Data is very important to the credibility and usefulness of much expert testimony. Most litigation involves individuals, however, and the application of data to individuals is very different from its application to groups. The litigation process, including expert participation in it, often serves to individualize rote or generic laws and concepts. I'd hate to be judged solely on statistical or actuarial grounds (believing as I do that much of what I am and do shouldn't be viewed in some rigid, unthinking way). The U.S. judicial system values its "adversarial" nature, in part because the adversarial process tends to remove pedantic and arbitrary decisions from both civil and criminal matters (cf., the decisions once made solely by kings and local lords), _and_ in part because of the general principle that, in a fair fight, right triumphs over wrong (or truth over untruth, good over evil, etc.). One basic purpose of the courts and judicial procedures is to make the fight indeed fair. Thus criminal defendants have procedural advantages over the State; civil litigants must adhere to rules about discovery; attorneys are allowed to represent indigent plaintiffs on contingency, etc. There are standards for forensic practice, some of which are professional and some created by legislation and case law. When a forensic professional testifies or otherwise offers opinions outside those standards, he or she is vulnerable (and so is the case itself) to modification or disqualification. It doesn't always happen that way, of course, but the procedures are there. Things keep evolving, hopefully usually in a positive direction.
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