Slashdot Mirror
10th Anniversary Of Supreme Court's Daubert Ruling
scraggly codger writes "Slashdot readers might find it interesting to learn about the ongoing legal controversy over the role of federal judges as gatekeepers for scientific evidence in civil and criminal litigation in the US. Ten years ago the Supreme Court provided guidelines for admissibility of scientific evidence in the Daubert ruling. Readers might find it hard to believe from the text of the ruling, but the result has been a huge increase in the power of judges to exclude scientific evidence from presentation to juries, based on what many scientists and other observers consider an incredibly naive (or perhaps merely self-serving) model of science. There's been a spate of news stories covering the topic, perhaps the most prominent in the WSJ of Friday, 27 June, "'Junk Science' Ban Also Keeps Jurors From Sound Evidence" (regrettably not freely available online). I particularly recommend Daubert: The Most Influential Supreme Court Ruling You've Never Heard Of."
overturn Bowers v. Hardwick (the 1986 ruling upholding anti-sodomy laws) and since the effects of this ruling allow judges to a) capriciously decide cases and b)protect corporations by excluding "controversial" research that indicates their malfeasance, I'm not holding my breath for a reversal anytime soon.
I mean...look at all the saps who buy magnet bracelets, ionic breeze air purifiers, OxyClean, and a billion other crap products! Yes, valid science might have to wait until it is more accepted before it can be using in court, but I find that the better alternative. This is also why I like the fact that you can't use your goddamn Jesus in court.
Blar.
It's sad that good science is gettign trounced in this way. However, conversely, junk science is being used as a means of extortion for so many lawyers. The recent "Fast Food" trial calls are an example. Lawyers and Judges alike are to blame to a certain extent. Not enough are willing to say "We're not going to hear this case because it's baseless and meaningless." If given the chance good science should always win over junk science, but not always. Look at how many people have swallowed the "Greenhouse Theory" despite the vast amounts of good science that refutes it. >
From the ruling:
"Scientific conclusions are subject to perpetual revision. Law, on the other hand, must resolve disputes finally and quickly."
Incredible.
The real problem is it's apples and oranges. When they say "law" they mean "court cases". Legislation and common law (i.e., precedent) are infinitely and capriciously mutable. When they say "scientific conclusions" they don't mean "experimental results" but "theory", as the data gained from experiment is immutable, though its interpretation may be mutable, and the point of science is that theory is mutable but provably true within the known scope and margin of error. Whereas, as I said, the law is simply whatever a majority in a body (or an executive alone) accepts as agreeable, if not true. The law does not seek the truth, it seeks decisions consistent with its past decisions.
The law courts are therefore the last place that the validity of scientific theory should be tested.
Science cares about external consistency. Scientists build models of the world, test them, and throw them away when they are inconsistent with observation.
Law cares about internal consistency. One of the most important considerations is precedent - "we did it this way last time". When the world changes, precedent gets overturned - eventually.
Science cares about reality. The gold standard in science is the published, reproducible procedure.
Law cares about verisimilitude - believable stories. The gold standard in law is getting twelve members of the community to believe your story, and not just any twelve people - if a person has any expertise related to the matter in court, they will be filtered out of the jury pool.
Science is never the last word. Observation can always make you change your model. Newton was the last word for centuries, now he's an approximation to Einstein.
Law is supposed to be final, and it defends its finality fiercely - witness the resistance to checking old decisions with new DNA techmology, whereas in science the first thing you do with a new tool is compare it with your old measurements.
Yeah, yeah, I know, Thomas Kuhn, postmodernism, yadda yadda... the above is the idealized way science works - reality is more complex and slow, but by and large peer review works.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
What I want to know is, how the hell did you sneak through the jury selection process??