Introduction

Abstract

Much has been written on the present and future interactions between science and law, less so of their past. This issue brings together scholarship from history, anthropology, philosophy, and social studies of science in the attempt to add a much-needed historical perspective to the important discourse concerning the relations between science and law. The issue consists of nine papers arranged in chronological order, except for the two synthetic papers that open and close it. The papers vary widely in subject and approach. However, out of this diversity several themes emerge. Scientific expert testimony has been a cause of much concern lately in AngloAmerican courts. It is a commonplace today that "junk science" introduced into the courts by partisan scientific experts presents a dramatic new problem that demands immediate redress. However, in the opening article, I show that discontent with scientific expertise has existed ever since there were scientific expert witnesses in the courts. Tracing the development of scientific expert testimony in eighteenthand nineteenth-century England, I demonstrate that the debate over the meaning of conflicting scientific expert testimonies and the ways to resolve the conflicts had acquired by the mid-nineteenth century all the features that today are blithely assumed to be new. The courts' ability to handle complex science-rich cases has been constantly called into question. Critics have argued that judges cannot make appropriate decisions because they lack technical training, and that jurors do not comprehend the complexity of the evidence they are supposed to analyze. Paternity cases in which men were determined to be fathers, even though blood tests could prove that biological paternity was impossible, have served as a much-cited example of the judicial misuse of science. However, analyzing the role paternity blood tests played in divorce cases throughout the twentieth century, Shari Rudavsky shows that judicial distaste for science in paternity cases does not come from a failure to understand science. The goals of the law, Rudavsky reminds us, are not always consistent with those of science. And when the interest of a child is at stake, the courts often prefer a social definition of paternity to a biological one. The courts, then, are not neutral gatekeepers that simply exclude from the courtroom unreliable scientific testimony, but rather active partners in the production and maintenance of credible scientific evidence. As such, the courts prefer