Trial and Error: The Supreme Court’s Philosophy of Science

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Apparently equating the question of whether expert testimony is reliable with the question of whether it is genuinely scientific, in Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc (1993) the US Supreme Court ran together Karl Popper’s and Carl Hempel’s incompatible philosophies of science. But there can be no criterion discriminating scientific, and hence reliable, testimony from the unscientific and unreliable; for not all, and not only, scientific evidence is reliable. In subsequent rulings (General Electric Co v Joiner, 1997; Kumho Tire Co v Carmichael, 1999) the Court has backed quietly away from Daubert’s confused philosophy of science, but not from federal judges’ responsibilities for screening expert testimony. Efforts to educate judges scientifically, and increased use of court-appointed experts are, at best, only partial solutions to the problems with scientific testimony.