its ability to model the way in which decisions are made based upon varying levels of confidence. However, many forensic anthropologists have been reticent to adapt Bayesian approaches given the general lack of knowledge in regards to this approach (Konigsberg and Frankenburg, 2013:153). The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate how the application of an establish Bayesian framework can be used to determine likelihood ratios representing the probative value of skeletal lesions consistent with cancer for use in forensic personal identification. To do this, …