Over a decade ago, I wrote a post about the American Public Health Association (APHA) and its position papers opposing the Daubert regime of gatekeeping the validity of expert witness opinion testimony. I am updating the post, with some modifications,
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IARC & the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence
Given the outsized role that IARC can sometimes take in litigation and regulation, lawyers and judges should pay some attention to, and give some critical thought about, how the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence addresses IARC’s classifications and evaluations of
A Bayesian Toehold in the New Reference Guide to Epidemiology
The most recent edition of the Reference Manual on epidemiology distinguishes more carefully between Bayesian and frequentist approaches to statistical analyses than did its previous iterations. In past editions, the authors conflated confidence and credible intervals, an error that is
How Science Works in the New Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence
The Second and Third Editions of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence contained a chapter, “How Science Works,” by Professor David Goodstein. This chapter ambitiously set out to cover philosophy and sociology of science to help orient judges as strangers
Reference Manual’s Chapter on Expert Witness Testimony Admissibility – Part 5
By ignoring Milward’s expert witnesses’ omissions from, and abridgements of, WOE and IBE, the appellate court blinded itself to these witnesses’ distortions of scientific method. The need for judgment, which the Milward court was keen to honor, does not mean
Reference Manual’s Chapter on Expert Witness Testimony Admissibility – Part 4
In the district court, Judge George O’Toole conducted a pre-trial hearing over four days, and heard testimony from Smith and Cranor, as well as from defense expert witnesses. Judge O’Toole’s published opinion carefully and accurately stated the facts, the applicable
Reference Manual’s Chapter on Expert Witness Testimony Admissibility – Part 3
Richter and Capra treat WOE in Justice Steven’s lone dissenting opinion in Joiner as if it were the law. Of course, it was not; nor was it a particularly insightful analysis into scientific method, Rule 702, or the law of
The Fourth Edition’s Chapter on Admissibility of Expert Witness Testimony – Part 2
The Manual’s new law chapter on the admissibility (vel non) of expert witness testimony was written by two law professors who teach evidence, and who often write articles with each another.[1] Liesa Richter teaches at the University of Oklahoma
The Reference Manual’s Chapter on Expert Witness Testimony Admissibility – Part One
With the retraction of the climate science chapter, The Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence is now one chapter shorter, at least in the Federal Judicial Center’s version. At the time of this writing, for curious souls, the National Academies version
The First Daubert Motion
As every school child knows, or at least every law student in the United States knows, Daubert was a Bendectin case. The plaintiff claimed that his mother’s use of Bendectin, a prescription anti-nausea medication, during pregnancy caused him to be