NCJ Number
138719
Journal
Jurimetrics Volume: 32 Issue: 3 Dated: (Spring 1992) Pages: 345-359
Date Published
1992
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This article shows how perspectives from the sociology of science can be integrated into legal analysis.
Abstract
The author first introduces a number of concepts from recent work in the sociology of science that help to account for recurrent courtroom conflicts over the quality or acceptability of scientific evidence. These concepts are social construction, which involves the creation and interpretation of scientific findings by human agents; contingency, which pertains to the variability of scientific findings according to variable conditions; inscription, which are symbols used to communicate scientific data; deconstruction, which pertains to the identification of variables involved in the construction of scientific opinion; experimenters' regress, which involves the critique of research methodology and instrumentation; and boundary work, which is the tendency of scientific communities to exclude all opinions not spawned within their community of expertise. The second part of this article applies the aforementioned concepts to specific legal controversies that involve science, such as those over the reliability of DNA fingerprinting. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for legal reform, with reference to the Frye rule and the recent recommendations of the President's Council on Competitiveness. 27 footnotes