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4 - Irreconcilable Differences? The Troubled Marriage of Science and Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

Susan Haack
Susan Haack
Affiliation:
University of Miami
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Summary

In many respects [the scientific expert] seems to be a positive annoyance to lawyers, and even to judges at times, a sort of intractable, incompatible, inharmonious factor, disturbing the otherwise smooth current of legal procedure; too important or necessary to be ruled out, too intelligent and disciplined mentally to yield without reason to ordinary rules and regulations of the court, and at the same time possessing an undoubted influence with the jury that it is difficult to restrict by the established rules and maxims of legal procedure.

–Charles F. Himes

It is often said, with good cause, that … the goal of a trial and the goal of science are … at odds…. As a general rule, courts don’t do science very well.

–Edward Humes

GETTING STARTED

There wasn’t much to be said for the miserable weeks after hurricanes Katrina and Wilma–except, perhaps, that all those hours spent sweating in the dark prompted some vivid thoughts about what life must have been like before electric light and power was available at the flick of a switch, and renewed my appreciation of the countless ways in which science now so thoroughly permeates modern life–including the legal system.

Type
Chapter
Information
Evidence Matters
Science, Proof, and Truth in the Law
 , pp. 78 - 103
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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References

Louisell, David W. and Mueller, Christopher B., Federal Evidence (Rochester, NY: Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Co., 1979), vol. 3, 629–30, 633, 649–56, 687–88 (1979))Google Scholar
Heinzerling, Lisa, “Doubting Daubert,” Journal of Law and Policy 14 (2006): 65–83, 68Google Scholar
Haack, , Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and Iits Place in Culture (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael, Science, Faith and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946), 40Google Scholar
Feyerabend, Paul K., Against Method: Outlines of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (London: New Left Press, 1975), 10Google Scholar
National Research Council, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: The Path Forward (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009)Google Scholar

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