Courts Need to Remove Climate Activist Thumb From the Scales of Justice

The Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence is supposed to help federal judges understand scientific evidence and methodologies. Judges increasingly confront complex scientific questions and need reliable tools to evaluate expert testimony. The reference manual is one such tool—or at least most of it is.

At the request of 27 states’ attorneys general, the Federal Judicial Center recently removed the manual’s chapter on climate science because it did more to influence judicial outcomes than to help federal judges evaluate scientific evidence. And the reference guide’s chapter called “How Science Works” is guilty of a similar offense.

Judicial reference manuals should teach judges how to evaluate scientific evidence—not tell them which scientific conclusions to draw. Unfortunately, “How Science Works” does a lot more telling than teaching, putting a green-agenda thumb on the scales of justice. So, as The Buckeye Institute and other concerned public policy organizations expressed in a letter to the Federal Judicial Center, the dubious chapter has to go.