Includes bibliographical references (pages 349-379) and index.
Contents:
Nothing fancy : some simple truths about truth in the law. Epistemology legalized : or, truth, justice, and the American way -- Legal probabilism : an epistemological dissent -- Irreconcilable differences? : the troubled marriage of science and law -- Trial and error : two confusions in Daubert -- Federal philosophy of science : a deconstruction : and a reconstruction -- Peer review and publication : lessons for lawyers -- What's wrong with litigation-driven science? -- Proving causation : the weight of combined evidence -- Correlation and causation : the 'Bradford Hill Criteria' in epidemiological, legal, and epistemological perspective -- Risky business: statistical proof of specific causation -- Nothing fancy : some simple truths about truth in the law.
Summary:
"Is truth in the law just plain truth - or something sui generis? Is a trial a search for truth? Do adversarial procedures and exclusionary rules of evidence enable, or impede, the accurate determination of factual issues? Can degrees of proof be identified with mathematical probabilities? What role can statistical evidence properly play? How can courts best handle the scientific testimony on which cases sometimes turn? How are they to distinguish reliable scientific testimony from unreliable hokum? The dozen interdisciplinary essays collected here explore a whole nexus of such questions about science, proof, and truth in the law. With her characteristic clarity and verve, in these essays Haack brings her original and distinctive work in theory of knowledge and philosophy of science to bear on real-life legal issues. She includes detailed analyses of a wide variety of cases and lucid summaries of relevant scientific work, of the many roles of the scientific peer-review system, and of relevant legal developments"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.