Another approach, perhaps less costly than convening a long series of ad hoc panels to address the specifies of each case, would be to develop standing panels to assess generic issues that come up in cases again and again. But the verdict on these innovations is still out. The idea is to give lawyers incentives to hire experts whose views, though favorable to their case, were not so eccentric as to risk embarrassment in peer review. Peter Huber, commenting on Elliott's paper, observed that the cultures of science and law are hard to mix. In science the painstaking and thorough gathering and interpretation of evidence is the end in itself.
Scientists work on the honor system, and are aghast to discover knowing deception.
Good trial lawyers expect the worst from their opponents, and are seldom disappointed. Of the three approaches that Elliott outlines, Huber said, the first, selective exclusion of evidence, works well if the judge understands something of the science at the outset. Elliott's proposal, Huber said, would seem to combine the first two. It invokes outside expertise, not to establish a positive account of what happened, but to impeach dubious assertions by other experts. Its most significant element, Huber said, is its call for studies to be filed in formal writing well ahead of time.