Hi I'm new to the board but a long time subscriber to AWAD.
Can someone explain to me how forensics is used to describe a debate club in high school but forensic science is crime scene investigation. If the etymology is Latin forensis public, forensic, from forum I can see the debate part making sense as people might debate in a public forum, but I don't understand the science part.
I think the "forensic" in, say, forensic pathology (the subspecialty of pathology that primarily performs autopsies on persons who may have died of unnatural causes--like the old television show "Quincy") comes from the fact that the pathologist will end up testifying -- in the forum so to speak -- to make their findings known to the court. Crime scene investigators likewise are performing scientific investigations that will provide information at trial.
According to Jessica Snyder Sachs in the forensic book Corpse,
History records the first known application of medical knowledge to death investigation in 44 B.C. Summoned to examine the body of Julius Caesar, the Roman physician Antistius announced that he knew which of the would-be emperor's twenty-three stab wounds had proved fatal. By clocking death to a particular blow, Antistius thwarted the plot by which the Roman senators had hoped to avoid any one of them standing trial for murder. In the end, history tells us, they all paid with their lives. But Antistius's historic death determination, however dubious it may have been, marked the beginning of the pathologist's role as expert witness to murder. In fact, it gave us the term forensic, Latin for "before the forum," which is where Antitius made his fateful declaration.
I haven't checked other sources to determine the validity of this story, but forensic is definitely from forensis, "of a forum, place of assembly," from forum.
Welcome, guili! Wow, you got replies from a doctor and a lawyer. Thanks for raising the question.
Edit: And a judge/clergyman!
It's not often that it's good news when you hear from a lawyer, a doctor, a judge and a clergyman all in one day.
ROTFL!
Thanks, Alex, for being the exception that proves the rule...