A scene from CSI.

Ask a handful of average people and you'll get a handful of answers.

"The CSI effect? It's people keeping their eyes peeled for clues, to figure out cases, right?" said one man we asked in Downtown Boise.

"It's that everyone wants to go into forensics?" said a woman in town.

Go online like I did recently and you'll find The CSI Effect, named after the popular CBS crime show is a hot topic among legal analysts and scientists.

Some say the phenomena raises awareness about forensic science, and makes it more understandable.

But others say The CSI Effect exaggerates the impact of DNA, and often raises false expectations.

Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg says "the effect" can complicate things in real life.

"At times families are wanting us to do something unrelated to the case, because they've seen it on TV," Sonnenberg said. "It's done on TV so they're wondering why we haven't done it."

And the coroner says real world investigations take longer than the Hollywood versions.

"People can't understand at times why things aren't happening at a faster pace in our office," he said. "That's what we see in those TV programs, everything happens so fast."

The Truth Squad sought another opinion from Boise State University's Dr. Greg Hampikian, a renowned DNA expert and professor of forensic biology.

Is The CSI Effect good or bad?

"It's great!" Hampikian said. Why? "Because juries pay attention," he said. "They treat arcane difficult science with respect."

Hampikian says programs such as CSI make it easier to talk about DNA.

"And now because juries know something about science, they want it," he said. "The attorneys are forced to learn a little something about it. I'd like to see more of that."

And we'll surely be seeing more of that as shows like CSI and its spin offs remain popular with the public.

Next up -- we'll talk to the man behind the CSI effect: actor William Petersen who played Gil Grissom. We'll examine his ties to Idaho and ask why he walked away from the hit show and some pretty hefty paychecks.

Stay tuned.

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