drug Bendectin on an unborn child during pregnancy could be admitted into evidence in a civil trial in federal court. The Court interpreted Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence to require the trial judge to screen allegedly scientific evidence and to make a determination in accordance with certain criteria announced by the Court in its majority opinion as to the relevance, reliability and validity of such evidence. Section 702, an identical version of which has been adopted in Hawkeye, provides as follows:
"If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to
determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert
by knowledge, skill, experience, training or education, may
testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise."
For many decades before the Daubert decision, the federal courts had excluded scientific evidence under Rule 702 and its
predecessors if such evidence failed to obtain general acceptance in the relevant scientific community under the holding in Frye v. U.S., 293 F. Supp. 1014 (D.C. Cir. 1923). Most state courts had adopted similar exclusionary rules under their eviden
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