Testimony: Are we being hypocritical?

[Minimalist]

Uncorroborated testimony is a just a claim.  Roy Moore's accusers have the similar testimony of the other victims not to mention the apparent notice that everyone in Gadsden took of him being a creep.

The jesus freaks do not even have that.  None of their gospel stories even make the claim that they are witness accounts.

[Homeless Nutter]

[...]To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't believe these women.  I'm also not conceding that the Bible qualifies as eye-witness testimony.  I'm just wondering if we've been unfairly rigid to our theists in these debates regarding the nature of evidence. [...]

No. There's something called "prior probability". It's been thoroughly demonstrated, that people do rape, or abuse their power over others. However, despite thousands-of-years-worth of desperate efforts made by countless nut-jobs, swindlers and ordinary morons - the existence of gods is as unconfirmed as it's ever been.

If rape, or any other sexual misconduct, was as mythical as gods - or, say, alien abductions - I'd be inclined to believe in Cosby's, or O'Reily's innocence, at least in this matter.

Take the Satanic Panic of the 80's, for example - many people were accused of things that simply did not (and do not) happen, except for imaginations of certain deluded people - mostly christians, may I add - despite no prior probability and no evidence, beyond "testimonies", often extracted from children, using questionable - or outright crazy - methods. This is what happens, when you try to give irrational people the benefit of the doubt and apply the same rules to their inane babbling, as you do to mundane claims.

[LadyForCamus]

To be clear guys: I'm not implying that these women's testimony should not be accepted. I'm saying the opposite. I do believe them. I do believe they are credible. I do accept their testimony. My point is, I've yammered on and on about testimony not being an acceptable form of evidence for any claim beyond the most mundane and inconsequential, and that more testimony does not equal better evidence.

But, in situations like these, where the crimes in question were so long ago that there simply isn't any physical evidence, I feel there is no reasonable alternative but to accept the testimony on its own. To posit that, for example, all of Roy Moore's accusers are part of a liberal conspiracy to take him down is completely irrational, and the more women who come forward, the more absurd the notion becomes. I find myself asking, 'how many women will it take for some of these guys to finally accept this?'

So, I've accepted a claim that is neither mundane nor inconsequential, and the more women who come forward, the more certain I am that the claim is true.

Obviously, supernatural claims are in an entirely separate category. I'm not conceding on any of that. I'm just saying perhaps there is more of a grey area with regard to testimony in the natural world than I was willing to see at first.

[downbeatplumb]

Mundane tesitimony can be believed without supporting evidence.

"I saw a cat today" If someone said that I would tend to believe them.
But if someone said "Today I saw a cat levitate while reciting the full works of Shakespeare and wearing a tutu" I would tend to be more skeptical.

The claims of god are closer to the second than the first the claims of sexual abuse are closer to the first.
But claims are still just claims. People do lie all the time.
Look at Trump he has been fact checked and been found to lie 76% of the time.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201...f-the-time

[chimp3]

I have always considered eyewitness testimony evidence. Not enough to convict anyone though.

[LadyForCamus]

Yeah, again, I'm not questioning whether testimony should qualify as evidence for the supernatural/religious stuff. Of course not. But I think I've misspoken a few times in the past in anticipation that if I bend even a little; give the them just an inch, they'd take it and run with it, and that isn't really fair of me.

[Aoi Magi]

To be clear guys:  I'm not implying that these women's testimony should not be accepted.  I'm saying the opposite.  I do believe them.  I do believe they are credible.  I do accept their testimony.

The thing is LFC, if you believe these women's testimony just cause they say so, then you'd be wrong. In this case there are a whole bunch of other factors supporting their case and that's why I believe them. An unverified testimony is nothing more than a claim.

[Minimalist]

To be clear guys: I'm not implying that these women's testimony should not be accepted. I'm saying the opposite. I do believe them. I do believe they are credible. I do accept their testimony.

And yet when Ken Starr's Whitewater probe investigated the claims of Juanita Broadrick and Kathleen Wiley he found that they were not credible witnesses and dismissed them.  "Belief" is useless.  "Credibility" takes time to determine.  Subsequent events in Moore's case provide a significant amount of supporting evidence.  Franken had one accuser but he acknowledged her complaint which sort of ends the discussion as far as credibility goes.  It gets a bit grayer with the Harvey Weinstein types.  Sure, the guy is a pig.  But did anyone really doubt the concept of the "casting couch" in Hollywood? 

No.  You simply cannot draw a line in the sand and say that all women are telling the truth all the time.  Just ask Rolling Stone Magazine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/busin....html?_r=0

Rolling Stone to Pay $1.65 Million to Fraternity Over Discredited Rape Story

[LadyForCamus]

To be clear guys:  I'm not implying that these women's testimony should not be accepted.  I'm saying the opposite.  I do believe them.  I do believe they are credible.  I do accept their testimony.

The thing is LFC, if you believe these women's testimony just cause they say so, then you'd be wrong. In this case there are a whole bunch of other factors supporting their case and that's why I believe them. An unverified testimony is nothing more than a claim.

Yes, this exactly what I'm trying to say (and apparently doing a poor job of it, lol).  Context matters.  Facts about the people involved matter.  Every detail helps paint a little bit of the big picture so that we can draw reasonable conclusions.  But, I think I've asserted otherwise in the past. I just want to make sure I'm being intellectually honest on the subject. Perhaps I'm making a mistake in thinking that an accusation of rape is more than mundane.  I suppose rape is mundane in that we know it happens, and it happens all the time.

[Minimalist]

To wit:

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/shirtle...ke-report/

‘Shirtless’ Roy Moore tried to pick up teens at YMCA — and local voters ‘treated it like a joke’: report

In a deep dive into former Judge Roy Moore’s controversial career in Alabama politics, several contemporaries of the U.S. Senate candidate marveled that anyone was shocked about recent reports of Moore’s preference for younger women, with one retired cop stating it was treated “like a joke” back in the day.

According to the report from the New York Times, many who knew Moore in Gadsden, Alabama were well aware of the then-assistant district attorney’s sexual antics.

“It was a known fact: Roy Moore liked young girls,” recalled retired Gadsden police officer Faye Gary. “It was treated like a joke. That’s just the way it was.”

First-class reporting.  This is how you dig into a story.