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July 2005, Vol 95, No. S1 | American Journal of Public Health S13-S15
© 2005 American Public Health Association
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.061838


USING SCIENCE TO MEET PUBLIC HEALTH GOALS

Epistemology in the Courtroom: A Little "Knowledge" Is a Dangerous Thing

David Ozonoff, MD, MPH

The author is with the Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Mass.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to David Ozonoff, MD, MPH, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02118 (e-mail: dozonoff{at}bu.edu).

Core epistemological questions—questions about what we know, how we know it, and when we are justified in saying we know it—have a long and deep history. The US Supreme Court broached the subject in the 1993 decision Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc, with references to Hempel, Popper, and other scholars.

We comment here on the articles of Rothman and Greenland, who are scientists, and Haack, who is a philosopher. Their views suggest that questions of causation are neither as simple nor as difficult as many scientists and philosophers have made them.




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