The perils of relying on interested parties to evaluate scientific quality.

@article{citeulike:1028902, abstract = {Recently, there has been a trend in both civil litigation and regulatory law to circumvent the scientific community's collective judgment on the quality of individual studies with an adversarial process of evaluating scientific quality using interest groups. The Supreme Court's Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc opinion and two recent "good science" laws passed by Congress adopt an adversarial process informed by affected parties for reviewing and screening scientific quality. These developments are unwise. Both theory and experience instruct that an adversarial, interest group-dominated approach to evaluating scientific quality will lead to the unproductive deconstruction of science, further blur the distinction between policy and scientific judgments, and result in poor decisions because the courts and agencies that preside over these "good science" contests sometimes lack the scientific competency needed to make sound decisions.}, address = {University of Texas School of Law, 727 East Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78705-3299, USA. wwagner@mail.law.utexas.edu}, author = {Wagner, W. }, citeulike-article-id = {1028902}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.044792}, issn = {0090-0036}, journal = {Am J Public Health}, keywords = {health, policy, public, quality, risk, science}, posted-at = {2008-02-26 11:50:49}, priority = {5}, title = {The perils of relying on interested parties to evaluate scientific quality.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.044792}, volume = {95 Suppl 1}, year = {2005} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1028902 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1028902 TI - The perils of relying on interested parties to evaluate scientific quality. JF - Am J Public Health VL - 95 Suppl 1 AD - University of Texas School of Law, 727 East Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78705-3299, USA. wwagner@mail.law.utexas.edu SN - 0090-0036 N2 - Recently, there has been a trend in both civil litigation and regulatory law to circumvent the scientific community's collective judgment on the quality of individual studies with an adversarial process of evaluating scientific quality using interest groups. The Supreme Court's Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc opinion and two recent "good science" laws passed by Congress adopt an adversarial process informed by affected parties for reviewing and screening scientific quality. These developments are unwise. Both theory and experience instruct that an adversarial, interest group-dominated approach to evaluating scientific quality will lead to the unproductive deconstruction of science, further blur the distinction between policy and scientific judgments, and result in poor decisions because the courts and agencies that preside over these "good science" contests sometimes lack the scientific competency needed to make sound decisions. KW - health KW - policy KW - public KW - quality KW - risk KW - science AU - Wagner, W PY - 2005/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.044792 ER -