'Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom'
by Peter W. Huber
Basic Books, $23
The plaintiff had a minor accident: falling from a streetcar. She sued the city not for her bruises but for breast cancer. A distinguished "expert" testified that the accident was the "direct cause" of the cancer. The jury awarded $50,000. Elsewhere, an "expert" helped a psychic who claimed she lost her powers after undergoing a CAT scan won a million dollars from a jury.
Peter W. Huber, a conservative scholar, cites these and dozens of other examples in his new book "Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom" (Basic Books, $23).
In the book, Huber argues that "junk science" has invaded the courtrooms of America, misleading gullible juries into awarding absurdly high verdicts and forcing safe and important products and drugs off the market. Vice President Quayle's Competitiveness Council has joined in the attack on "junk science," and President Bush has even signed an executive order requiring government lawyers to present only "reliable expert testimony." (One wonders what sort of expert testimony the Justice Department was using before it had the president's guidance on the issue).
Huber argues, paraphrasing Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, that the best test of certainty we have is "good science." Unless accepted by the scientific mainstream, he argues, all such "junk science" should be excluded completely. What Justice Holmes actually said was that "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." There is remarkably little explanation in Huber's book why such patently goofy "junk science" is not easily and immediately squashed by an overpowering display of "good science."
And some of Huber's examples prove the opposite point: Some radiation once thought benign is now universally recognized as devastating. Theories that at first blush seem outlandish or unusual are not infrequently later accepted as scientific dogma. And no, a jury's verdict is not the final word on scientific truth, and yes, a jury can make a mistake.
But Huber mistakes the role of a scientist and a jury: a scientist's task is to discern the truth; a jury's task is to sift disputed evidence and allocate blame on a "more probable than not" standard.
Huber, though, admits to none of this complexity. Like Chairman Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table, Huber seems oblivious to the subtler gradations of rhetoric. But if you can ignore all the arm waving, the book is hilarious. Huber is a superb and genuinely funny writer who turns this somewhat arcane topic into interesting and compelling reading.
