Witness Evidence

[Silver]

Yes, and I agree that it applies to everyone.   And despite the many assumptions and people who took a little information and invent an entire story about it (concerning my posts).   This is the reason, that I started this thread and the one on Extraordinary Evidence.  It's why I also avoided any of those who attempted to make them into a theology discussion.   I am interested in discussing these arguments, not the results from them.

I think my mind naturally works based on principles.  You may find, that I end up questioning the principle or going to the reasons for the assertion, rather than the details themselves first, then I apply the specifics to the principle. I do self reflect quite a bit, and also notice patterns and the different ways of that others discuss and think.   How is the thinking is different, not just the conclusion (what are their methods)?

Quite contrary to a belief in a deity.

[RoadRunner79]

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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/


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.

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Bold emphasis my own.

False (more usually, mistaken) eyewitness testimony does often overrule scientific evidence in a courtroom setting.  It is one of the primary causes of false convictions, which are later overturned. If you really want me to (I'm trying to avoid copypasta) show you, there are numerous experiments that have been done that show even the most clear-cut cases of eyewitness testimony can be falsified and/or manipulated. Juries tend to believe eyewitness stories because of how the human brain works; the "courtroom setting" is exactly the problem, and is not evidence of the reliability of eyewitness testimony, only of the fact that humans rely on it far too heavily. 

If you are talking about the errors, involving picking someone out of a lineup.   Yes, I agree with those advancing for reform in the classic police line up for testimony regarding people the person is unfamiliar with.  They advocate viewing a single picture at a time, and doing it in a double blind manner, where neither the witness nor the officer present know if the suspect is even present in the pictures.  I think that we may even have to go further than that. If unsure they are going to lean towards a best fit, and yes this may even alter their memory,  associating that person with the testimony.  I do think it should be interesting however in some of the exonerations, as  science is finding that Chimeraism is more common then previously thought.   It is possible that in some of these cases, the witness testimony may be correct, and assumptions about the DNA testing may be the error.   You say that even the most clear cut cases may be falsified or in error.  This is true for the forensic evidence as well.   The only way to eliminate all errors is to remove humans from the equation, or just do away with the legal system all together.

I was reading today, about a errors in DNA evidence.  One man was arrested because the DNA evidence pointed to him.  He was later released, because he was fully confirmed to be in a hospital at the time and was excessively drunk. It turned out that the medic who took him to the hospital was also at the crime seen, and must have transferred the DNA.   Others included mistakes and contaminations made in the lab.  

Even in your "strong" example of the "I saw my friend kill my wife" testimony, there are a half-dozen reasons that immediately spring to mind which could be a reason the husband is giving false/misleading testimony about what he thinks he saw. (Especially given the emotional trauma of losing one's wife.) We know for a fact that many people have been wrongly executed, based on "good eyewitness testimony" and circumstantial evidence, specifically because scientific testing later proved them to be innocent. If you examine only one website, check this one out:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocenc...th-penalty

I'll cover your link with the others I am looking at.   As to the story from the email/blog I posted.  If you look back on it, I think you will find, that a group of people walked in on man killing his wife (husband killing spouse).  If you have not, I would encourage you to follow the link.  http://randalrauser.com/2013/12/rd-miksa...testimony/   He has a number of examples and arguments for witness testimony.  The first few, says he was personally involved in, and some he heard from colleagues.  Unfortunately he doesn't provide details or a way to look these up.  But if nothing else, I think they do serve as a good hypothetical example.

[downbeatplumb]

My wife is convinced that we heard a bomb at a Metro station from a terrorist attack when we were on honey moon in Paris, we didn't, we only learnt about it when we got home and saw the papers but her memory has become muddled over time. Memory is like that, half the stuff you remember is probably wrong.

How do you know, that you did not hear it.... did you think that you heard something before you saw it on the news?

One of us is wrong, either way my point stands.

[robvalue]

OK, if this discussion has no particular point other than man merely evaluating anecdotes, that's fine.

However, you still need to address how you differentiate between accurate and inaccurate anecdotes. Also, the nature of the anecdote is important also. You mentioned courtrooms. Trying to compare the reliability of anecdotes to scientific evidence is one thing, but as soon as the anecdote ventures into supernatural territory it will be quite rightly dismissed. An anecdote that requires science to be advanced (or suspended) in order to be true is immediately suspect and far more likely to be a mistake than actually true.

Also, if you're interesting in improving your debate skills, you seem particularly prone to the tu quoque fallacy. This is where instead of defending your own position, you try and indicate that the competing position has the same problems. In this case, that scientific evidence can also be wrong. Even if the tu quoque, (meaning "you too!") is accurate, it does nothing to support your actual claim.

This isn't an insult, it's an extremely common fallacy, used by almost everyone who hasn't spent time studying a bit of logic. I've had to mentally train myself out of it.

[RoadRunner79]

How do you know, that you did not hear it.... did you think that you heard something before you saw it on the news?

One of us is wrong, either way my point stands.

Ok.... That was just more of a curious thing, I wasn't necessarily making an arguement.

I can understand if you heard something, and didn't know what it was. Then read the news, thought it was the bomb, found out more info, and decided it wasn't the bomb that you heard. However, if you didn't hear anything, watched the news, and decided you did hear something, and then read a scientist, about false memories, and decided you made the whole thing up. Then I just think that you are extraordinarily suggestable. And the question comes up... How do you know if you did hear something or not.... I'm interested in what your original testimony was before or the specifics of what you heard. There are studies which show that people behave differently, when someone who wears a white lab coat, or is viewed as an authority tells them to do something as well.

Personally, when I am investigating an event, i find that you can tell when someone is giving you a conclusion rather then their testimony. There are less details to the story, and they do not include much before and after. Testimony also includes irrelevant details. When I see this occurring, I ask questions, like what made you think that you heard a bomb? I want to know details, of what you saw or heard (or felt), not necessarily what you think it was.

[downbeatplumb]

One of us is wrong, either way my point stands.

Ok.... That was just more of a curious thing, I wasn't necessarily making an arguement.

I can understand if you heard something, and didn't know what it was.  Then read the news, thought it was the bomb, found out more info, and decided it wasn't the bomb that you heard.  However, if you didn't hear anything, watched the news, and decided you did hear something, and then read a scientist, about false memories, and decided you made the whole thing up.  Then I just think that you are extraordinarily suggestable.  And the question comes up... How do you know if you did hear something or not.... I'm interested in what your original testimony was before or the specifics of what you heard.  There are studies which show that people behave differently, when someone who wears a white lab coat, or is viewed as an authority tells them to do something as well.

Personally, when I am investigating an event, i find that you can tell when someone is giving you a conclusion rather then their testimony.  There are less details to the story, and they do not include much before and after.  Testimony also includes irrelevant details.  When I see this occurring, I ask questions, like what made you think that you heard a bomb?  I want to know details, of what you saw or heard (or felt), not necessarily what you think it was.

We heard nothing, it was only when we returned to the UK and saw the news that my wife put this whole thing together in her head.
It is a completely false memory that she has invented but is convinced is true.

[bennyboy]

Personally, when I am investigating an event, i find that you can tell when someone is giving you a conclusion rather then their testimony.  There are less details to the story, and they do not include much before and after.  Testimony also includes irrelevant details.  When I see this occurring, I ask questions, like what made you think that you heard a bomb?  I want to know details, of what you saw or heard (or felt), not necessarily what you think it was.

I hope you aren't a cop.

The problem with your approach is that details of what "you saw or heard" are, at the time of the report, memories. And they can be completely fabricated by the imagination, or twisted by whatever the person has thought about the event since they witnessed it.

People "remember" wrong colors, hair styles, height, even race. And that's just the ones who are trying to tell the truth.

Since you are talking about religion, then you also have to deal with the phenomenon of implanted memories: that we think we remember things from our childhood which were in fact just things our parents told us about ourselves. So if your parents tell you they felt Jesus in the room when you were born, you are likely to "remember" the presence of Jesus as one of your first memories.

Really, the science demonstrates that the OP just points to a bad approach to establishing the truth of ideas.

[Nay_Sayer]

Personally, when I am investigating an event, i find that you can tell when someone is giving you a conclusion rather then their testimony.  There are less details to the story, and they do not include much before and after.  Testimony also includes irrelevant details.  When I see this occurring, I ask questions, like what made you think that you heard a bomb?  I want to know details, of what you saw or heard (or felt), not necessarily what you think it was.

I hope you aren't a cop.

The problem with your approach is that details of what "you saw or heard" are, at the time of the report, memories.  And they can be completely fabricated by the imagination, or twisted by whatever the person has thought about the event since they witnessed it.

People "remember" wrong colors, hair styles, height, even race.  And that's just the ones who are trying to tell the truth.

Since you are talking about religion, then you also have to deal with the phenomenon of implanted memories: that we think we remember things from our childhood which were in fact just things our parents told us about ourselves.  So if your parents tell you they felt Jesus in the room when you were born, you are likely to "remember" the presence of Jesus as one of your first memories.

Really, the science demonstrates that the OP just points to a bad approach to establishing the truth of ideas.

For Christians truth is a 4 letter word and is subject to whatever their book or pulpit puppet tells them.

[RoadRunner79]

Personally, when I am investigating an event, i find that you can tell when someone is giving you a conclusion rather then their testimony.  There are less details to the story, and they do not include much before and after.  Testimony also includes irrelevant details.  When I see this occurring, I ask questions, like what made you think that you heard a bomb?  I want to know details, of what you saw or heard (or felt), not necessarily what you think it was.

I hope you aren't a cop.

The problem with your approach is that details of what "you saw or heard" are, at the time of the report, memories. And they can be completely fabricated by the imagination, or twisted by whatever the person has thought about the event since they witnessed it.

People "remember" wrong colors, hair styles, height, even race. And that's just the ones who are trying to tell the truth.

Since you are talking about religion, then you also have to deal with the phenomenon of implanted memories: that we think we remember things from our childhood which were in fact just things our parents told us about ourselves. So if your parents tell you they felt Jesus in the room when you were born, you are likely to "remember" the presence of Jesus as one of your first memories.

Really, the science demonstrates that the OP just points to a bad approach to establishing the truth of ideas.

This just a guess, but in the following scenario, I'm guessing your story would change. You and I our having this discussion in person, and it gets heated. I pull out a gun and shoot you in the leg. I then flee the scene and dispose of all traces of evidence. Yourself and a number of other people present, all testify that I lost it, and assaulted you, and even identify me by name. Are you going to press charges, or contemplate if you memory may be incorrect?

[The Grand Nudger]

The charges won't stick if it's just the two of you's word against each other.  Bad analogy, so who cares? If he claims you shot him..but you don't own a gun, there are no powder marks on your hand, and you were somewhere else at the time.........then there's no need to wonder about the reliability of his memory, eh? If you own a gun, have powder marks, were at the scene, and the bullet in his leg matches the barrel of your gun..it doesn't matter if he remembered the details wrong, the charges would still stick.

There is absolutely -nothing- for you down this road. You're wasting your time.