In the cases discussed above, the attribution of incompetence is
circular. No evidence is offered that the examiner is incompetent other than
the fact that he or she participated in an error. The fingerprint establishment
“knows” that the examiner is incompetent only because it disagrees with
that examiner’s conclusion in a particular case. Thus, the fingerprint
establishment’s judgment of the examiner’s competence is based, not on
any objective measure of competence, but solely on whether it agrees with
the examiner’s conclusions in one case.
The effect of this is the creation of what might be called “a selfcontained,
self-validating system.” Observe: