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Conjectures And Exhumations: Citations Of History, Philosophy And Sociology Of Science In Us Federal Courts, Gary Edmond, David Mercer
Conjectures And Exhumations: Citations Of History, Philosophy And Sociology Of Science In Us Federal Courts, Gary Edmond, David Mercer
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
This article examines the circumstances in which a version of Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science became US law. Among historians, philosophers and sociologists of science, as well as legal commentators, the US Supreme Court's Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, .Inc. (1993) decision has received considerable attention. The case is significant because America's most senior court produced a definition of science (for legal purposes). This definition was authorized by the symbolic exhumation, celebration and appropriation of key elements of the philosophy of science developed decades earlier by Popper. Significantly, it was not just Popper's philosophy that was exhumed and resurrected …