Change one word — write 'trials' in place of 'laws' — and this appealingly readable book would just as appropriately be titled Trials of Men and Trials of Nature. For trials are the stuff of Tal Golan's engaging narrative as he briskly guides his readers through some of the formative moments in a century or so of scientific expert testimony in English and American common law. Men's wits and character are on trial throughout these cases, as experts from varied fields vie to position themselves, their skills and their specialist knowledge at the service of the courts. Nature, too, is often on trial, for the outcomes in the cases that Golan skilfully dissects usually turn on who is right about the way the world works, whether in explaining the silting up of a harbour on the North Sea coast of Norfolk, distinguishing human from animal blood, displaying an X-ray picture of a badly set bone, or diagnosing, through bodily measurements, the likely truthfulness of a witness's testimony in a murder trial.
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