Genetic Education For Lawyers?

In the July 1, 2008 edition of the New York Times, Claudia Dreifers related a fascinating interview with physician and molecular biologist James P. Evans from the North Carolina School of Medicine. A Conversation with James P. Evans, p. D12. Dr. Evans teaches genetics at North Carolina School of Medicine and also teaches judges who are more and more trying cases dealing with genetics and DNA evidence. Dr. Evans also notes that cancer is the largest single cause of medical negligence suits and that cancer at its most fundamental level is a genetic disease. Ms. Dreifers asks,

Q. Are judges the sort of people who might be afraid of science?

A.This is a huge issue. Yes! a lot of judges report that they did prelaw in college because it did not involve science. One of my favorite judges. A brilliant man is fond of telling people he "flunked science in kindergarten." So in these workshops, I think of myself as a newfangled type of science teacher, instructing extremely smart and distinguished adults in science fundamentals.

Truth be told there are lot of us lawyers who dodged the science bullet in college by going into prelaw, economics, political science, etc.  I took 2 semesters of earth salience and one of astronomy to meet the science requirement. The University of Michigan offered the astronomy course by the famous Doctor Hazel Losh, PhD, about whom was  coined the phrase "A for athlete, B for boy and C for coed." I was pleased to accept the B. Doctor Losh focused most of her lectures on the crowd of jocks gathered in the first couple of rows. ("In other words boys, the blue stars are hot and the red stars are cooler."   

Given the history and experience of many of us, remedial scientific education would be a benefit to most of us.Rather than being totally mystified by DNA and the genetic complexity likely to infuse our cases in the future we could all use  a stronger foundation in the science surrounding it Hopefully the courses that Dr. Evans describes will be made available for lawyers as  well as judges. It is disturbing to consider that judges might actually know more than practicing lawyers on the subject.

Comments

[Lorra]

Hi ,
Thanks for sharing the informative article on the Gent. Education for Lawyers.
Its again interesting subject that the Lawyers are agree with these ...? Are they interested ...?
There is a no. of questions.

I would like to read more on these.
Thanks .

With best wishes ,

Lorra .