The truth...we may never find it

David Hume (1739) summed it up very well I believe:

"Thus not only our reason fails us in the discovery of the ultimate connexion of causes and effects, but even after experience has inform'd us of their constant conjunction, 'tis impossible for us to satisfy ourselves by our reason, why we shou'd extend that experience beyond those particular instances, which have fallen under our observation. We suppose, but are never able to prove, that there must be a resemblance betwixt those objects, of which we have had experience, and those which lie beyond the reach of our discovery."

We live in a time and culture in which the people involved in the brain tumor cluster in McCullum Lake may never know the absolute truth regarding this issue. I say this because the techniques and purposes of law and science differ dramatically. Both seek to find the truth, but each applies a different meaning of "truth".

According to L.O. Gostin, Public Health Law...Power..Duty..Restraint, "While law seeks finality and closure, scientific inquiry is continuous; while law in civil litigation makes decisions by the preponderance of evidence (greater than 50 percent), science uses statistical significance (greater than 95 percent, with a confidence limit that does not include 1.0); while law follows an adversarial method, science embraces the experimental design (the "scientific" method); while legal evidence is testimonial, scientific evidence is empirical. These different understandings do not mean that one field discovers truth and the other less than truth. Rather, the two fields have different missions and each operates, at least partly, in the other's environment. Science and law, therefore, must seek to understand the other, and each must accommodate the methods and cognitive processes of the other."

Conflicts and differences of opinion can occur between law and science in several areas; one area is that of the issue of causality - did an event or exposure to a substance produce or cause a certain harm to an individual or group of individuals. The plaintiff attorney tries to assign responsibility for the alleged harm to the defendant; that is his/her mission. The attorney for the plaintiff claim that a certain substance or substances caused a detrimental health condition to the plaintiffs. Sometimes this allegation takes place years or even decades after the alleged exposure to the alleged agent.

Problems arise in trying to prove scientifically that the alleged exposure to the alleged agent was directly and causally related to the detrimental health condition. Why? ...because of the number of individuals involved, the time span between the alleged event and the detrimental health condition and the many variables that might have or could have affected each of the plaintiffs over the many years since the alleged event and the detrimental health condition.

According to L. O. Gostin, Public Health Law...Power.Duty.Restraint, the "plaintiffs in exposure litigation must establish two types of causation: general and specific. General causation assesses whether the substance is capable of causing the harm found in increased levels in the population. Specific causation assesses whether exposure to the substance in fact caused caused the plaintiffs' harm." It can rarely be proven that the harm in the population or individual was directly caused by a specific event or substance which that population may or may not have been exposed to many years ago.

The epigraph by David Hume states that positive correlations never establish causation; however epidemiologists use statistical significance to establish positive correlations between two events, the exposure and the harm done, to support causality. But to do this by using the scientific method the causality is assumed only if there exists more than a 95 percent chance that the exposure results in harm.

This is the conundrum that exists in proving causation by using the law and using the scientific method.

Put your name where your opinion is!

The NWHerald "welcomes original letters on public issues." You must however include your full name, home address, and day and evening telephone numbers; a prudent policy. But why don't they follow their own policy? In the Opinion section under "our view" I see an opinion but I see no names under the opinion. I find it hard to believe that the Editorial Board which includes six individuals all wrote and subscribe to the same opinion. Is it the big man himself who holds sway and can hire and fire or are they all simply like minded. If we are held to the policy of name, address, and day and evening telephone numbers why are they not held to the same standard. Could it be that the opinion is not unanimous and only the commentary of a powerful minority? If you don't sign your name to something you have written I personally don't believe its worth the paper its written on.

The irony of it!

In regard to Northwest Heralds "Bills lead to Easter in lockup".

The irony of Mathew Bunda going to jail because he missed two court appearances and could not come up with the bond after he could not pay his divorce attorney $18,000 is beyond belief. Several of President Obama's Cabinet owed thousands of dollars to the IRS and admitted it. How were they treated....got a new job...to be a member of the Presidents Cabinet and advise the President on how to run the United States of America when they can't even take care of their own "STUFF" in their own house. I guess that's what President Obama meant by "CHANGE"...hmmm?

I've learned my lesson!

Dear Ms. Jillian Duchnowski:

Boy have I learned my lesson; never talk to the press with the expectation that the truth will be revealed by them. In most cases you can probably expect that you will get a STORY created to titillate the readers and stir controversy and increase sales and circulation and not even an attempt at getting at the underlying factors that are at the heart of the matter. What a lot of reporters (not journalists) want is to get their STORY on the front page of a newspaper in big black print with their name written below.

I also resent the implied insinuation that I doled out pain meds like some street corner dealer supplying his customers with their needs. If I could count the times I gave patients free samples or medications (freely at my cost) that they needed but could not afford it might be more than the hairs on your head. I am truly saddened and disheartened at the way you approached this, seemingly setting up your agenda to go where you wanted to go and report and dismissing the things that did not fit your agenda or version of the truth. I wish you well on your journey to become a journalist.

William LeFew's letter to the Editor

Mr. LeFew got most of what he said in his Letter to the Editor dated January 29, 09 to the Northwest Herald correct. The peaceful transference of power noted on Inauguration Day is to be commended.

However if one reads the papers and records of the Founding Fathers their idea of who would have the right and privilege to vote for their representatives in the envisioned new republican form of government was not what we today enjoy and take for granted. Not everyone was included in this group of "voters"; they the Founding Fathers feared a take over by what was called then the uneducated rabble or at times referred to as the "mob". To them the voter would be a stakeholder in this new country; someone who was a land owner, business owner, educated to some degree so he could read and understand issues and not on the receiving end of government money. They feared that if all were to be allowed to be voters that they would vote for the candidate that would would promise them more and more until the government would find itself bankrupt and unable to fulfill its promises. In other words they felt that voters should be males who had something to loose if they voted unwisely and not individuals who only had something to gain....sound familiar? Women were not even considered in the argument at that time.

David W McArdle...Back Again In Court

Remember the previous article about David W. McArdle, a managing partner of Zukowski, Rogers, Flood and McArdle, attorneys for the City of Woodstock Illinois and the phone call and meeting with Sgt. Gorski's attorneys to work out something more amicable and efficient in settling their differences? Well to the best of my knowledge Sgt. Gorski's attorneys received no calls back in regards to it but I am sure the Sergeant's legal bill increased and so did the city's because of this exercise in futility. I suspect it may have been just another tactic in trying to extend this whole matter by trying to bankrupt the Sgt. so that he could not go on and continue to defend his position in court and for the City of Woodstock to continue to not pay him any wages for more than a year now.

At court,Mr. McArdle brought out his tripod and poster boards and in a few minutes tried to convince Judge Maureen McIntyre that the 4 1/2 months of evidence and testimony presented by Anne Brophy, the attorney who handled the prosecution for the city against Sgt. Gorski and an attorney for Zukowski, Rogers, Flood and McArdle; that the decision in the case, by the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners should have been decided differently and against Sgt. Gorski. That they, the Board, should have found him guilty of the charges brought against him by the Chief of Police, Robert W. Lowen Jr. and he should have been fired from his job after 20 years of exemplary public service to the community of Woodstock Illinois. So much for advancing amicability, efficiency and trust but I will say it was a valiant effort in trying to rewrite history and a valiant attempt to forget about the concept of double jeopardy of the defendant. As far as justice...you be the judge.

Now the citizens of Woodstock and of McHenry County have an even clearer idea of what Sgt. Gorski and his attorneys have had to deal with.