Witness Evidence

[Thumpalumpacus]

I have often been told by atheist that witness testimony and observation either isn't evidence, or is evidence of poor quality. I question this notion. 

Yes there are issues within witness testimony and observations of humans in general.  The nature of memory will attempt to fill in gaps.  People can lie, be biased and mistaken.  Yet we trust in our own and others observations all the time.  It would be impossible to live your life without believing that our observances are mostly accurate of reality.  And if we lived based on our own experience alone, the world would be a very small place. Our view of reality is greater, by comparing our view of reality to others.  I would make the case, that not only is witness testimony evidence, but it is one of the strongest evidences we have.

And you'd be wrong. Mistaken impressions, distracted attention, and outright deceit can and od color independant reportage. While eyewitness testimony is admissible in a court of law, it is regarded as one of the weakest forms of evidence for this reason.

Every other piece of evidence has to go through our senses and minds.   Therefore every other evidence is subject to observation and the problems that all humans suffer from.

Except that we can support perceptions with tangible evidence, such as a photograph or sound-recording of an event, or repetitions of an experiment with the results recorded digitally and visually.

Testimony is more inclusive.  Short of video evidence where each individual can review what happened (and more than once), human observance can tell you more about what actually happened more than any other evidence.

Not so. Human attention is notoriously fickle, as shown by Loftus and Palmer's experiment:

Elizabeth Loftus (1974) has been an extremely influential researcher that has contributed immensely to the field of psychology through her research in memory and specifically false memories. Loftus (1974) conducted an experiment in which she concentrated on eyewitness memories. She wanted to determine how accurate an individual's memory is after witnessing a crime or an accident. Loftus showed participants a video which depicted a traffic accident. She
then asked participants leading questions such as, “how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” (Loftus 1974). When asked this question, participants were more apt to conclude that the cars were going at a fast speed. Participants were also more likely to falsely claim that they had seen shattered glass when in fact there was not any. In contrast, when the other half of participants were asked, “how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” (Loftus 1974) led to lower estimates of speed. Loftus (1974) concluded that misinformation and leading questions greatly influence what we“remember” about an incident.

Source: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewco...honorsprog

 

Tests may be able to tell you if the person was in the room (at some time) or that the person has fired a gun recently.  I'm not saying that other evidence is insignificant, but that witness testimony can often tell you more.  Witnesses can even tell you about the demeanor of the person before, during, or after the crime.

Which is also largely irrelevant once you consider the many other variables that factor into a person's emotions.

The sequence of events can be determined.  This can also lead to collaborating evidence.

No. Read Loftus and Palmer's experiment report, linked above. In a stressful situation, the human mind can and does scramble sequence-of-events information, and then can and does reconstruct it later with no guarantee that that sequence is correct. Anyone who has attended a family reunion knows this much.

Witnesses seen what happened.  So we can have direct evidence without inference. (although sometimes it can be difficult to get a witness to give you only what they seen, without interpreting what it means).  

They may have seen some of what happened, but not all of it. This is why illusionists have audiences: human attention can and does pick up some but not all details of an event, and afterwards the mind constructs a narrative of the event.

Testimony can give you evidence for things that leave no other physical evidence.

And yet without any other corroborating evidence, it is still subect to the limitations above.

Many in intelligence and investigative professions rely heavily on witness testimony.

Yes, and many have been misled.

Observation is the best evidence for what is possible.

Factually incorrect.

You can find a number of articles and even professional opinions if you do an internet search for the reliability of witness testimony. However if you look closely at what they are saying, it is about specific issues within the topic. They do not say that observation is unreliable as a whole (if they did, I would ask how they knew this).  If there are issues with another form of evidence such as DNA identification, do you throw it out completely, or do you try and identify and limit the errors to keep what is good? 

The probelm with your reasoning here is that while memories are malleable, DNA isn't. Issues with DNA can be resolved by checking another swab. Issues with contradictory eyewitnesses (which happens often enough in American courtrooms) cannot be resolved so easily.

So what strengthens testimony (or the lack of decreases it's worth).  Collaborating testimonies and evidence can verify what a witness reports. As with any evidence multiple pieces that tell the same story are less likely to be in error in the same way.

That depends. If John, Sue, and Frank all testify that they saw Danielle at the Macy's perfume counter while they were coming down the escalator, maybe they did. But a validated boarding pass showing that Danielle was on Flight 1734 to Tuscaloosa renders their testimony very weak indeed, given that Danielle had to check in by showing ID.

 Time and proximity lessen error.  Familiarity will make a testimony more reliable; we can better recognize what we know.  We may mistake some details in what we remember or some thing may have more focus or less (given the person witnessing and perspective).  But it is rarely completely inaccurate (short of lying).

Wrong again. Read the eyewitness accounts of the JFK assassination. They all vary wildly.

I'm not saying that witness testimony is the be all... end all.  Any evidence needs to be evaluated in light of all other evidence (pro and con), and in regard to it's strengths and weaknesses. And depending on the circumstances, witness testimony may not be reliable at all.   Even biases or motivation to lie, can be a strength or weakness (or it may be of null value).  It needs to be dealt with given the circumstances and considerations for each account. Hasty generalizations about all testimony and without looking at the facts is both naïve and I believe impossible to live.

Sure, it should be taken into account. But it is the weaker form of evidence in comparison to physical evidence. Modern psychology has demonstrated the plasticity of human memory and the suggestibility of subjects under question.

Your points don't comport with studies done over the last forty or so years.