The Judiciary, Science, and (maybe) Faith

Not long before leaving Boston, I had an interesting conversation with an old friend regarding faith.  My take on faith has always been that faith merely implies belief in the absence of evidence.  My friend, a longtime student of Christianity, suggested that this is not necessarily the case.  He argued (and I hope I can express this without too much distortion) that faith is a system under which one can understand the world, and that observations and data about one’s surroundings are inputs to this system.  Even as the faithful learn more about the world, they incorporate that learning into their understanding of the nature of God and their role on Earth, part of an overall Truth (with a capital “T”) that is constant in the Universe.  Most notably, my friend pointed out that, although you can never hope to arrive at that perfect Truth, you can continuously improve your understanding of the world and so grow closer to it. It’s like an asymptotic line that gets closer and closer to an exact value, but never quite reaches that value in any finite time.

The reason I found this so remarkable at the time was that this conversation, which included other topics that I won’t go into here, seemed to show some uncanny similarities between religion and science.  This is not to say that science is a religion, or vice versa.  (I maintain that to argue that science is a religion denigrates science and religion.) Nonetheless, there are some fascinating similarities, among them the process by which we attempt to converge on truth.  Scientists bring together disparate observations and experimental outcomes by developing models that attempt to explain the reality of some physical phenomenon.  As scientists get new information, or determine that parts of the model are not consistent with experimental outcomes, they improve the model.  The model will never be an exact representation of reality, but it can get very close.  (As an example, the traditional “saturnian” model of the atom, with a positive nucleus at the center and electrons whizzing about in orbits around it, no longer fits our understanding of reality, but still stands as a better approximation of reality than its predecessors.)

I bring this up because of an interesting commonality between science and jurisprudence.

As part of our continuing Orientation, we were treated to a talk by a federal court judge on the topic of Science and the Judiciary.  (Other topics throughout the day included “The Science of Policy vs. The Policy of Science”, “A Case Study of NASA Policy”, and an overview of the workforce of the Executive Branch, topics that I won’t get into here…)  As legal trials involve more and more science – for example, through forensic evidence, intellectual property disputes, and questions of regulatory appropriateness – it seems obvious that judges will require more input from experts in the sciences.  It may surprise some, as it did me, that judges are constrained from doing any of their own research into scientific matters during a trial.  I don’t mean to suggest that it would be useful or appropriate for a judge to conduct an experiment to test an idea, but it did surprise me that they can’t even look up a scientific article.  Still, the point was made that it should be the job of the lawyers on either side to bring forth proper evidence and expert testimony, and I can see how a judge could unintentionally bias their weighing of the evidence by independently investigating a concept.

The part that most struck me, though, and that reminded me of the conversation about faith, was a remark our speaker made about the process of coming to a legal decision.  She noted that she had no choice but to use the information made available to her as part of the trial, along with the procedural rules set forth in the American legal system.  The judge must make a decision that he or she believes reflects the truth of the event using only this information.  Because of the inherent limitations of having access to limited information, however, the decision can only approach the truth.  The decision “is not the Truth [capital “T”], it is not immutable, and it is not perfect”.  The goal of the jurist, then, is to approach that Truth, taking into account as many relevant factors as possible, even though the reality may be far more complex.

I think it’s interesting that, once again, we see a prototype of human thought being repeated in a different form.  In science, we use evidence (observations from the natural world), along with a ruleset (the scientific method or exploratory analysis), to make decisions (on hypotheses) that attempt to hone in on a more precise, though still imperfect, view of reality.  In court, judges use evidence (from the legal combatants), along with a ruleset (the American system of civil or criminal law), to make decisions (on cases) that attempt to establish a precise degree of guilt or responsibility (or lack thereof).   And, though this may not be quite right, it seems like this could also extend to the case of the faithful, who might use evidence (qualitative observations of people and relationships), along with a ruleset (core principles of belief), to make decisions (on conflicting ideas) that attempt to get slightly closer to the Truth about transcendental questions regarding humanity and existence, like those about purpose and destiny.

That may be taking things a bit too far.  Scientists do have a tendency to look for patterns, and it is tempting to find them more easily than perhaps they wish to be found.  Still, I find it an intriguing possibility that, as we seek knowledge in disparate and independent domains, there may be still deeper truths (lower-case “t”) about the process of discovery that emerge and, in turn, teach us better ways to know.

p.s. My apologies if I misrepresented anything here... Comments and corrections welcome, as are remarks that all of this was, no doubt, spelled out or rejected centuries ago.  A little bit of knowledge, etc., etc.