ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on assessing the reliability of scientific testimony, which is a core issue in toxic tort suits, as well as many other kinds of litigation that rely on scientific evidence. Science and the law handle technical evidence in fundamentally different ways. The fabled reliability of science arises in the long term, as scientists question scientific theories, confirm and extend novel experimental results, and incorporate new findings into the body of accepted scientific knowledge. Courts have often dealt with the problems presented by expert testimony the same way they have dealt with much other problematic testimony—by letting the jury evaluate the testimony, no matter how flawed it might be. In the toxic tort arena, some judges and legal scholars argued that Daubert required courts to limit themselves to determining whether a scientific expert witness was relying on studies that used a methodology appropriate for inquiry into the general subject at issue.
