Merrell Dow removed the case to federal court, and then moved for summary judgment because their expert submitted documents showing that no published scientific study demonstrated a link between Bendectin and birth defects in humans.

[1] Daubert and Schuller submitted expert evidence of their own that suggested that Bendectin could cause birth defects.

The district court granted summary judgment for Merrell Dow, and Daubert and Schuller appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

Furthermore, the Ninth Circuit was skeptical of the fact that the plaintiffs' evidence appeared to be generated in preparation for litigation.

Without their proffered evidence, the Ninth Circuit doubted that the plaintiffs could prove at a trial that the Bendectin had caused their birth defects.

Circuit held that evidence could be admitted in court only if "the thing from which the deduction is made" is "sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs."

The Court stressed that the new standard under Rule 702 was rooted in the judicial process and intended to be distinct and separate from the search for scientific truth.

Cross examination within the adversary process is adequate to help legal decision makers arrive at efficient ends to disputes.

"We recognize that, in practice, a gatekeeping role for the judge, no matter how flexible, inevitably on occasion will prevent the jury from learning of authentic insights and innovations.

That, nevertheless, is the balance that is struck by Rules of Evidence designed not for the exhaustive search for cosmic understanding but for the particularized resolution of legal disputes."

However, courts have strictly applied the standards in Daubert, and it has generally been successful in excluding "junk science" or "pseudoscience", as well as new or experimental techniques and research that the decision might have been expected to deem admissible.

Discerning between science and "pseudoscience" was the theme of a book by Karl Popper whose summary was quoted in Daubert: "the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability."

[6] The popular use of the French pronunciation may have arisen from Gottesman refraining from correcting the justices during oral argument before the Supreme Court.