![]() ![]() Physician-entrepreneurs of the 1940s and 1950s removed large parts of the human brain as treatment for mental health disorders, based on dubious theory, no meaningful validation, and little government oversight ( 4, 5). The development of a comprehensive regulatory framework for drug safety and efficacy lagged decades behind the fast-moving science of drug development ( 1 – 3). This disconnect between scientific advances and legal policy development is hardly new. ![]() In each case, widespread deployment may well occur before the risks and benefits have been carefully assessed or any thoughtful regulatory structure created to guide its operation. Consider, for example, as just three instances of many, the recent meteoric rise of algorithms for assessing person identity from facial images, or rapidly developing large language model AIs, or our ability to edit genetic code. Real or perceived benefits of an invention may, nonetheless, lead to pressure for rapid deployment before risks have been adequately assessed and mitigated. ![]() A widely promoted scientific invention may not be safe, or its use may sacrifice civil liberties, or have disparate impact on different segments of the population. While the advances of science thus create remarkable new opportunities for understanding and engaging with the natural world, it is equally obvious that the forward march of science produces challenges as well as benefits. The scientific enterprise is often recognized as the most powerful contributor to our collective knowledge and well-being, propelling discoveries, guiding difficult decisions, and generating transformative instruments and techniques. As coeditors of this Special Feature, CSTL alumni Tom Albright and Jennifer Mnookin have recruited articles at the intersection of science and law that reveal an emerging scientific revolution of forensic practice, which we hope will engage a broad community of scientists, legal scholars, and members of the public with interest in science-based legal policy and justice reform. One of the most influential CSTL activities concerns the use of forensic evidence by law enforcement and the courts, with emphasis on the scientific validity of forensic methods and the role of forensic testimony in bringing about justice. Under the leadership of recent CSTL co-chairs David Baltimore and David Tatel, and CSTL director Anne-Marie Mazza, the committee has overseen many interdisciplinary discussions and workshops, such as the international summits on human genome editing and the science of implicit bias, and has delivered advisory consensus reports focusing on topics of broad societal importance, such as dual use research in the life sciences, voting systems, and advances in neural science research using organoids and chimeras. For nearly 25 y, the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law (CSTL), of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, has brought together distinguished members of the science and law communities to stimulate discussions that would lead to a better understanding of the role of science in legal decisions and government policies and to a better understanding of the legal and regulatory frameworks that govern the conduct of science. ![]()
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