Professor Imwinkelried Presents at University College Dublin

On September 21, Professor Emeritus Ed Imwinkelried presented a seminar for the law faculty and graduate law students of University College Dublin. The subject of the presentation was the judicial approach to uncertainty in scientific testimony.  

Professor Imwinkelried initially described the early American approach requiring the expert to vouch for his or her opinion as a certainty or reasonable certainty.  He then discussed the impact of the Supreme Court's acknowledgement of the limitations of the scientific enterprise in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 509 U.S. 579 (1993).  Finally, he reviewed the current controversy over whether a scientific expert testifying to a measurement must accompany the point estimate with an arithmetic measure of the uncertainty of the estimate such as a confidence interval.   The presentation was attended by several members of the Irish law commission, which is currently studying the codification of restrictions on expert testimony in Ireland.

University College Dublin and King Hall have had an exchange agreement for well over a decade.