Bernstein on SKAPP (part 1)
The Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy ("SKAPP") issued a report last week arguing that Daubert has kept too much legitimate science out of the courtroom.
SKAPP receives financial support from the Common Benefit Trust, a fund established pursuant to a court order in the Silicone Gel Breast Impact Products Liability Litigation. David Bernstein is calling this this an "outrage." Why? Because plaintiffs' lawyers, according to Bernstein, "relied on junk science to win billions of dollars in the silicone breast implant litigation," and then turned around and used part of the proceeds "to fund a study advocating, you guessed it, that more junk science be admitted at trials."
In fairness to SKAPP, it would not be a novelty if research funding in this whole area sometimes originated with interested parties. SKAPP, at least, is relatively forthcoming in identifying its major donors. Certainly it seems to compare favorably, in that department, with (say) the Atlantic Legal Foundation ("ALF") -- an organization with whose views Bernstein may be more sympathetic.
However that may be, there is an ad hominem quality to complaints focusing on the economic motivations of participants in the marketplace of ideas -- a focus that may sometimes distract from the underlying debate on the merits (as dysphemisms like "junk science" may also tend to do). And the merits do require evaluation.
Let us suppose, that is, for argument's sake, that the terms of debate on scientific evidentiary standards are indeed being framed by two vast and economically motivated conspiracies -- left wing plaintiffs' lawyers who favor licentious admissibility, on the one hand, and corporate interests who want to raise the evidentiary bar to impossible levels, on the other. What would this tell us about whether the assertions of either side are actually true?
Nothing, of course. We'd have to weigh those assertions against the facts, one by one.
To that end, does Bernstein actually disagree, I wonder, with SKAPP's stated conclusions? Does he differ, for example, with the assessment that Daubert is resulting in the inappropriate exclusion of some legitimate science?
I'll make a bargain. If Bernstein will comment on that issue, I'll try to find some statement from ALF to express agreement with.
SKAPP receives financial support from the Common Benefit Trust, a fund established pursuant to a court order in the Silicone Gel Breast Impact Products Liability Litigation. David Bernstein is calling this this an "outrage." Why? Because plaintiffs' lawyers, according to Bernstein, "relied on junk science to win billions of dollars in the silicone breast implant litigation," and then turned around and used part of the proceeds "to fund a study advocating, you guessed it, that more junk science be admitted at trials."
In fairness to SKAPP, it would not be a novelty if research funding in this whole area sometimes originated with interested parties. SKAPP, at least, is relatively forthcoming in identifying its major donors. Certainly it seems to compare favorably, in that department, with (say) the Atlantic Legal Foundation ("ALF") -- an organization with whose views Bernstein may be more sympathetic.
However that may be, there is an ad hominem quality to complaints focusing on the economic motivations of participants in the marketplace of ideas -- a focus that may sometimes distract from the underlying debate on the merits (as dysphemisms like "junk science" may also tend to do). And the merits do require evaluation.
Let us suppose, that is, for argument's sake, that the terms of debate on scientific evidentiary standards are indeed being framed by two vast and economically motivated conspiracies -- left wing plaintiffs' lawyers who favor licentious admissibility, on the one hand, and corporate interests who want to raise the evidentiary bar to impossible levels, on the other. What would this tell us about whether the assertions of either side are actually true?
Nothing, of course. We'd have to weigh those assertions against the facts, one by one.
To that end, does Bernstein actually disagree, I wonder, with SKAPP's stated conclusions? Does he differ, for example, with the assessment that Daubert is resulting in the inappropriate exclusion of some legitimate science?
I'll make a bargain. If Bernstein will comment on that issue, I'll try to find some statement from ALF to express agreement with.
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