Columbus, OH – On Wednesday, The Buckeye Institute called on the Federal Judicial Center to remove the “How Science Works” chapter from the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, warning that, in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 702, the chapter smuggles activist climate-change advocacy into the very document federal judges consult to keep unreliable expert testimony out of the courtroom.

“Judges are supposed to referee science, not impose an activist thumb on the scale,” said David C. Tryon, director of litigation at The Buckeye Institute. “The Federal Judicial Center already recognized the problem when it pulled the Climate Science chapter from the manual. The How Science Works chapter includes the same contested claims, and our courts, businesses, and everyday litigants pay the price when reference materials trade reliability for advocacy.”

In a letter sent to the head of the Federal Judicial Center, The Buckeye Institute argues that the chapter abandons the manual’s educational mission and instead pushes courts toward a “consensus” standard that climate activists have long sought, one that lets social pressure substitute for the rigorous, falsifiable testing that the U.S. Supreme Court required in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. If left in place, The Buckeye Institute warns that the “How Science Works” chapter could inappropriately tilt litigation on energy permitting fights to product-liability suits, giving judges a green light to treat contested climate claims as settled fact rather than testing them under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

The letter identifies five specific problems: the chapter recycles material from the withdrawn climate-science chapter; it overstates the certainty of long-range climate predictions in a way the letter says conflicts with the 2023 amendment to Rule 702; it labels core Daubert principles as myths; it revives the general acceptance test Daubert rejected decades ago; and it ignores documented funding and publication pressures that can distort scientific consensus. Left unchecked, The Buckeye Institute warns, litigants could face rulings shaped by political fashion rather than tested evidence, and the Federal Judicial Center should act before the chapter shapes rulings in pending and future cases nationwide.

Joining The Buckeye Institute on the letter were Advancing American Freedom, American Legislative Exchange Council, Boundary Line Foundation, Caesar Rodney Institute, Center for Practical Federalism, Commonwealth Foundation, Florida Legal Foundation, State Policy Network, and Sutherland Institute.

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