Science Manual For US Judges

An anonymous reader writes "American court judges need to learn science. That's the message from the National Academies and the National Research Council, which today released the first new edition in 11 years of the Reference Manual of Scientific Evidence. It has new chapters about forensic science, mental health, and neuroscience, but unfortunately nothing about computer science. The manual is available as a free download and it's also online."

Comments

Just judges?

[Wowsers]

Not just judges that need science education, it's the politicians who seem to thrive on junk science and present it as fact. Politicians across the globe are dangerously uneducated, which makes them dangerous when making laws.

Re:Just judges?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just judges that need science education, it's the politicians who seem to thrive on junk science and present it as fact. Politicians across the globe are dangerously uneducated, which makes them dangerous when making laws.

Politicians are a reflection of society. They always cater to the lowest common denominator.
Have a well educated civil society and automatically you'll get for the most part politicians that will ignore junk science.
Of course you'll always get the science denier etc.... but they will only infect their own stupidity and not other politicians.
So go fix your school system first, everything else flows from there.

Re:Just judges?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just judges that need science education, it's the politicians who seem to thrive on junk science and present it as fact. Politicians across the globe are dangerously uneducated, which makes them dangerous when making laws.

Not quite true - Politicians across the globe are dangerously uneducated in everything but population manipulation and lying.

Re:Just judges?

[Anonymous Coward]

US skool sistems are the best! We have football and American ekseptionalism!

Re:Just judges?

[hrvatska]

If a lot of those politicians spouting junk science instead started using science based reasoning they wouldn't get elected. The problem, unfortunately, isn't the politicians, it's their constituents. The politicians are a symptom of a greater problem.

Re:Just judges?

[somersault]

Don't you need to educate your politicians before they will be able to improve the school system?

Re:Just judges?

[Pieroxy]

You gotta start somewhere. The best way to start is at the source: The school system. How do you get to improve the school system with such uneducated politicians is the problem. But you can't focus on educating politicians. By the time you'll reach through their thick skulls, they'll be out of office and you have to start again with the newcomers.

Re:Just judges?

[theVarangian]

Not just judges that need science education, it's the politicians who seem to thrive on junk science and present it as fact. Politicians across the globe are dangerously uneducated, which makes them dangerous when making laws.

That's precisely the point, if this manual is successful it will be followed up by a second volume: "Simple Science for Senators." It is based on the "Curious George" series.

Re:Just judges?

[roc97007]

This perhaps inadvertently brings up a good point -- whomever writes the manual has an unfair influence on the way the law is practiced.

Re:Just judges?

[Dr_Barnowl]

Advertising. Bill Hicks was right on the mark when he told all people working in marketing to "go kill yourself".

People want the good life, and they want it easy, and cheap, and now. Corporations are only too happy to sell them that dream, and promote the idea that you're entitled to shit on who you like to get it.

The real dream should be a future like Star Trek (ludicrous physics notwithstanding). Sure, you see the elite working hard on starships, but imagine a future where technology has solved every material need of the human race - they're working hard because they love it, not because they are forced to by economic forces. I want a future where I get to do the job I love for the hours I want, see my friends a lot more, and spend more time with my daughter - because I don't have to worry about having to live on the street and eat garbage. And I'm fairly certain that it's possible within my lifetime, as long as the corporations don't continue to get their way - alas, they probably will.

Re:Just judges?

[necro81]

Not just politicians that need science education, it's the citizens who seem to thrive on junk science and present it as fact. Citizens across the globe are dangerously uneducated, which makes them dangerous when electing politicians.

It's turtles all the way down!

Re:Just judges?

[Tsingi]

Advertising. Bill Hicks was right on the mark when he told all people working in marketing to "go kill yourself".

--
No, seriously, do it. If you are in marketing, go kill yourself now.
I'm not kidding

- Bill Hicks
(AKA Goat Boy)

Re:Just judges?

[ElectricTurtle]

A future economy which has essentially eliminated the scarcity and/or labor cost of material needs requires full scale automation of agriculture and manufacturing. This is at odds with two shibboleths of society: the family farm and unions. The former can't afford to automate (and it would ruin their bucolic romanticism if they did), and the latter is fundamentally opposed to it on the grounds that it would be outside of the immediate best interests of their constituency and their own organizational existence.

The other aspect that people don't want to have to face is... whither stupidity? If we automate all the labor-intensive work that fuels the essential material needs of civilization, what are we going to do with all the janitors and nut-tighteners? Is it truly optimal to create a future economy where perhaps less than 30% of people do useful work and more than 70% of people who are too dumb for anything else simply wander around between bread and circuses provided by their robot slaves?

There are solutions to the problem, but not ones that people are likely to accept (anymore than they would the transition). We are rapidly approaching a point where we could genetically engineer a more intelligent baseline and institute controls on having unmodified children, but the masses would scream "eugenics!" and out would come the pitchforks. (Being a libertarian I too would be opposed to an imposition on the right of private persons to have children on their own terms.)

So your utopian economy is more or less impossible in the current social reality. Maybe a few generations after the singularity when people are more used to the positive aspects of genetic modification it might be possible.

Re:Just judges?

[mrxak]

Believe it or not, government is not always the answer to all of society's problems, education least of all. Parents need to take an interest in their children's educations. It's pretty much a local issue, anyway, so start going to PTA meetings and lobby your town selectmen or mayor. Heck, run for your local school board if they're incompetent.

Re:Just judges?

[Hatta]

But why are the constituents anti-science? They could have been properly educated, but weren't. Whose fault is that? Blaming constituents for the abuses heaped on them by politicians is a lot like blaming your grandma for giving her credit card number to the nice man on the phone.

Re:Just judges?

[geegel]

Oh FFS. This is the point where I should defend my trade.

Instead I'll ask you a question:

What stops you from working on what you like and spending time with your friends and family?

The answer is absolutely NOTHING.

Start a commune, join the Amish, emigrate in Panama, do whatever leads you to that goal. The problem is that you won't and you'll continue to find scapegoats instead of looking in the mirror.

Re:Just judges?

[Bob-taro]

A future economy which has essentially eliminated the scarcity and/or labor cost of material needs requires full scale automation of agriculture and manufacturing. This is at odds with two shibboleths of society: the family farm and unions. The former can't afford to automate (and it would ruin their bucolic romanticism if they did), and the latter is fundamentally opposed to it on the grounds that it would be outside of the immediate best interests of their constituency and their own organizational existence. The other aspect that people don't want to have to face is... whither stupidity? If we automate all the labor-intensive work that fuels the essential material needs of civilization, what are we going to do with all the janitors and nut-tighteners? Is it truly optimal to create a future economy where perhaps less than 30% of people do useful work and more than 70% of people who are too dumb for anything else simply wander around between bread and circuses provided by their robot slaves? There are solutions to the problem, but not ones that people are likely to accept (anymore than they would the transition). We are rapidly approaching a point where we could genetically engineer a more intelligent baseline and institute controls on having unmodified children, but the masses would scream "eugenics!" and out would come the pitchforks. (Being a libertarian I too would be opposed to an imposition on the right of private persons to have children on their own terms.) So your utopian economy is more or less impossible in the current social reality. Maybe a few generations after the singularity when people are more used to the positive aspects of genetic modification it might be possible.

RE: whither stupidity ... I encourage people when they talk about "the average Joe", "the general populace", "the sheeple", or more derogatory terms I often see in this forum -- take an honest look at yourself and ask how sure are you that you're not one of them. Are you sure you're not just in a smaller flock? Case in point - if all society's needs are taken care of by technology you ask what do we do with the "stupid" people? You should also consider, how many engineers would we need ongoing? Who is going to pay you to invent when we already have everything we need? You may be in a worse spot than the people tightening nuts on all the machines.

Re:Just judges?

[benjamindees]

You're assuming that automation has to be large-scale. That's not necessarily true. A major reason the economy today is built around large scale automation is due to structural flaws in our monetary system that promote centralization of capital. Individual automation of huge swaths of the economy is completely possible with no limitations. It just isn't economical in Dollar-denominated terms, because the Dollar isn't a measure of value but a measure of proximity to the Federal Reserve.

Is it truly optimal to create a future economy where perhaps less than 30% of people do useful work and more than 70% of people who are too dumb for anything else simply wander around between bread and circuses provided by their robot slaves?

As for this, I think you should do a bit of thorough research on the proportion of people who currently do "useful work".

Re:Just judges?

[Larryish]

While we're at it, can we maybe require law enforcement officers to get paralegal degrees?

This would result in a lot less arrests for "resisting arrest".

Re:Just judges?

[ElectricTurtle]

It may come as news to you, but raw materials don't just poof themselves into existence. Extraction requires huge amounts of infrastructure investment, and some extraction industries like rare earths must be done on massive scales simply to be efficient.

And then there's transportation, you've got to move all those logs/ingots/barrels around, and you've got the efficiency of the logistical support of the transportation, the smaller you make the transportation units the more logistical support you need to keep them maintained. It seems to me you are divorced completely from the realities of efficiencies from scale.

I wager you imagine some desktop manufacturing utopia, and I wouldn't mind one myself, but that's just not current technology, nor is it really an efficient use of resources. We can't make everything out of chintzy polymers, and it's rather inefficient to give every household a multi-axis lathe or whatever just to make a few things and then sit idle in the basement.

Centralizing manufacturing is fundamentally more efficient. When you stand up the resources for a car factory and build thousands of cars, that makes more sense and is more efficient than an individual acquiring all the lathes and presses and welders etc. etc. to build ONE or TWO cars for themselves, and then what? Nonsense.

For the record, I'm all for the abolition of the Federal Reserve, but that's because I ascribe to Austrian economics.

Lastly, your scare quotes are quite appropriate, as any demarcation depends entirely on one's definition of 'useful' and 'work'.

Re:Just judges?

[penix1]

It's pretty much a local issue, anyway, so start going to PTA meetings and lobby your town selectmen or mayor. Heck, run for your local school board if they're incompetent.

In a society that is in debt up to its tits, and both parents need to work to make ends meet, that isn't going to happen. Real wages have remained flat but the standard of living has continued to rise. The difference between the two is the debt we are seeing. As long as that debt is overwhelming, you will see less and less participation in "normal" society especially politics.

Besides, the way most politicians are treated (at least in the US) it is little wonder anyone wants to run. So you wind up with the sociopath in office because nobody else wants it.

Re:Just judges?

[nomadic]

There are a lot of things in politics, public policy, governing, etc. that is not conducive to "science based reasoning."

Re:Just judges?

[nomadic]

Someone just started freshman latin class...

Re:Just judges?

[Eponymous Hero]

and learn what your kids are learning. most kids are learning stuff in the 4th grade that you've already forgotten. high schoolers are doing higher math than a lot of us do in our daily jobs. don't do your kids' homework for them, do it with them. going to PTA meetings is great but too many parents go just to bitch at their kids' teachers and use it as a forum to demand entitlements. what nobody seems to teach today, in schools or at home, is personal responsibility, family responsibility, and social responsibility.

Re:Just judges?

[pnewhook]

You mean the comedian who smoked himself to death at 32?

Re:Just judges?

[pnewhook]

But why are the constituents anti-science? They could have been properly educated, but weren't. Whose fault is that?

Their crackpot religion. I'm not kidding. It's had to take science seriously when your pastor/priest/witch-doctor says its all a bunch of left wing lies.

Re:Just judges?

[LanMan04]

Parents need to take an interest in their children's educations.

But they don't, so Gov has to pick up the slack.

Re:Just judges?

[Moryath]

Look at Texas as a great example. Last 20 years of Republican rule, their schools have fallen in rank and in ability every year. Rick Perry packed the educational boards with a bunch of religious fundies, doing his level best to make it even worse.

And of course, at the same time as they are complaining about how much it costs to go to college, they're flipping the middle finger to higher education and slashing funding across the board. 10 years ago, 50% of state college funding came from the state, today it's less than 20% (and they wonder why tuition went up!).

Meanwhile, the "solution" generally proposed is to require constant continuing education and certification requirements on teachers... which means for a job that doesn't pay well to start with, they're spending a buttload more time and money just staying certified.

And we wonder why people don't stay in teaching...

Re:Just judges?

[Moryath]

Parental involvement is needed. This we can agree on.

HOWEVER:
- When your government is insisting on "saving money" by bumping up grade school numbers to 40 kids in a classroom and no teachers' aides to help keep order? PROBLEM.
- When your government is telling schools desperate for basic building maintenance and desperate to hire enough teachers to make ends meet "fuck you, cut your budget so that we can cut property taxes", PROBLEM.
- When your government is telling teachers "fuck you, you're just a glorified babysitter, what do you do anyways?" - PROBLEM.
- When your government's idea of "accountability" is "fuck the poor, we don't care what the public schools are like, all our kids go to private school anyways" - PROBLEM.

Re:Just judges?

[black soap]

I think the political debates ought to be preceded by an "academic decathlon" style competition, televised, and their scores commented on by smart people. At least one of the events should be "can you do your own taxes without an accountant," to make it clear that tax laws are too complicated. And rather than speaking/interviewing (we already know politicians can do that), there should be a practical skills competition - can they change a tire, build a treehouse, and balanace a checkbook?

Re:Just judges?

[Tsingi]

You mean the comedian who smoked himself to death at 32?

Yeah, death by marketing. At least he knew who he was dealing with.

Re:Just judges?

[benjamindees]

It's actually not news to me, which is the reason I restricted my statement to "huge swaths" rather than "all" of the economy. Likewise it shouldn't be news to you that over 80% of steel and 50% of aluminum in the US is recycled. Steel isn't a limited resource. Aluminum isn't a limited resource. Plastics are not limited. Energy is the only limit; and even that can be overcome. So it shouldn't be news that renewable energy and modern materials science are making 99.99999% locally-renewable production the path to prosperity for billions of people on the planet.

Centralizing is only more efficient when there is some fundamental limit to overcome, such as materials, energy, or labor. For many core aspects of the modern economy, there simply is no limiting resource beyond opportunity cost and the cost of money -- artificial scarcity. Alan Greenspan didn't regulate the economy by the price of rare earth metals. He monitored the price of scrap steel. For many tasks, the limiting factor is the structure of the production process itself, not the inputs.

A lathe is just an electric motor. You have two or three "sitting idle in the basement" already. A press is just a hydraulic cylinder. You should have at least one. A welder is just a big transformer. You can guess where that is. Add a microprocessor and some stepper motors, of which you likely have several, and you're 90% of the way to small-scale production of a vast array of goods. If you recycle your materials, there is no need for transportation. And if you do need some external input, you have access to three or four nationwide logistic transportation support networks already in the form of Wal-Mart, UPS, Amazon, etc.

You should ask yourself what resource it is that you think you're saving by doing things more "efficiently". If you're an average employed Westerner, you're not saving time; you're probably overworked. You're not saving oil or coal or natural gas -- those will all be consumed regardless of what you do. You might be saving money, but really what the hell is that anyways? Do you simply enjoy working and economizing for no reason other than to support a bunch of worthless parasites at the top of the economic pyramid?

What part of doing things in a centralized fashion is more "efficient", exactly?

Re:Just judges?

[benjamindees]

In the long run, effective government is a perfectly good answer to nearly all of society's problems. Unfortunately, too often, the long run is too long and war is the most effective government available.

Education is simply another form of government and obviously a preferable one, when possible. So don't be so quick to let them off the hook for screwing it up.

Re:Just judges?

[Jawnn]

Not just judges that need science education, it's the politicians who seem to thrive on junk science and present it as fact. Politicians across the globe are dangerously uneducated, which makes them dangerous when making laws.

Politicians are a reflection of society. They always cater to the lowest common denominator. Have a well educated civil society and automatically you'll get for the most part politicians that will ignore junk science. Of course you'll always get the science denier etc.... but they will only infect their own stupidity and not other politicians. So go fix your school system first, everything else flows from there.

"Scientific studies" have shown that if we stop throwing money at public schools and let parents and churches educate our children properly, these problems will fix themselves...
/sarcasm

Re:Just judges?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Claiming that parents taking an interest in their child's education will solve the education problems of the United States is pretty much the same kind of arguement that says the solution to increasing STD rates and teenage pregnancies is massive, self-imposed abstinence.

It's a great idea, but in the face of reality it fails. We have a few decades worth of evidence that suggests while people should be interested in their childen's education, the mass majority of them are not. We need to design a solution to account for this problem as well.

Re:Just judges?

[flaming error]

Well, your children could take over and create a benevolent oligarchy which streams tabloid television to gyms where the 99% toil away on treadmills and exercise bikes which power your kids refrigerators and hot tubs. Just sayin'.

Re:Just judges?

[ElectricTurtle]

Bullshit.

Yes, the rate of reclamation for steel and such is a fact, and that's all well and good and a lovely attempt at trying to change the subject. The same is not true of what I was talking about, rare earths.

Also your cited hyperbolic rhetorician (I told the Chinese that if they used bricks they would destroy all their soil and burn all their coal... durrrrrrrrr... because I have no idea that you don't make bricks from topsoil and coal isn't the only source of heat... durrrrrrr), who acts like he invented putting grass on top of everything, does not substantively demonstrate this near-perfect local renewability that you want to claim. It's not hard to grow things on roofs designed to support soil, nor hard to get methane out of sewage or smelt metal or whatever. What's hard is the real world where everything isn't in a hypothetical closed system, where people will need resources that just do not and cannot exist in their square mile.

A lathe is just a motor? Really? I guess you should tell all the machinists they've been wasting their time with all that horsepower when they could have been doing the job with some tiny shit recovered from discarded vibrators. Engineering is about thresholds, and you must have equipment of a certain quality and capacity to produce things of similar quality and capacity. A press is not "just" a hydraulic cylinder if the thing you need to press provides more resistance than your hydraulics can overcome. Then all you have is scrap when all your shit breaks.

And then you try to attack efficiency itself? Please.

I shouldn't have to explain this, but its inefficient and wasteful to have to build the means to produce each thing for each thing produced. That was the point of the car factory analogy. If each household has the means to produce its own car, that necessitates producing those means, instantly magnifying the required resources, and then those resources (production means) are inefficiently used for less work. When a centralized production produces many, many things with the same equipment, it reduces costs and the drain on materials.

Re:Just judges?

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

I don't have kids myself, but I am friends with a couple people that serve on my school's Board of Education. The #1 complaint I constantly hear from them is that the mandates imposed by the federal and the state governments tie their hands when it comes to really having much of any influence over what actually happens at the local level. Other than picking a Superintendent of Schools and negotiating contracts, about all they have control over is building maintenance schedules.

Maybe other states aren't as bad as NY is... but it seems like the "local" is mostly gone from the education system here. Getting involved in your kid's education is vital, but the PTA or BoE route may be meaningless.

Re:Just judges?

[Hentes]

Politicians don't need to be scientists, they just need to know their limits and rely on experts in complicated things (instead of breeding their own set of politically-motivated "expert" groups).

Re:Just judges?

[sumdumass]

They always cater to the largest common denominator.

FTFY.

I agree too. We need the government properly educating everyone to believe the same things and the same ways. That's a proper and fit role for the government. Indoctrination is just a word that sounds scary because it's been abused in the past.

Re:Just judges?

[sumdumass]

Lol.. I used to admire your posts but now
I just laugh.

First, there is only one school board that Perry had access to stuff, and that wasn't true for the last 20 years either.

Second, Religious fundies do not automagically make a school system fail. MAny religious schools ran by the same type of religious findies, perform well above secular schools dominated by liberals. So throwing the hit on religious fundies in there achieved what with reality?

Also, do you understand that if tuition goes up, and state funding stays the same, it's automatically a lower percentage of tuition without removing any funding? Where you edumacated in Texas?

I'm not really going to get into the entire requiring teachers to be certified in what they teach. I mean the entire just throw someone trained in physical education in there teaching math and literature, and computer sciences scheme from the past worked so well, that the teaching certificates most states require must have been just a money grab scam designed to take more from people putting themselves out there for the public good. I agree, it's pure nonsense.

Re:Just judges?

[Jeqvodomus]

Second, Religious fundies do not automagically make a school system fail. MAny religious schools ran by the same type of religious findies, perform well above secular schools dominated by liberals. So throwing the hit on religious fundies in there achieved what with reality?

This is actually quite interesting, do you have any sort of source?

Re:Just judges?

[sumdumass]

source for what? we have public school system in the US that perform below the standards set just to keep home schooled kids passing.and out of public schools.

Of course this will vary from different areas, and it is not a blanket one is better, but here are some interesting stories showing it..

http://www.cnsnews.com/node/11320

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/3852653/Faith-school-pupils-outperforming-others-at-every-age.html

http://www.examiner.com/christian-history-in-national/catholic-high-schools-outperform-the-competition

and just to keep a perspective, it appears that if you adjust the schools performances for demographics, its a different result.

http://watchingthewatchers.org/news/576/mythifying-public-school-claims

although demographically adjusted numbers still support the claim that there are some religious school run by religious fundies that out perform public-secular schools.,

Re:Just judges?

[Bob-taro]

I should thank you for giving me the opportunity to brag about myself a bit. ...

My point was basically to be humble enough to question yourself. There's an old joke that someone with a B.S. degree thinks they know everything, someone with a M.S. knows they don't know anything, and someone with a Ph.D. knows they don't know anything -- but neither does anyone else. You may write me off as a "useless twit", but I am a good programmer, and I am good at learning foreign languages (and BTW, I suspect those two skills are related).

Re:Just judges?

[sumdumass]

No, but religious fundies trying to rewrite the state curriculum have a lot to do with failing schools.

Cite this please. Your opinion does not make a fact. Your observations seem to be counter to the rest of the worlds'. I'm willing to bet that the decline in Texas schools is more related to the decline in average income per household in Texas and the need for more working parents to concentrate on paying the bills then the religious affiliation of any school board member.

Except that funding HAS been removed. So your entire argument is invalid.

lol.. The argument is not invalid. it was designed to get you to use your brain. Any increase in tuition will cause a decrease in the percentage of state funding unless the state funding is increased with it. Let's walk through some math here since you can't seem to grasp the concept. If tuition is $100 and the state funds 10% of that, they fund $10. If the state decreases their funding by ten percent, They will be at a total of 9% funding or $9. Now if the tuition is increased by 30% to $130, the state's funding is at about 7%.

You admit that state funding has dropped, and tuition has increased. But you play it off as if the difference in percentage is solely because of cuts in state funding. This is completely misleading because as I said, even if the state funding stays the same, increases in tuition will cause a lower percent being paid by the state. Now 7% is less then 9% of the total funding, but dropping $1 or 10% is less detrimental in this number then raising tuition by $30 or 30%.

You see, looking at the simple math (and I mean simple math- nothing above a middle school level here), your notion seems to be a bit loony in the way it was presented to anyone capable of the least bit of critical thinking.

Right after...

[Lumpy]

Every judge in this country must read the Constitution, then there needs to be a person in the judges chambers that smacks the judge in the head once for every time the judge violated that section he is reading.

Re:Right after...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every judge in this country must read the Constitution, then there needs to be a person in the judges chambers that smacks the judge in the head once for every time the judge violated that section he is reading.

The trouble is that the Constitution is subject to human interpretation. I've seen essays on how the semicolons in the Constitution meant something different than they do today for example. Or just look at the debates here on /. about the GPL. The exact same paragraph will have a different interpretation from different people. If it wasn't a problem then why did RMS have to publish a FAQ about the GPL?

Unfortunately, the written word isn't as black and white as folks wish it were. That's why there are judges - to settle disputes about what the law says and means and what the intent is. Then, if judges rule contrary to what the legislatures meant, the legislatures will rewrite the law - maybe.

Re:Right after...

[Pieroxy]

the written word isn't as black and white as folks wish it were.

That is only if you use colored paper or colored ink ;-)

Re:Right after...

[king neckbeard]

Most of the FAQ isn't dealing with ambiguities for those that haven't read it, instead focusing on other issues. Also, the GPL is pretty much a hack of conventional copyright, so it's hardly an example of something that would be clear.

A Welcome Update.

[ApepUK]

I'm certainly glad to see an update even if there has been a delay of 11 years. I'm not sure I agree with the OP that it should've(?) contained a section on computer science. Science is a vast field on it's own with many disciplines, hence the seperation of certain subjects such as mental health and neuroscience. I consider Computer Science a vast field in it's own right and therefore should have it's own reference manual. Within the Information & Communication Technology world there are also a large number of disiciplines, which would probably need more than suitable coverage in terms applying law and may not receive properly if it is bundled with non-related sciences - there is always the risk of subjects perhaps being watered down a little too much. Still, it's a positive step forward and must be recognised in order to encourage further reference manuals to be produced - and hopefully updated more often!

Re:That would be nice.....

[Jello B.]

Yeeeeeeeeah, no.

Re:That would be nice.....

[ArcherB]

"A little science estranges a man from God; a lot of science brings him back.". . . Sir Francis Bacon

Yeeeeeeeeah, no.

I see you are in the "little science" group.

From the wiki page on Sir Francis Bacon:

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans,[1] KC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution.
Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.[2] His works established and popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today. His dedication probably led to his death, bringing him into a rare historical group of scientists who were killed by their own experiments

Maybe you are right. What would the guy who authored and pioneered the scientific method know about science?

The scientific mind is dangerous to a lawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

When I did jury duty, the plaintiff attorney was quite worried that two of us were engineers. It's much harder to convince us of guilt based on sketchy evidence, confused testimony, and irrelevant but nice-sounding rhetoric. If the judge also understands science, they might now have to put together a case based on facts!

Re:The scientific mind is dangerous to a lawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

Exploiting ignorance is one of the sharpest skills wielded by lawyers and politicians, alike.

Re:The scientific mind is dangerous to a lawyer

[westlake]

When I did jury duty, the plaintiff attorney was quite worried that two of us were engineers. It's much harder to convince us of guilt based on sketchy evidence, confused testimony, and irrelevant but nice-sounding rhetoric.

Your use of the word "plaintiff" implies a civil case.

There is no such thing as a verdict of innocent or guilty in a civil case, proof beyond reasonable doubt.

There is only a decison to be made for the plaintiff or the defendant based on the weight of evidence laid before you.

The courtroom is not a lecture hall.

The courtroom is not a laboratory demonstration.

If you are looking for the perfection of a mathematical formula, you are not going to find it.

Re:The scientific mind is dangerous to a lawyer

[nomadic]

"sketchy evidence, confused testimony, and irrelevant but nice-sounding rhetoric."

Funny, when it comes to matter outside their specialty, engineers seem to be unusually vulnerable to those things. Ever wonder why an unusual number of engineers are creationists, or AGW deniers, or terrorists?

Re:The scientific mind is dangerous to a lawyer

[BJ_Covert_Action]

See, The Dunning-Kruger effect.

Re:The scientific mind is dangerous to a lawyer

[treeves]

In the last section of the reference, on engineering, is a section devoted to the pitfalls of failing to adequately test a design. The example used is the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge. As an alumnus of the WSU (Washington State) College of Engineering, that warms my heart. I still remember sitting in lower level physics watching a film showing the effects of forced oscillation on that bridge, after which the prof pointed out that it was designed by engineers from the University of Washington, our cross-state rival.

Re:The scientific mind is dangerous to a lawyer

[ciggieposeur]

Don't worry, that also happens with plenty of engineers on topics inside their specialty too.

Re:That would be nice.....

[Pieroxy]

What would the guy who authored and pioneered the scientific method know about God?

There. Fixed that for ya. Doesn't seem as smart as you thought now, he?

footnotes !

[obarthelemy]

I went and browsed the "regression" part. The text isn't bad, very geared towards validating evidence/procedures rather than generating those, which seems logical. But most pages are more than half footnotes; one of the early pages actually has 3 lines of text and the rest is footnotes.

Re:footnotes !

[robot256]

They're trying to write it in a language legal folks will understand. The entire book is like a footnote in their minds, explaining the evidence of their cases but not actually part of the case.

Now what we need...

[roc97007]

...is a book on "most common prior art" for the patent office.

Re:Now what we need...

[Mindcontrolled]

Perhaps we start with a book on what actually constitutes prior art for the slashdot crowd... Because 99% of the "lol, lol - prior art" posts on /. are beyond pathetic.

Re:Now what we need...

[roc97007]

Um, in all fairness, you may be misinterpreting what "lol" means in those posts.

Re:There's no debate about the GPL.

[king neckbeard]

No, you can keep changes private under the GPL, provided you don't distribute the code to others. There are some licenses that don't allow for private changes at all, and those licenses are considered non-free by the FSF.

Also, BSDL and MITL are for tools. Real men concerned with 'true freedom' choose the WTFPL and accept no substitutes (except perhaps the public domain).

Correction

[jtseng]

"Americans in general need to learn more science." There - fixed it for you.

Re:Correction

[cobrausn]

Honest question - why?

As someone who has both worked on a nuclear reactor and gotten a degree in computer science, I obviously have no problem learnin' me some science. But most people don't actually need to. People in general tend to learn what they need to to survive and live prosperously with their natural interests and capabilities, and I just don't see advanced science concepts as something the average person actually needs to understand unless they have an interest.

Re:That would be nice.....

[Muros]

Maybe you are right. What would the guy who authored and pioneered the scientific method know about science?

Less than we know today. Otherwise, you know, he wouldn't have had to do much pioneering.

computer science no they need IT / networking / wi

[Joe_Dragon]

computer science is way to theory based for the court room / juries and will not help in lot's of cases.

They need manuals for
Basics of networks
General IT,
Basics of the internet
How a cable system works (mainly on the IP address side on how it's get it tied to a user and how about how much of the network is shared),
List of other IT computer based court cases
How spyware, virus, and other stuff like it works
How people can fall into popup traps
How being off by one letter, going to a website that go hacked and so on can lead to a pron site that is hard to get out of.
How IT can be stuck with old software / out of date stuff due to others not paying for updates.
Wifi networks and how easy it can be to hack some of them.
Fake antispyware and anitvirus software.
and others as well.

Lets generalise

[thegarbz]

How do you get taught at school? Straight into science or do you start with learning to count to 10? Based on the track record of US Judges it may make more sense to provide them a book on Maths, and Common Sense before they advance to science.

I mean what's the point of knowing science if you're going to continue making the same arse backwards decisions that let vehicular manslaughter get a slap on the wrist while downloading a song officially screws up your life?

Re:computer science no they need IT / networking /

[thegarbz]

No they need a book on common fucking sense first.

All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[trout007]

The key word being PEERS. Someone with equal training and ability.

If you are suing a doctor for malpractice the jury should consist of people with enough medical knowledge to judge the case.

Re:All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[Shompol]

Great idea, except for a small problem -- something tells me that under your proposed system doctors are going to be always acquitted.
This might work for one technology company suing another, except I am not sure if they use a jury system for those.

Re:All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[trout007]

I didn't say doctors I said at least some medical knowledge. College biology would be a good start.

Re:All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[dkleinsc]

No, you have the wrong definition of "peer": The clear intent of the Constitution was to have all juries made up entirely of British nobility. After all, that's what the most common meaning of the word "peer" in the 1790's.

Re:All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[silas_moeckel]

As apposed to the current system where anybody that might have an understanding of an applicable technical subject is removed from the jury pool. Having all doctors is a pretty bad idea, so is removing anybody that can see through an expert witnesses BS.

Re:All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[bill_mcgonigle]

As apposed to the current system where anybody that might have an understanding of an applicable technical subject is removed from the jury pool. Having all doctors is a pretty bad idea, so is removing anybody that can see through an expert witnesses BS.

Right, the goal today is to have a jury that can be manipulated. Back when Common Law was the guiding principle, a Jury of Your Peers really meant that - people who knew you personally - so that they could weigh your act with who you are as a person. If people who knew you really thought you deserved to be imprisoned, probably you did. Today, juries want to reach a verdict and get out of their enslavement as soon as possible (an understandable position). They don't have a dog in the fight and generally don't have a society to answer to for their decisions.

That's not the way it's supposed to work, but it's good for maintaining an aristocracy.

Re:All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[pnewhook]

EXACTLY. An average jury has an education level of about grade 11. While this is fine to judge a lot of petty crimes, when you get into expert witnesses on a murder trial, or anything highly technical its just going to go right over their heads.

Years ago I worked for a Canadian satellite company that was being sued by the US company that bought the satellite. The satellite was damaged in orbit and although still functional beyond the requirements, they tried to sue for the full value of the satellite. The US company fought to have the trial by jury in the US, why? Because they knew the jury would not understand the science and would just rule in favour of the US company against a foreign one regardless of the facts.

Re:All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[pnewhook]

As a Canadian, I can't believe the methods of jury selection in the US is actually legal. Such as the prosecution and defense get to question potential jurors and know all about them? This just means they try and stack the jury with whatever demographics help get them off. At least in Canada it is way more random and fair.

Re:All you need is a jury of your PEERS.

[pxc]

That's kind of the point of a combative (that may not be the correct legal term) justice system. Each lawyer does everything they can for one side, and hopefully the truth comes out when they each push one-sided versions of the story. Each attorney only gets to select two persons to be removed from the jury. I'm not sure how big the jury is, but the impact should not be huge. The goal is to remove people with biases which would prevent them from ruling fairly. I guess it's supposed to prevent things like mistrials, based upon the idea that there will only be a handful of people with extreme, relevant prejudices in any jury pool.

I'm not sure I totally agree with that reasoning, but I don't think your characterization of it was very complete or fair, either.

Judicial certifications?

[FriendlyPrimate]

Seems like Judges should be required to get special training and certifications (i.e. something similar to Bar Exams on specialized topics) before they are allowed to preside over cases requiring specialized knowledge like copyright, patents, medical malpractice, computer science, etc.

Re:Judicial certifications?

[Mindcontrolled]

Here in Germany, we have specialized judges at the Federal Patent Court, so called "technical judges". They did not study law, but are instead required to study engineering or a science. Believe me, you can't bullshit those guys on technical matters, I tried and still carry the scars....

Re:computer science no they need IT / networking /

[Shompol]

oing to a website that go hacked and so on can lead to a pron site that is hard to get out of.

I think they are thoroughly familiar with he the pron aspect of technology, no further education necessary.

Interesting theory

[Quila]

Maybe that's why governments are pushing global warming so hard.

The Law?

[englishknnigits]

How about we require judges to know something about the law? Why do lawyers need to pass the bar but judges don't?

Re:The Law?

[nomadic]

Archaic rules that don't really have much effect on actual practice. If there are federal judges who don't have law degrees I've never heard of them, and many states require judges to be members of the bar before they are appointed or run for election.

Re:The Law?

[gknoy]

Don't judges normally come from the pool of lawyers? I thought that was a requirement, more than merely a convention, but I could be wrong.

Re:The Law?

[englishknnigits]

From the almighty Wikipedia, "The U.S. Constitution contains no requirement that Federal judges or Supreme Court justices be members of the bar. However, there are no modern instances of the President nominating or the Congress approving any candidate who is not a member of any bar." Looks like you are right, I stand mostly corrected.

Uhm, seriously?

[brokeninside]

1. government is not always the answer to all of society's problems, education least of all.

2. Parents need to take an interest in their children's educations.

3. It's pretty much a local issue, anyway,

Therefore,

4. start going to PTA meetings and lobby your town selectmen or mayor. Heck, run for your local school board.

The first premise seems intended to be a contrary to the conclusion that one should get involved with government. The second premise has nothing to do with the conclusion at so far as I can tell.

The third premise, if combined with the unstated premise that government actually has quite a bit to do with the quality of education, might serve to get to the conclusion. But then we have to throw out (1).

Granted, an argument could be made that the PTA is not a governmental organization. But, in my experience, it tends to be more of an extension of the school that the administration leverages to raise funds and attract volunteers than an independent organization that has anything to do with the quality of education. But even if I concede the PTA, that's just one third of the conclusion, the other two thirds are all about leveraging government.

Not too big a leap

[Walt Sellers]

At least judges have one thing in common with scientists: their industry includes the phrase "prove it"

Unfortunately Nothing About Computer Science

[twmcneil]

Well if they only update this manual once every 11 years it's probably a good thing they didn't include computer science. Can you imagine how relevant even the best of today's computer knowledge will be 11 years from now? Think of it this way: if done in a similar fashion, a current version in use now of this kind of manual would be 11 years old and written before many of our current technologies were even invented. For instance, that manual would have nothing about XML in it.

On second thought, carry on.

Re:Unfortunately Nothing About Computer Science

[oblio_one]

XML has nothing to do with Computer Science, think of that Djikstra (I think?) quote “Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.” Implementation isn't computer science, XML is just some file format specification. If they included software industry common practices (I can't say best for xml) then maybe xml has a shot at getting in, but still it's more specific then they need.

DNA Evidence

[ThatsNotPudding]

I hope there is a chapter about DNA evidence titled 'Falsifying DNA: Easier Than Fingerprints', that goes onto explain how it is becoming faster and easier to synthesize and plant DNA evidence at the scene and on evidence - especially from those who already have their DNA on file from prior run-ins, or through those chilling appeals to communites for cheek cell samples to help catch a killer. Or assist in the perfect frame job due to idiot juries and jurists who automatically spell D-N-A as G-U-I-L-T-Y.

For others as well?

[babblesaurus]

I wonder if science "fans" would also find this document useful.

Re:"Computer Science" is not a science

[WorBlux]

Science is an inquiry into the principles and nature of a thing. (Aristotle) Computer science is the inquiry into the principles and nature of a certain class of algorithms, mainly machine instruction cycles and operating systems. Algorithms being a type of mathematics, a field that is generally accepted as a science. A lot of what computer scientist do though is art, that is the application and acquisition of knowledge in a specific rather than a general sense. However this doesn't mean there is no science at all to be found in computer science.