The Case of the Bloodless Bullet Wound

I was one of millions who watched
Ken Ham’s 2014 debate with Bill
Nye “the Science Guy.” The topic
was “Is creation a viable model of origins
in today’s modern scientific era?”
As a medical pathologist who has done
extensive forensic work, I could not
wait to hear what both sides would
say. I was shocked to see that my field
of forensic science came up right out
of the gate.

Ken Ham, founder and CEO of
Answers in Genesis, opened his arguments
by differentiating between two
kinds of science. Operational science,
he said, invents medicine and technology
by doing experiments in the
present. Historical science, in contrast,
relies on forensic science to reconstruct
past events that we cannot observe,
repeat, or test in the laboratory.

Then Bill Nye took his turn to speak.
He denied any distinction between
experimental and forensic science,
saying both types are the same. The
distinction existed only “in Mr. Ham’s
mind.” Mr. Nye then gave the television
show CSI as an example, implying
that forensic science is as reliable as
laboratory experimental science.

Wait a minute, I thought. Yes, forensics
is a useful tool and often “gets” the
bad guy. But it has severe limitations,
and overestimating its power can
result in a tragic miscarriage of justice,
especially when it is wrongly elevated
over truthful eyewitness testimony.
My mind went back to a former case,
where I learned this lesson all too well.
I like to call it “The Case of the Bloodless
Bullet Wound.”

One Body, Two Wounds, No Witnesses

In a tragic all-too-familiar scene near
Chicago, a lone man entered a store
and encountered a group of men. They
exchanged angry words, and then the
lone man ran. The others gave chase
and fired shots, and the lone man lay
dead on someone’s front lawn. At first
the authorities had no witnesses to
the actual violence, only a dead body
needing explanation and justice. I was
called to perform the forensic autopsy.

According to the autopsy, the victim,
an otherwise healthy young man, had
just two wounds, both from bullets, one
in a leg, the other in his chest. The chest
wound was fatal because the bullet had
penetrated the heart and lungs, filling
the chest cavity with several liters
of blood. In striking contrast, the leg
wound showed no bleeding at all, just
a dry, round hole in the skin with marginal
abrasion—the classic evidence of
a penetrating bullet wound. The bullet
was lost in muscle fibers like an arrow
shot into tall grass, making it hard to
recover. I spent a lot of time examining,
probing, and dissecting this wound
to find the bullet. The images of the
wound at every angle were imprinted
in my mind and made what happened
afterward so surprising.

When performing a forensic autopsy,
the first goal is to establish the cause
and manner of death. Next, any questions
about timing of wounds and
death must be answered. Investigators
need this information to determine the
precise sequence of events leading up
to death. In this case, the sequence of
shots could rule out false theories and
claims about the shooter’s action and
intent.

Here the big question was the order
of the shots. Which came first? A clue
was supplied by the bloodlessness of
the leg wound. The difference between
the wounds was so striking as to suggest
that he was shot in the leg after
his heart had stopped pumping blood.
It’s a time-honored maxim of forensic
pathology that postmortem wounds
don’t bleed. Exceptions occur, but it’s
generally reliable. (If a healthy young
person dies suddenly, sometimes the
blood doesn’t clot right away, so postmortem
wounds can bleed.)

From what I knew of the history of
this case, the shots must have been fired
close together. But which came first?
The physical evidence seemed to rule
out the leg wound first. His blood pressure
would have been elevated from
running, so a leg wound—even just a
few seconds before a heart wound—would produce at least some bleeding.
But there wasn’t any. Accordingly, my
report stated that the chest wound
caused death, and the leg wound was
postmortem. It wasn’t very clear why a
second shot to the leg should have been
fired, but when guys are brandishing
guns and adrenaline is flowing, they
sometimes accidentally pull a trigger.

New Eyewitness Testimony

However, sometime later I received
a call from the chief deputy coroner.
He asked, “Hey, Doc, how sure are
you about the order of those bullet
wounds?”

With a sinking feeling I said, “What’s come up?”

Sure enough, an eyewitness had
come forward and contradicted my
careful scientific analysis. He said
the deceased was first shot in the leg,
bringing him down, and then shot in
the chest. The shooter’s intent was
thus established clearly as homicidal,
leaving no room for a claim of accident
or self-defense. I told the deputy
coroner to heed the eyewitness testimony
and disregard my report about
shot order.

This case was a landmark for me
in realizing the priority of eyewitness
testimony. Analysis of the gunshot
wounds could prove that someone
died from a shooting. However,
it couldn’t give the correct order of
events, nor could it show the shooter’s
intent. Only eyewitness testimony
could do that.

Even good science cannot
tell us the order and timing
of creation events, nor can it
necessarily tell us the character
and intent of the Creator.

Similarly, science can be a useful tool
to help show us that our world and the
life in it was created. However, even
good science cannot tell us the order
and timing of creation events, nor can
it necessarily tell us the character and
intent of the Creator. We need the eyewitness
testimony provided for us in
God’s Word to know this.

Not an Easy Case

The case also reminded me that physical
reality is always more complicated
than our scientific theories and reconstructions.
Indeed, this is just what we
should expect if the universe around us
is of infinite complexity, which in turn
is what we should expect if a God of
infinite knowledge and power created
the universe.

Both operational and forensic science
are valuable tools, but Mr. Nye’s
view of science encourages blind faith
that refuses to acknowledge the limits
of science or scientists.

Contrary to Mr. Nye’s assertion,
forensic science is extremely hampered
by our inability to reproduce
the past. Acknowledging our limits as
scientists helps the cause of truth and
avoids miscarriages of justice. The testimony
of truthful witnesses can be
invaluable. When done carefully and
accurately, such testimony takes precedence
over any lab work and independent
analysis. Yet even then, we
must be careful because humans are
sinful and imperfect.

The need for eyewitness testimony
is even more critical when it comes
to the miraculous creation of the universe
by God’s Word (John 1:1–3), which
we could never recreate or study in
the laboratory. God made sure to give
mankind a flawless record of this central
event in history so we could know
the truth about our origins and our
need for the Life-giver (2 Peter 1:3).

How exciting that our Lord Jesus
Christ testifies truthfully and is himself
the Truth (John 14:6)! Revelation 1
and 3 twice refer to him as “the faithful
and true witness.” Human eyewitnesses
can still make mistakes, but
not Christ. He knows all that exists at
every level of reality, at every point in
time and eternity. This means we can—and must—trust his testimony about
creation and everything else in life. He
saw what happened at creation since
he was there. If we trust in him, he will
open our eyes to eternal truths that are
hidden from all who trust their own
knowledge and skills (Matthew 11:25).

SourceThis article originally appeared on answersingenesis.org

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