Witness Evidence

[brewer]

Unless there is the ability to challenge the veracity of the testimony/evidence from the individual making the statement the testimony is worthless.

[IATIA]

Even then, accuracy is an issue. The only way to verify the information is if one has the information to compare against in which case, no witness is needed. A collection of eyewitness testimony could be compared and go with the majority, but again, that is only corroborating evidence and not necessarily factual.

[bennyboy]

Even then, accuracy is an issue.  The only way to verify the information is if one has the information to compare against in which case, no witness is needed.  A collection of eyewitness testimony could be compared and go with the majority, but again, that is only corroborating evidence and not necessarily factual.

Yep.  The thing is that cultural memories based on shared cultural values (like a fairy tale at the center of your world view) make the "observations" of everyone in the culture suspect.  For example, if you live in a strong ghost-believing culture, you will find plenty of peole who swear up and down that everyone they know has seen a ghost.  If you live in a goofy Christian culture, then you'll find plenty of people who say they've met Jeebus, talked to Jeebus, had their shingles cured by Jeebus.  So much testimony, even about total bullshit, tends to snowball, especially in a relatively uneducated populace like that in the Southern states.

So not only is it proven that ALL people can have false memories, but even "eyewitness" testimony will be so skewed and biased that it is worthless, despite the appeal to numbers that RR is apparently trying to establish.

[RoadRunner79]

Thank you again, for your responses (I do appreciate thougthful responses for consideration).  As I said previously, I will review the studies provided, and provide some comments about them (this will take a few days).  I'm also fighting my first inclination for some of the posts, so I'm holding off saying too much for a day or so.

But in the meantime; here is a letter written to a blog where some similar discussions where going on.
http://randalrauser.com/2013/12/rd-miksa...testimony/

I am writing you today because as a regular “lurker” at your blog, I was dismayed at certain comments posted recently in reply to your blog posts concerning the topic of eye-witness reliability and the evidentiary value of eye-witness testimony. As an individual who has worked for most of his professional life in real-life fields that depend heavily on eye-witness testimony and which make serious decisions based on such testimony (Intelligence and Policing), I was indeed shocked at the generally poor understanding and misconceptions that many of your commentators expressed when they were discussing the issue of eye-witness testimony.

when discussing the issue of eye-witness testimony in a legal context—made the claim that we very often hear that scientific evidence, in the form of forensic evidence such as DNA, overturns eye-witness testimony. Indeed, the commentator then seemed to infer that courts thus favor scientific evidence over testimonial evidence in many instances. And yet this claim is not only mistaken as a general principle, but it fails to take into account the vastly greatly number of times that eye-witness testimony overrules scientific evidence in a legal setting.

To understand why, we first have to understand that eye-witness testimony, while still remaining eye-witness testimony, varies greatly in terms of quality. For example, there is a big difference in the quality of eye-witness testimony between 1) a group of people who see, at night and in a poorly lit area, an unknown man stabbing another unknown man when compared to 2) a group of people who walk in on a family friend, whom they have known for twenty-years, stabbing his wife (who they also know) in the well-lit living room of his house. Obviously, the eye-witness testimony in the latter case is of better quality than in the former case, and yet in both cases it is still eye-witness testimony.

Yet what this means is that while a court may assess forensic evidence of a certain sort to be sufficient to establish reasonable doubt in the eye-witness testimony in the first case, it would never do so in the latter case. Indeed, if, for example, it was somehow discovered that the fingerprints of the family friend were not on the knife that was used to stab his wife, but rather that the fingerprints of another man were on the knife, do you think that that fact would in any way be sufficient to override the eye-witness testimony provided of the murder by the group of people that walked in on him as he was stabbing his wife in the living room? Of course not. This strange forensic fact would simply be viewed as one of the anomalies that sometimes occurs with forensic evidence in criminal cases. But it would never be sufficient, in and of itself, to create reasonable doubt in the face of the eye-witness testimony provided by a group of people who clearly saw a family friend murder his wife.

More examples in the article...

While not as critical (as policing /intelligence)  in my occupation working with machine controls, I do find myself relying on the observations of others, to help me find the cause of the issue. I also rely on my own observation of what I see and hear quite often as well.   So my own experience doesn't match with what some infer as to the reliability of testimony.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I was hoping for a more substantive reply, myself. Copypasta lacking both sources and the ability to reply indicates to me that you're not really into this conversation.

Perhaps you could take the time to reply personally that those of us have given you the respect of doing?

[RoadRunner79]

I was hoping for a more substantive reply, myself. Copypasta lacking both sources and the ability to reply indicates to me that you're not really into this conversation.

Perhaps you could take the time to reply personally that those of us have given you the respect of doing?

I believe I said I was going to. And if I'm not mistaken, you linked to a number of sources, which I need time to review. Should I take your copy pasta.... As meaning your not really into the conversation?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I was hoping for a more substantive reply, myself. Copypasta lacking both sources and the ability to reply indicates to me that you're not really into this conversation.

Perhaps you could take the time to reply personally that those of us have given you the respect of doing?

I believe I said I was going to.  And if I'm not mistaken, you linked to a number of sources, which I need time to review.  Should I take your copy pasta.... As meaning your not really into the conversation?

No, because I actually, you know, put it into my own words, and conveyed to you my own views -- supporting them with citations -- rather than than simply posting a chunk of verbiage and begging off without actually contributing to the conversation.

Hopefully you're bright enough to see the difference, and better yet, to make up your own shortfall. If not, don't expect a soft-soap here ... you'll still get the business, if not so friendly, the next time around.

[robvalue]

I'm impressed you're fighting the urge to reply with your reflex response. This is extremely rare with the theists we generally get here.

One more tip, and this isn't meant to be insulting, it applies to everyone: don't assume you must be right. That way leads to terrible arguments and twisting of evidence. Instead, have an open mind to all possibilities and see where sound logic applied to proper evidence leads you. It's only by using this method that I've discovered the times I have been completely wrong myself.

Check your assumptions. This is often where the problems can start. A false or unsupported assumption poisons the whole affair. Those in search of truth should try to make as few assumptions as possible.

[GrandizerII]

Also, keep in mind the kind of people you're interacting with here. You're not talking to naive illiterates who are easily impressed by good rhetoric. So whatever it is you're about to post soon, it better be really worth considering.

[GrandizerII]

I was hoping for a more substantive reply, myself. Copypasta lacking both sources and the ability to reply indicates to me that you're not really into this conversation.

Perhaps you could take the time to reply personally that those of us have given you the respect of doing?

I believe I said I was going to.  And if I'm not mistaken, you linked to a number of sources, which I need time to review.  Should I take your copy pasta.... As meaning your not really into the conversation?

Make sure you're reviewing them in a critical manner, and not for the sake of disagreeing with the findings.