Witness Evidence

[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.