Scientific and Expert Evidence

Using representative cases, comprehensible scientific readings, and the authors' insightful introductions and explanatory notes, Scientific and Expert Evidence, Second Edition, provides a comprehensive treatment of the law and science relating to scientific and expert evidence. The Second Edition adds new material on statistics and economics and explores some of the issues surrounding the evolving science of DNA as it relates to evidence. This casebook helps students develop a solid grounding in the methods and procedures of science and technology by: Presenting complex issues in a clear and concise way, proceeding from scientific background to cases to illustrative comments and questions. Comprehensive coverage that ranges from forensics to medical causation to statistics to economic expert evidence. Providing a balanced mixture of cases, journal articles, and excerpts from the Scientific Evidence Manual. Explaining the technical material in the statistics and the DNA chapters with accessible language that avoids superficial treatment of the issues. Teaching students to become sophisticated consumers of expert evidence, capable of skeptical analysis of opposition claims and critical thought about theoretical problems of expert testimony. Clarifying the different goals and methods of law and science to allow students to discern when and how these differences can be harmonized. New to the Second Edition: Lengthier explanations of basic statistical concepts, with more examples and illustrations, in both the text and the teacher's manual. Additional economics cases. Treatment in the text of evolving DNA science, including expanded coverage of mitochondrial DNA analysis, toxicogenomics, and the vanishing notion of junk DNA. An expanded textual treatment of the sometimes-conflicting legal and scientific ideas of causation and proof.…