A forensic investigation of a failure or accident in the built environment is the scientific method in action, like it is in many fields of study. (Ref. 1) It goes through the same systematic stepped process as the scientific method, or it should.
Peer review by a forensic expert’s colleagues – the last stage in a forensic investigation – checks that this has happened. In a sense, peer review is the scientific method in action again.
The following 10 steps in the scientific method are well known – it’s not rocket science. The actual tasks carried out at each step during a forensic investigation are less well…
