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"People tend to conform their factual beliefs to ones that are consistent with their cultural outlook, their world view," Braman says. The Cultural Cognition Project has conducted several experiments to back that up. Participants in these experiments are asked to describe their cultural beliefs. Some embrace new technology, authority and free enterprise. They are labeled the "individualistic" group. Others are suspicious of authority or of commerce and industry. Braman calls them "communitarians." In one experiment, Braman queried these subjects about something unfamiliar to them: nanotechnology — new research into tiny, molecule-sized objects that could lead to novel products. "These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms," Braman says. The individualists tended to like nanotechnology. The communitarians generally viewed it as dangerous. Both groups made their decisions based on the same information. "It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.

"Basically the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values," says Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of The Cultural Cognition Project. Kahan says people test new information against their preexisting view of how the world should work. "If the implication, the outcome, can affirm your values, you think about it in a much more open-minded way," he says. And if the information doesn't, you tend to reject it. In another experiment, people read a United Nations study about the dangers of global warming. Then the researchers told the participants that the solution to global warming is to regulate industrial pollution. Many in the individualistic group then rejected the climate science. But when more nuclear power was offered as the solution, says Braman, "they said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem."And for the communitarians, climate danger seemed less serious if the only solution was more nuclear power.

In his new book, "The Double Helix and the Law of Evidence" (Harvard University Press), Kaye focuses on the intersection of science and law, and emphasizes that DNA evidence is merely information. "There's a popular perception that with DNA, you get results," Kaye said. "You're either guilty or innocent, and the DNA speaks the truth. That goes too far. DNA is a tool. Perhaps in many cases it's open and shut, in other cases it's not. There's ambiguity."

One of the book's key themes is that using science in court is hard to do right. "It requires lawyers and judges to understand a lot about the science," Kaye noted. "They don't have to be scientists or technicians, but they do have to know enough to understand what's going on and whether the statements that experts are making are well-founded. The lawyers need to be able to translate that information into a form that a judge or a jury can understand." Kaye also believes that lawyers need to better understand statistics and probability, an area that has traditionally been neglected in law school curricula. His book attempts to close this gap in understanding with several sections on genetic science and probability. The book also contends that scientists, too, have contributed to the false sense of certainty, when they are so often led by either side of one particular case to take an extreme position. Scientists need to approach their role as experts less as partisans and more as defenders of truth. Aiming to be a definitive history of the use of DNA evidence, "The Double Helix and the Law of Evidence" chronicles precedent-setting criminal trials, battles among factions of the scientific community and a multitude of issues with the use of probability and statistics related to DNA. From the Simpson trial to the search for the last Russian Tsar, Kaye tells the story of how DNA science has impacted society. He delves into the history of the application of DNA science and probability within the legal system and depicts its advances and setbacks.