Science and the US courts
Can merging the STEM and humanities traditions in undergraduate education help create more scientifically-literate lawyers?
We talk about helping the general public understand science. What about other laypeople we don’t consider to be your everyday person, but also need to understand science, like judges, juries, and lawyers?
These are people who read Plato but wouldn’t be able to explain the Greek letters in your engineering equations…or that like arguing, but wouldn’t be able to critically evaluate scientific evidence with the same ease they’d find in crafting a bulletproof case.
When I was a college student, I was a member of the MIT Parliamentary Debate team. I used to travel to different liberal arts colleges every weekend to argue with some of the brightest minds on the east coast (and, sometimes, Stanford)! Even though I was a nerdy MIT grad, MIT’s Parliamentary Debate team had a bit of a reputation for being able to compete with Ivy League teams such as Harvard and Yale. After I left MIT, I also helped revive the Parli debate program at my grad school alma mater, Georgetown. Parli is so fun! It’s a team debate, and it’s modeled after the way speeches are structured in the UK Parliament. If you like C-SPAN, college students, you will love parliamentary debate - so check it out!
The American Parliamentary Debate Association or APDA is one of those debate circuits where you can find future Supreme Court clerks, or maybe even a future Supreme Court justice (though none yet that I know). I definitely know at least a couple of people from APDA who are very important lawyers now. One of the most notable Supreme Court stans, Ted Cruz, is an alum of APDA, where he debated as a Princeton undergrad.
It always seemed really bizarre to be debating the greatest undergrad legal minds, but now that I am in science communications, I am starting to understand why. Ivy League students are trained in a humanities tradition, while MIT students are steeped in STEM. One isn’t better than the other, and in fact, I would suggest that both should be part of undergraduate education.
Why am I telling you this story? I recently attended a workshop about science in the courts, where I was shocked to learn that scientific evidence is admitted based on precedent, largely, rather than scientific validity. In fact, discussions of validity don’t get evidence kicked out; instead, the jury is just tasked with assigning weight to it — in other words, scientific evidence that is not valid is viewed as less persuasive.
Part of the challenge of using science in the courts is that scientists don’t have a good way to gauge validity and establish clear scientific truths. Another challenge arises due to partisanship - in an adversarial system such as a court case, where one side is pitted against another, each side can cherry-pick experts that can cater to their needs and help them win the case.
If you’re interested in reading more about science in the courts, make sure to subscribe to the Fancy Comma blog. As of writing, I’ve published a blog about the Daubert test, used to establish scientific evidence as valid, and there are more blogs to come.
What we’ve been talking about lately at Fancy Comma
We’ve been blogging about the neuroscience of journalism, science and the courts, our dual mission in SciComm, and ways to use social listening for SciComm.
I have also done a few interviews with experts on our YouTube:
Gina Errico talked about working at the LA Times as a journalist and AAAS Fellow. She also explained how Fancy Comma’s blogs helped her in SciComm!
Stephanie Castillo, who has a PhD in SciComm, told us about what she’s learned about engaging wide audiences via multimedia storytelling.
I was lucky to chat with two of my own SciComm role models, Dr. Jess Steier of Unbiased Science and Dr. Bruce Kirchoff!
If you’re interested in serving your nation as a SciCommer, check out this interview with Amy Weldon of Lawrence Livermore National Labs. It was a fun conversation!
I also previewed the SciComm curriculum I’m working on. Subscribe to the Fancy Comma blog so you don’t miss it!
Lastly, I’m grateful to CivicSciTV for asking me my thoughts on the White House President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) 2023 letter calling for more SciComm. Check out my comments below:
Thanks for reading in 2023. Wishing you the best for 2024! We are grateful to you for your support of Fancy Comma, and for following us on our journey to help scientists better access FREE SciComm resources. :-)