Testimony is Evidence

[LadyForCamus]

No. Intended or not, this is straw.  It goes more like this:

1. Witness testimony is demonstrably unreliable.  (Innocent misremembering due to the falliable nature of human memory, as I mentioned in the post you quoted above, is only one of many factors that contribute to erroneous witness testimony.)

2. Therefore, I and any other rational person, in the interest of reason and truth, should wait for corroborating evidence before accepting any claim beyond the most mundane, where being wrong in that belief carries little to no serious consequences.  And, especially before believing claims of the "supernatural" variety, which carry far-reaching and deep-seeded consequences such as the defining of one's world views, and the ways in which we value our lives, and the lives of others.

There's that relevant context you were talking about.  😉

I see the problem now.

1. "Witness testimony is demonstrably unreliable." You are taking all witness testimony as a whole and applying to it the fact that some testimony is unreliable. This is an excellent example of the fallacy of composition. This premise is obviously fallacious because some amount of testimony is reliable. 

2. I have no problem with this. However often the only corroborating evidence is more testimony. As I have stated elsewhere in this thread, billions of events every day happen where there is no lasting physical evidence that can be examined. 

3. Your syllogism collapsed because the first premise is a fallacy. So we are back to mine -- tell me where I erred:

     1' A witness's recollection could be wrong
     2' The witness's character, cognitive ability, subject knowledge, experiences, and track record serve can minimize the possibility of error
     3 The context of the event can minimize the possibility of error
     4 Therefore the reliability of testimony varies depending on the witness and the context

How many years did it take you to perfect this skill of weaving together convoluted mazes of red herrings?  Do people generally fall for it?

This is exactly why threads involving you and RR end up being a hundred pages long.  The content is 90% endless text walls of distractions, and 10% actual discussion.  Wouldn't it be easier to just talk to people?

I am not offering, nor do I need to offer a formal, logical argument to reach the conclusion that eyewitness testimony is unreliable as a form of evidence. Do you know why?  Because I have actual evidence, a plethora in fact, which demonstrates it's truth.  Therefore, your charge of a logical fallacy is, in and of itself fallacious; an elaborate red herring constructed for the purpose of obfuscating and distracting from my very simple, and direct point.

"Eyewitness testimony is unreliable as a form of evidence" is a statement of fact.  If you disagree, then you're simply wrong.  You, on the other hand, have no evidence to back up your assertion that eyewitness testimony is reliable, nor your faulty conclusion based off of this un-evidenced  assertion, that witness testimony alone is reasonably sufficient for claims of the supernatural.

The person here with the fallacious argument is you, Steve.  Now.  Try again, because you're 0 for 2 on:

1.  Accurately representing my position, which I will restate for you here:


A. Witness testimony is demonstrably unreliable as a form of evidence. (Edited so that poopy-pants can't mischaracterize my point for a third time)

B. Therefore, I and any other rational person, in the interest of reason and truth, should wait for corroborating evidence before accepting any claim beyond the most mundane, where being wrong in that belief carries little to no serious consequences.  And, especially before accepting claims of the "supernatural" variety, which carry far-reaching and deep-seeded consequences such as the defining of one's world views, and the ways in which we value our lives, and the lives of others.


2.  Addressing it.