Article ID: CBB434670765

An infrastructural account of scientific objectivity for legal contexts and bloodstain pattern analysis (2021)

unapi

In the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimony – the testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understood first as related to the quality of the underlying science and then in terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to meet the minimal standard set by Helen Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino’s account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by individuals, not communities, at least in U.S. courts, we (may) need a way to evaluate individual scientific and epistemic agents. We suggest a means for making this evaluation that is derived from our infrastructural account of objectivity.

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Authors & Contributors
Ruberg, Willemijn
Dirven, Pauline
Lara Bergers
Serrano Martínez, Sara
Adam, Alison E.
Bachhiesl, Christian
Journals
Science, Technology, and Human Values
Social Studies of Science
History of Psychology
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society
Publishers
Manchester University Press
Palgrave Macmillan
Routledge
Concepts
Forensic sciences
Science and law
Expertise
Criminology
Science and technology studies (STS)
Expert testimony
People
Lipmann, Otto
Marbe, Karl
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
20th century, late
Modern
Places
Italy
Central Europe
India
China
Europe
Germany
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