PJ

jparm@warren.med.harvard.edu
Tue, 25 Mar 1997 17:28:34 -0500

In some of the recent posts it has been stated that lawyers
want "truth" that is ~100% certain. This is surely only
true in criminal law. In civil law >50% is the standard, i
believe. This came out in the OJ trials. It was also
pointed out to me recently by a colleague who studies
occupational lung disease and deals with issues of workers
comp - as he said we scientists are used to expecting p
values <0.05, but in civil court a p value of <0.5 suffices!
We are also ignoring the adversarial nature of the american
court - "truth" can seem to be reduced to little more than
the stongest argument by the best team.

So, what kind of lawyer was/is PJ? I have never heard or
met him. Is his style adversarial.

Lastly, could someone give me a succinct definition of
(Methodologic) Naturalism. How does it relate to Scientific
Materialism?

Jonathan Arm