Book Reviews : Evidence and Inference. Edited by DANIEL LERNER. (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959. Pp. 164. $4.00.)
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296001300333 |
| Author | Louis Wasserman |
| Date | 01 September 1960 |
| Published date | 01 September 1960 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
821
that
trial
courts
consume
most
of
their
time
trying
criminal
cases.
And,
although
this
is
the
study
of
only
one
court,
it
shows
that
most
legal
disputes
are
settled
with
finality
at
the
trial
level.
On
the
basis
of
providing
such
basic
information
as
the
above,
this
is
an
excellent
book
for
a
person
unfamiliar
with
the
business
of
the
law.
Likewise
it
has
value
as
a
beginning
point
and
guide
for
further
data
collections
on
the
activities
of
trial
courts.
But,
in
itself,
the
book
is
disappointing.
One
finishes
it
with
a
sense
of
emptiness.
Generalization
and
speculation
are
notably
absent,
and
meaning
and
signifiance
seem
lost
in
the
myriad
of
detail.
Although
the
author
modestly
admits
the
descriptive
character
of
his
work,
one
keeps
hoping
that
he
will
get
&dquo;out
of
character.&dquo;
This
reviewer
feels
that
this
type
of
book
is
representative
of
much
modern
research
reporting.
It
reflects
the
zeal
of
some
of
our
social
and
legal
scientists
to
be
&dquo;scientists&dquo;
and
thus
to
deny
the
validity
of
generalization
or
the
value
of
speculation
unless
founded
upon
test-tube
experimentation
(usually
called
&dquo;model-building&dquo;)
or
universal
head-counting
(usually
called
&dquo;quantitative
re-
search&dquo;).
One
wonders
if
scientific
research
leads
only
to
endless
descriptions
of
the
pebbles
on
the
beach,
free
from
the
beauty
of
wonderment
as
to
their
origin
and
devoid
of
the
joy
of
searching
for
their
ultimate
destination.
Must
scholarly
writing
be
equated
with
literary
sterility?
RICHARD
K.
BURKE
University
of
Arizona
Evidence
and
Inference.
Edited
by
DANIEL
LERNER.
(Glencoe,
Ill.:
The
Free
Press,
1959.
Pp.
164.
$4.00.)
We
continue
to
trace
our
intellectual
lineage
to
ancient
Greece,
but
in
fact,
as
these
chapters
show,
the
western
world
is
engaged
in
creating
a
radically
new
environment
for
the
acquisition
of
knowledge
-
not
only
in
the
fields
of
the
physical
universe
but
in
every
aspect
of
human
behavior
as
well.
The
dialectical
method
of
ancient
philosophy,
which
applied
the
rules
of
formal
logic
to
the
ways
of
knowing
and
the
material
known,
is
now
relegated
to
something
like
&dquo;common
sense&dquo;
status.
It
has
been
replaced,
as
Lerner
says
in
his
Introduction,
by
an
&dquo;image
of
a
probabilistic
universe,
in
which
verifiable
knowledge
tends
to
be
experimental,
quantitative,
and
subject
to
a
factor of
’human
error’
that
must
enter
into
the
calculus.&dquo;
The
subject
matter
of
investigation
remains
much
the
same
as
in
ancient
times
(except
for
such
a
modern
field
as
nuclear
physics)
but
the
new
methods
and
concepts
developed
in
the
age
of
science
have
pro-
foundly
altered
the
storehouse
of
knowledge
and
the
human
behavior
affected
thereby.
&dquo;If
there
are
no
more
eternal
mysteries
in
the
universe,
neither
are
there
any
more
eternal
verities.&dquo;
But
if
a
scientific
methodology
which
is
quantitative
and
experimental
has
come
to
pervade
all
fields,
are
its
procedures
alike
for
all -
for
the
social,
as
well
as
the
physical,
sciences;
for
psychoanalysis,
law,
history,
and
medicine?
The
present
series
of
papers,
which
originated
in
the
Hayden
Colloquium
on
&dquo;Evi-
dence
and
Inference,&dquo;
conducted
at
M.I.T.
in
1958,
is
designed
to
illustrate
the
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