The justices are woeful historians — but this is understandable given that our discipline is rhetorical, not truth-based. We are trained to find support for our positions and to push that support and the inferences from it as far as we can to support our conclusions. The justices, in their opinions exemplify this all the time — not only with history, but as Sandy rightfully points out, with facts and data and beliefs about how things are and how they work. And let’s not talk about expert testimony and statistics.
Steve On Jul 9, 2014, at 6:28 PM, Levinson, Sanford V <slevin...@law.utexas.edu> wrote: > It's not only that HHS may be "less than trustworthy" (assuming, arguendo, > that is the case). I think the more important point is that the Supreme > Court quite regularly makes decisions on the basis of surmises and their own > view of reality that have little or no support in any serious empirical > literature. > > sandy > -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 Director of International Programs, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice http://iipsj.org Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8567 http://sdjlaw.org "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." Mark Twain _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
