Originalism, the school of constitutional interpretation currently modish among conservative lawyers and judges, is not so much an idea as a legal-industrial complex divided into three parts—the academic, the jurisprudential, and the political. In its first part, originalism is an academic pursuit, one that a large number of law scholars have embraced with gusto. A […]
Judging is, in fact, far more like carpentry than like science. Indeed, a judge interpreting a constitution in its third century is like a carpenter called in to renovate some part of an early Federal-era house. I have hired skilled craftspeople to do renovations on my house; I did not ask them to imagine their perfect house and then to tear down the parts of mine that don’t conform to that imagination. Scientists needed counter-theories to replace the idea of phlogiston or of the heliocentric universe; carpenters don’t need a theory of building. They need skill, care, well-maintained tools, and immemorial techniques to build on the level and the square.
As both a scientist, and a carpenter, it’s a bunch of crap.
Most of the time**, judging involves determining the truth, and the critical analysis of the facts of a case.
The scientific method, at its core, is also a truth-seeking exercise, centered on the idea of failing to prove a theory wrong (“fail to reject the null hypothesis”). In lay terms, a successful scientists will proactively trial an idea against one or more opposing ideas. In doing so, a scientist takes the position of competing truths and systematically disproves them, because disproving bad ideas is easy. In a court of law, the same occurs when a piece of evidence is presented to counter an accusation or defense (like an alibi). Therefore, in both science, and in law, verdicts are achieved on the basis of “reasonable doubt”. Perfect proofs do not exist (yes, even in math, because of axioms).
**To be fair, there are different types of courts, with different functions. A supreme court will probably spend no time on examining evidence for example, where as traffic court will spend most of its time on evidence.
imagine their perfect house
No part of “imagining perfection” is found in the scientific method. This is some fictional view of how science actually works. If anything, it’s carpentry that involves “imagining perfection”, where a building plan is “perfection” and “imagining” is the boundary between the plan and the reality of trying to build to specification.
I think you’re missing the broader context of the analogy as it pertains to current arguments around constitutional law though, that was just one of the last paragraphs of the piece and the broader context is quite important.
I would also push back on this:
No part of “imagining perfection” is found in the scientific method.
To the contrary, when devising experiments and hypotheses, we very much do try to imagine perfect ways to describe and test our world, ones that will work with full consistency and accuracy. It may not be regularly thought of as a realistically attainable goal in the near term, but it’s certainly a feature, an idealized goal. I would argue this fundamentally differentiates it from any of the building trades.
Interesting analogy.
As both a scientist, and a carpenter, it’s a bunch of crap.
Most of the time**, judging involves determining the truth, and the critical analysis of the facts of a case.
The scientific method, at its core, is also a truth-seeking exercise, centered on the idea of failing to prove a theory wrong (“fail to reject the null hypothesis”). In lay terms, a successful scientists will proactively trial an idea against one or more opposing ideas. In doing so, a scientist takes the position of competing truths and systematically disproves them, because disproving bad ideas is easy. In a court of law, the same occurs when a piece of evidence is presented to counter an accusation or defense (like an alibi). Therefore, in both science, and in law, verdicts are achieved on the basis of “reasonable doubt”. Perfect proofs do not exist (yes, even in math, because of axioms).
**To be fair, there are different types of courts, with different functions. A supreme court will probably spend no time on examining evidence for example, where as traffic court will spend most of its time on evidence.
No part of “imagining perfection” is found in the scientific method. This is some fictional view of how science actually works. If anything, it’s carpentry that involves “imagining perfection”, where a building plan is “perfection” and “imagining” is the boundary between the plan and the reality of trying to build to specification.
Some fair points.
I think you’re missing the broader context of the analogy as it pertains to current arguments around constitutional law though, that was just one of the last paragraphs of the piece and the broader context is quite important.
I would also push back on this:
To the contrary, when devising experiments and hypotheses, we very much do try to imagine perfect ways to describe and test our world, ones that will work with full consistency and accuracy. It may not be regularly thought of as a realistically attainable goal in the near term, but it’s certainly a feature, an idealized goal. I would argue this fundamentally differentiates it from any of the building trades.