Presenter: Dennis Smith, Premier Fire Consulting Services, LLC.
Negative corpus, the belief that the elimination of known potential fire causes (ignition sources) proves some unknown fire cause for which no evidence exists, has long standing in the fire investigation community. The 2011 edition of NFPA 921 finally repudiated the negative corpus methodology, although in some segments of the fire investigation community there is still deep-rooted use and reliance on this improper process. This program will explore the reasoning fallacies that have been relied upon to support negative corpus and explain why the negative corpus methodology fails to comply with the principles of logical reasoning.
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