Just Truth? A Partial Archaeology of the Admissibility Revolution Associated with Daubert

Abstract

In recent years expert knowledge has become increasingly conspicuous and increasingly controversial in public life, especially in policy, regulatory and legal settings. Confronted with protracted and seemingly intractable expert disagreement, the proliferation of experts and debates over the relevance and reliability of particular types of expertise, modern public institutions have been actively developing techniques for managing the range of expert perspectives and the problems associated with disagreement, uncertainty and the allocation of risk. These institutional methods for managing expertise possess a range of, not always obvious, implications. Because models of expertise and the mechanisms for managing them cannot be, in any meaningful sense, neutral, the various politics, interests in, and contests around them have become important and frequently controversial sites. This article explores concerns over the performance of the US civil justice system and the emergence of a new admissibility jurisprudence based on the perceived need for more accurate fact-finding.