"This article examines some of the interactions between law, science, and society taking place during a trial (in Victorian England). By focusing on a restricted set of scientific and nonscientific actors (the law-set, a derivation of the core-set) engaged in negotiating the meaning, relevance, and reliability of scientific (here medical) evidence, the article illustrates how the categories—law, science, and society—are inextricably interrelated in the legal negotiations and outcome. The introduction of scientific evidence into adversarial legal settings produces strategies, opinions, and claims that are not shaped solely by scientists, lawyers, or legal processes. The situated law-science negotiations provide a site where social order and scientific knowledges are mutually constituted. The outcome of specific law-science interactions will be open to a range of readings and constraints that are not reducible to some putatively correct scientific understanding nor adequately described as the distortion of scientific evidence by the legal system."
Gary Edmond, "2001. Edmond. "The Law-Set: The Legal-Scientific Production of Medical Propriety"", contributed by Maggie Woodruff, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 29 May 2018, accessed 24 November 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/2001-edmond-law-set-legal-scientific-production-medical-propriety
Critical Commentary
This 2001 article by Gary Edmond analyzes the relationship between law, science, and society in a trial in Victorian England.