July 03, 2007

This particular muckraking report, in the news-side W$J (WSJ blog version), goes after a university-based expert who, while consulting with defendants, has published studies tending to exonerate companies sued over workplace hearing loss among firefighters, miners, railroad workers, etc. And of course mirror-image sorts of conflicts on the plaintiff's side are accepted as standard practice as well. Too bad the WSJ didn't delve into the question of what sorts of reforms -- such as wider court selection of experts -- might hold out hope of overcoming the temptations toward scientific expert partisanship.