To the Editor:
William J. Lewinski says he did not submit and publish his research findings on which he bases his testimony and teaching in a scientific journal but published in a police magazine because he wanted to reach that target audience.
To assume that his findings would have been successfully published in a peer-reviewed academic journal may be wishful thinking. But for Dr. Lewinski to cite his experimental work in court to explain police shootings of unarmed suspects is more problematic.
Certainly, he knows that scientific findings (even his own) are not accepted (scientifically speaking) until they are independently verified (replicated and published with peer review). One would hope that prosecutors, judges and juries would know this, too.
ALAN W. LANGER
Glen Allen, Va.
The writer is a retired professor of psychology at Syracuse University who has published in, and done peer reviews for, scientific journals.
Note from KBJ: The law has its own standards of authentication and expertise. It does not mindlessly adopt or incorporate those of academic disciplines such as psychology. The letter writer would know this if he had legal credentials, which, apparently, he does not. Scientism is the encroachment of scientific standards, methods, concepts, and terminology on nonscientific fields. It is a form of arrogance, and this is a good example of it.
