Judges lack the competence to decide questions resting on social-science evidence.

Evidence

“A few citations to ‘research in psychology’ that have no particular bearing upon the precise issue here cannot disguise the fact that the Court has gone beyond the realm where judges know what they are doing. The Court’s argument … is, not to put too fine a point on it, incoherent.” — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2641

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names the judicial-competence critique of social-science reasoning — a key strand in debates over how judges use empirical research.