As someone who used to practice law, I find it frustrating that there was no apparent objection to the questioning.
Really while it may be "simple arithmetic" often expert witnesses are caught up in trying to explain a lot of technical material, and when it comes down to something simple they are unable to do it without prior preparation.
Ideally, the only true way that you could discredit an expert like this is to ask them to explain the process by which they would convert the scale. If they can't do that, in all likelihood they're stuffed. The witness in this case should have simply asked for a calculator, or the lawyer who introduced him should have claimed that he was not an expert in mental arithmetic, but in complex computer assisted mathematical analysis.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 12.4 ms ] threadReally while it may be "simple arithmetic" often expert witnesses are caught up in trying to explain a lot of technical material, and when it comes down to something simple they are unable to do it without prior preparation.
Ideally, the only true way that you could discredit an expert like this is to ask them to explain the process by which they would convert the scale. If they can't do that, in all likelihood they're stuffed. The witness in this case should have simply asked for a calculator, or the lawyer who introduced him should have claimed that he was not an expert in mental arithmetic, but in complex computer assisted mathematical analysis.