In graduate school I indulged myself in an interest in the history of science fads. One product of this was an article in a peer-reviewed medical-history journal, Clio Medica: “William Bullein and the ‘lively fashions’ in Tudor Medical Literature” (1974). I titled the article a study of “literature” for two reasons: 1) to justify it to my dissertation advisor and 2) because the more I read early scientific writings the more I saw that science writing is little different from fiction.

What was true of science writing in the 16th century is still true in the 21st—and the science community (if they’re honest) will admit it. Regrettably, many people who call themselves scientists are really artisans and craftsmen. (Allegedly, physicists [who are scientists] have a joke: any discipline with science in its name isn’t really science—such as social science and forensic science.)

I fear that much expert-witness testimony these days is an elaborate, well-articulated fiction. Recent testimony in the Michelle Kehoe “insanity defense” struck me as “fabulous” (meaning, fables) and very bad rhetoric, because it insulted its audience, the jury. (One forensic psychologist suggested Kehoe was delusional because she went to church every Sunday.)

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles in Expert Testimony

Whenever expert witnesses testify in a trial, they always cite their publications in “peer-reviewed journals,” as if such publications were descended from Mount Sinai with Moses. (Following the link will take you to a photo of St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai, purely coincidentally; I was not named after St. Catherine.)

I recently learned why expert witnesses always use the ritual phrase “peer-reviewed.” Ken Alder in The Lie Detectors explains that the first court cases involving questions of the use of lie detectors produced a ruling (The Frye Rule—coming soon to this blog), which was reexamined by the Supreme Court in 1993 (Daubert v. Merrill). That decision (often cited as the ruling against junk science) states that science can only be used in court when it has first been:

• “(1) subjected to a program of scientific testing, (2) published in peer-reviewed journals, (3) assigned a known error rate, and (4) found acceptable by the relevant scientific community (the old Frye rule).” [Kindle locations 4813-23]

The problem is, of course, that the justices who wrote this decision are not scientists: they had no concept of what a “program of scientific testing,” a “known error rate,” or a “relevant scientific community” really are. Presumably they did know what a “peer-reviewed journal” is, because even lawyers publish articles in those journals.

I, too, know what a peer-reviewed journal article is. Unfortunately, I understand only too well that having an article accepted in a peer-reviewed journal is not a certification of its truth or validity. It is nothing more than a stamp of the prevailing political correctness. In the case of my Clio Medica article (above) I have no doubt whatsoever—reasonable or otherwise—that if I had not written it under the direction of a famous science historian and had not dropped his name in the article’s cover letter when I submitted it to the journal for peer review, I would not have been published.