{Science and Law}[26th August 1990]

[Redbook7:244][19900826:1208]{Science and Law}[26th August 1990]

19900826.1208

A lecturer at the British Associations’ Swansea A[nnual] G[eneral] M[eeting] told his audience that forests were “dominated by usually tall woody vegetation”.*

Whether you find this funny** depends upon which side of the fence you happen to be sitting on at the time. I, as a confirmed fence-sitter, can see that. But what it does do is to help confirm the C[ircles] A[nalysis &] S[ynthesis] similarities of Law and Science, because this sort of remark is exactly the sort of thing which gets judges laughed at too: ‘Who are the Beatles?’ as one judge famously remarked in the late 60’s or early 70’s (was it [Jerry] Harman?).

The point in Law is the doctrine of Judicial Notice: there are only certain things which a judge is presumed to know. The reason is basically the same as that which leads scientists occasionally to make statements of the crashingly obvious: that a carefully analytical statement of the obvious may lead to the discovery that the obvious is in fact untrue.

*Ind[ependent] 900825:4

**(Actually, the Ind[ependent] seems to have thought the humour was in the way of describing trees.)

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