Science in court – experts and advisers as post-academic science communicators:
Intro: >>Scientific communication in court is particularly important for the understanding of the process of post-academic science communication. The purpose of this study, carried out through a qualitative approach, is:
(·) verify whether and how the dynamics of an expert's science communication in court can be traced back to the problem of public science communication
(·) underline specific characteristics of science communication in court.
(·) propose a sample of a 'general table on science communication', in order to be able to analyse every possible communication between the different parties of a legal proceeding.
Twelve narrative interviews have been collected, divided in two groups: experts and non-experts (such as lawyers, judges, journalists and others).
The analysis of the interviews has revealed an analogy between the public communication of science in court and the proposal of the 'Venice model', based on the assumption that in the post-academic era the public communication of science follows more than one direction to reach different audiences in different ways, not necessarily bound to the scientific community. Experts communicate science in different ways and with different interlocutors. But they are not the only ones speaking of science in court: judges, lawyers, speak of science among themselves with different expectations and results, not depending on the expert's mediation. This analogy allowed the creation of a general table that can identify every possible 'bridge' of scientific communication in court.
The narrations have allowed the identification of some peculiarities of scientific communication in the legal context. First of all, the conflict of experts' and jurists' expectations in the legal proceeding. While the expert's priority is the correct understanding and use of the scientific truth, the other legal parties have another starting point: the acceptance of a scientific truth, or its refusal, in order to reconstruct that truth that in the legal context is the highest, that is the legal truth.<<
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posted by johannes,
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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