(May 26, 2013 at 10:14 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote:(May 26, 2013 at 10:06 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: No, it is true that O.J. was found not guilty because the jury said so. "Not guilty" in U.S. jurisprudence does not equal "did not kill his wife". It simply means that the jury acquitted because the prosecutor failed to bring a case that compelled the jury.
Nonetheless, the jury is the ultimate arbiter of the verdict in the case.
Wow, seriously, did I just defend Statler? Time to go a lottery ticket, folks.
But that doesn't mean that the argument from authority has any value when determining truth, it just means that the U.S. Judicial system is flawed and a group of 12 people can be duped. In fact this itself is a logical fallacy Argumentum ad populum. Simply because other people are using the same fallacy doesn't mean it has any validity when it comes to truth.
Sure, no argument - but the subject of that particular part of the discussion was the jury's verdict, not whether it represented truth. The point was that the jury was certainly an appropriate authority to consult as to what the jury's verdict is. That's it. You're reading way more meaning into what was said than what was there.
