forumsforjustice.org cherokee is a total forensic handwriting graphology fraud

cherokee wrote:
Andrea McNichol is a certified expert witness and graphology consultant for American and British law enforcement. In her book on handwriting analysis, Ms. McNichol says, “Slant reveals the degree to which you express your real emotional feelings to others.”

cherokee wrote:
It has been said by a person on this forum that my “graphology skills are not evident.” Therefore, it would be meaningless for me to extrapolate my own explanation of slant in handwriting analysis. After twenty-five years of doing handwriting analysis, I apparently know nothing on the subject. So, in order to satisfy those who would not listen to my own explanation regarding slant, I quote several graphology experts below.

Certified graphologist, Sheila Lowe, says, “Writing slant tracks the moment-to-moment flow of feelings and responses. It demonstrates surface reactions but not the deeper emotional expression found in some other areas of handwriting, such as pressure …. Handwriting is a lot like body language …. The degree to which handwriting slants to the right or left reveals how much the writer want to be involved” with other people.

Graphology teachers, Karen Amend and Mary Ruiz, have this to say about the psychology of slant.

n Daubert, seven members of the Court agreed on the following guidelines for admitting scientific expert testimony:

   Judge is gatekeeper: Under Rule 702, the task of "gatekeeping", or assuring that scientific expert testimony truly proceeds from "scientific knowledge", rests on the trial judge.
   Relevance and reliability: This requires the trial judge to ensure that the expert's testimony is "relevant to the task at hand" and that it rests "on a reliable foundation". Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 584-587. Concerns about expert testimony cannot be simply referred to the jury as a question of weight. Furthermore, the admissibility of expert testimony is governed by Rule 104(a), not Rule 104(b); thus, the Judge must find it more likely than not that the expert's methods are reliable and reliably applied to the facts at hand.
   Scientific knowledge = scientific method/methodology: A conclusion will qualify as scientific knowledge if the proponent can demonstrate that it is the product of sound "scientific methodology" derived from the scientific method.[3]
   Factors relevant: The Court defined "scientific methodology" as the process of formulating hypotheses and then conducting experiments to prove or falsify the hypothesis, and provided a nondispositive, nonexclusive, "flexible" set of "general observations" (i.e. not a "test") [4] that it considered relevant for establishing the "validity" of scientific testimony:

       Empirical testing: whether the theory or technique is falsifiable, refutable, and/or testable.
       Whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication.
       The known or potential error rate.
       The existence and maintenance of standards and controls concerning its operation.
       The degree to which the theory and technique is generally accepted by a relevant scientific community.

In 2000, Rule 702 was amended in an attempt to codify and structure elements embodied in the "Daubert trilogy." The rule then read as follows:

   Rule 702. Testimony by Experts


   If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.
   (As amended Apr. 17, 2000, eff. Dec. 1, 2000.)

In 2011, Rule 702 was again amended to make the language clearer. The rule now reads:

RULE 702. TESTIMONY BY EXPERT WITNESSES

A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if:

(a) The expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;

(b) The testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;

(c) The testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and

(d) The expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.

(As amended Apr. 17, 2000, eff. Dec. 1, 2000; Apr. 26, 2011, eff. Dec. 1, 2011)

While some federal courts still rely on pre-2000 opinions in determining the scope of Daubert, as a technical legal matter any earlier judicial rulings that conflict with the language of amended Rule 702 are no longer good precedent.

Pursuant to Rule 104(a), in Daubert the U.S. Supreme Court suggested that the following factors be considered:[26]

   Has the technique been tested in actual field conditions (and not just in a laboratory)? [e.g. fingerprinting has been extensively tested and verified not only in laboratory conditions, but even in actual criminal cases. So it is admissible. Polygraphy on the other hand has been well tested in laboratories but not so well tested in field conditions]
   Has the technique been subject to peer review and publication?
   What is the known or potential rate of error?
   Do standards exist for the control of the technique's operation? [e.g. the use of penile plethysmography for sex offender risk assessment is being used by different workers according to their own standards. Thus penile plethysmography does not meet Daubert criteria]
   Has the technique been generally accepted within the relevant scientific community? [this test was earlier the only relevant criterion under Frye]

Graphology or handwriting analysis is the pseudoscientific idea that it is possible to assess someone's personality by analyzing their handwriting.

Claims include making judgments about a person's personality by looking at their handwriting, or even diagnosing disease. One typical claim is that the handwriting of introverts tilts to the left, and that of extroverts tilts to the right. Other claims include that you can detect whether a person is telling the truth by looking for specific indentations in their letters, or whether a person has a romantic interest in you by how large the loops on their "P"s and "R"s are. No scientific studies support any of these claims. Nonetheless, you can find several books purporting to tell you all about the subject in the New Age section of your local bookstore, but then again mentioning this is probably redundant.

While it may be supported by anecdotal evidence and testimonials, no scientifically controlled studies have shown it to be effective.

While it may be supported by anecdotal evidence and testimonials, no scientifically controlled studies have shown it to be effective.

Graphology (graphoanalysis) is the study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing character and personality traits. Real handwriting experts are known as forensic document examiners, not as graphologists. Forensic (or questioned) document examiners consider loops, dotted "i's" and crossed "t's," letter spacing, slants, heights, ending strokes,  etc. They examine handwriting to detect authenticity or forgery.

Graphologists, or graphoanalyists, examine loops, dotted "i's" and crossed "t's," letter spacing, slants, heights, ending strokes, upslant pressure, downslant pressure, etc., but they believe that such handwriting minutiae are physical manifestations of  unconscious mental functions. Graphologists believe such details can reveal as much about a person as astrology , palm reading,  psychometry, rumpology, or the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator. However, there is no evidence that the unconscious mind is a reservoir of truth about a person, much less that graphology provides a gateway to that reservoir.

Graphology is claimed to be useful for everything from understanding health issues, morality and past experiences to hidden talents and mental problems.* However, "in properly controlled, blind studies, where the handwriting samples contain no content that could provide non-graphological information upon which to base a prediction (e.g., a piece copied from a magazine), graphologists do no better than chance at predicting... personality traits...." ["The Use of Graphology as a Tool for Employee Hiring and Evaluation," from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association] And even non-experts are able to correctly identify the gender of a writer about 70% of the time (Furnham, 204).

Graphology is another pipe dream of those who want a quick and dirty decision making process to tell them who to marry, who did the crime, who they should hire, what career they should seek, where the good hunting is, where the water, oil, or buried treasure is, etc. Graphology is another in a long list of quack substitutes for hard work. It is appealing to those who are impatient with such troublesome matters as research, evidence analysis, reasoning, logic, and hypothesis testing. If you want results and you want them now and you want them stated in strong, certain terms, graphology is for you. If, however, you can live with reasonable probabilities and uncertainty, you might try another method to pick a spouse or hire an employee.

If on the other hand, you don't mind discriminating against people on the basis of pseudoscientific non-sense, then at least have the consistency to use a Ouija board to help you pick the right graphologist.