Miscellaneous

Science v. Law: Looking for a Few Solid Truths

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Truths are hard to come by, so we'll offer a few:

• The thing a toddler wants to share, you probably don't want


• Greg Kinnear has never been in a bad movie


• Goetta is tastier than you'd expect

Unfortunately, you'll have to take our word. These truths won't be tested in court any time soon.

But the quest for truth does lead parties to test scientific theories in court. Recently, the Vaccine Court ruled that a family who claimed vaccines caused their daughter's autism is due compensation from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

While study after study has shown that autism is not caused by vaccinations, this case found that a child's already-present autism worsened as a side-effect.

Vaccine Court is a federal MDL, specially formulated to inoculate other courts from claims that parties were harmed by vaccinations. Special masters handle the claims, of which there are many. As with asbestos, makers of vaccines were afraid that they will be bogged down with cases. The government doesn't always win these cases. Legal rights are not signed away; vaccine court is merely a first step.

People can stop using asbestos. But with vaccines, public health concerns are paramount (what if everybody stopped getting vaccinated? Hello, smallpox outbreak!).

What if the court's finding is at odds with the medical community? Courts don't take scientific evidence as proof, necessarily. Sure, there's talk about causation, but the meaning differs in law, physics, and philosophy. (Yet another reason to worry about the increased use of "plain language" over "legalese.")

Experts can battle it out in court (or elsewhere), but in the end it comes down to credibility, unique facts, and individual merit.

What kind of country would we be living in if a brain scan determined guilt or innocence? What if all ENTJs were enjoined from blogging?

Likewise, DNA evidence is not conclusive in and of itself. How could it be? Even in a non-Fuhrman world, a world without twins or clones, a world in which the chain of custody is as flawless as a string of pearls, DNA can't tell us the difference between murder one and manslaughter, between premeditation and accident.

So we need juries, judges, and oh my even lawyers, and OK even expert witnesses.

Meanwhile, science doesn't take a legal victory as proof of anything. Why should it? Legal norms are not peer-reviewed, they're not conducted in closed worlds, there is no scientific method at work.

While we hope for connections, truth in law sometimes differs from truth in science, just as truth in math or truth in literature might. "The truth is out there," and there's lots of it!

See (and hear) Case Stokes Debate About Autism, Vaccines, Julie Rovner, Morning Edition (March 7, 2008). A rundown of the Vaccine Court process can be found in See You in (Vaccine) Court, David Kirby, Huffington Post (June 7, 2007).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on March 18, 2008 (boomark / email).