Relevant Scientific Community
Definition
The group of scientists whose expertise covers the technique under review. Identifying this community is the first step of the Frye inquiry. For an interdisciplinary technique, courts must decide which community or communities count, a question that can itself be contested.
- Legal test
- Frye standard
- Role
- First step of Frye inquiry
- Challenge
- Interdisciplinary techniques
- Jurisdiction
- Frye-following US states
Common questions
Why can defining the relevant scientific community be contested?+
A technique drawing on more than one discipline, such as statistics and biology together, raises the question of whether acceptance must be shown in each field or only the dominant one, and courts have reached different answers.
What happens if a court picks too narrow a community?+
A narrowly drawn community of specialists who already use the technique can make general acceptance easy to show even for a method broader scientific opinion would still question.
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