Abstract
In many tort (personal injury) law cases, litigants need scientific evidence as part of the factual foundation for their legal claims. Usually, science enters the courtroom via expert testimony. However, judges have struggled to grasp the scientific relevance of different studies, how they could "fit together" to support an explanation of causation between exposure and effect, and how scientific experts reason about adverse effects in people. This essay reviews issues with which judges struggled, discusses inferences to the best explanation (IBE) (and some values implicit in these issues), and finally considers a recent case that better recognizes myriad kinds of scientific data and the role that IBE can play in supporting expert testimony. This decision is an advance over earlier approaches to reviewing expert testimony.
