Thomas William Young
Thomas W. Young, MD has nearly thirty years of experience as a full-time forensic pathologist. His major professional interest is inference applied to forensic pathology. He applies principles of deductive and inductive logic to forensic casework, determining with reasonable medical certainty what happened and who (if anyone) is responsible for what happened. Dr. Young is an experienced communicator and a former director of a nationally accredited forensic pathology training program.
Subjects: Forensics & Criminal Justice
Biography
Thomas W. Young, MD has nearly thirty years of experience as a full-time forensic pathologist. He has performed nearly 5,400 autopsies, testified in civil and criminal court more than 465 times, and provided deposition testimony more than 125 times.Since January of 2007, Dr. Young has provided consultant services in forensic pathology as a self-employed person, consulting in cases throughout the United States and in other areas of the world. Prior to his self-employment, Dr. Young was the Jackson County Medical Examiner for 11 1/2 years, serving as the chief death investigator for metropolitan Kansas City on the Missouri side of the state line. He modernized the death investigation system, obtaining for the office full accreditation by the National Association of Medical Examiners. The office remains the only nationally accredited death investigation agency in Missouri.
Dr. Young's major professional interest is inference applied to forensic pathology. He applies principles of deductive and inductive logic to forensic casework, determining with reasonable medical certainty what happened and who (if anyone) is responsible for what happened. Dr. Young is an experienced communicator and teacher. He is a teacher of pathologists and forensic pathologists and the former director of a nationally accredited forensic pathology training program. Dr. Young is also equally adept at communicating his knowledge to others outside of the medical field. He presents difficult concepts in a way that makes them easy to understand.
Education
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M.D.; Loma Linda University; Loma Linda, CA; 1980
Books
News
A CRC Press author reviews and critiques The Sherlock Effect in Psychology Today
By: Thomas William Young
Subjects: Forensics & Criminal Justice
Here is my response:
I appreciate Dr. Ramsland’s very thoughtful review of The Sherlock Effect: How Forensic Doctors and Investigators Disastrously Reason Like the Great Detective. I agree with much of what she writes.
I agree that I have not “proved” through “trend analysis or controlled studies” that Sherlock Holmes is on the minds of those who reason backward in a court of law. How does one prove or disprove that anyway? Trend analysis and controlled studies are more useful for hypothesis development than they are for “proving” or “disproving” anything. I agree that my evidence is mostly anecdotal, but the anecdotes are too numerous to count and, as such, not listed or spelled out completely in the book. I attempt in the book to use induction (an inference to what is probable) by enumeration and explanatory power: the number of instances over many years where experts on the witness stand behave like Sherlock Holmes — backwardly reasoning arrogantly from the witness stand — is hard to miss and seemingly more than coincidental.
There are some points where perhaps there may be some misunderstanding. Backward reasoning and even “eliminative induction” are entirely appropriate during an investigation. It is useful to employ a heuristic, even a time-tested one, to develop leads. I imagine Dr. Ramsland in her forensic psychology practice employs methods like this, and this is commendable. I made sure to point out the usefulness of backward reasoning for an investigation in the book, but perhaps she missed it. The problem is where an expert claims to be “certain” — even “reasonably certain” — on the witness stand after backwardly reasoning. A claim of “certainty” is a guarantee to the jury that the opinion is reliable, but backward reasoning (or “affirming the consequent” for a complex train of events) from the witness stand is not reliable for truthfulness. This unreliability is not my “notion”; it is founded in statement logic.
Comparing eyewitness accounts to physical evidence is also not my “notion;” it is a deductively valid approach that has been time-tested for reliability by myself and my teachers. I didn’t make up this approach; I was taught to do this. The only thing I have done in this book is to try to state the problem in a way that hopefully many can understand.
Also, being aware of and using a deductively valid approach does not eliminate human error and bias. Instead, we may learn a way to spot the bias in ourselves before we cause any positive harm to innocent people (which is the hope of this book).
Doctor set to testify in trial over death of 5-year-old Cleveland girl also claims to have proven God created earth...
By: Thomas William Young
Dr. Thomas Young is in the news in Cleveland, OH. https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/05/doctor_set_to_testify_in_trial_1.html
The story refers to an article published on Dr. Young's website in 2011, entitled "Dr. Young Addresses The Big Question." http://www.heartlandforensic.com/writing/chapter-0-introduction
Evidence Technology Magazine publishes excerpt of The Sherlock Effect
By: Thomas William Young
An excerpt of The Sherlock Effect is now published in the Summer, 2018 issue of Evidence Technology Magazine.
Direct link to the book excerpt:
Link to the full magazine: