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Author Topic:   Evidence and testimonial: A fundamental split
CK
Member (Idle past 4128 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 16 of 24 (135348)
08-19-2004 5:45 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by CK
08-19-2004 5:43 PM


Disney Study
Here is that disney study:
http://abcnews.go.com/.../scitech/DyeHard/Dyehard010627.html
I'll try and find the actual study results later.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by CK, posted 08-19-2004 5:43 PM CK has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by Jasonb, posted 08-19-2004 6:07 PM CK has not replied

  
pink sasquatch
Member (Idle past 6023 days)
Posts: 1567
Joined: 06-10-2004


Message 17 of 24 (135362)
08-19-2004 6:03 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Jasonb
08-19-2004 5:41 PM


Re: Evidence and testimony: a fundamental split
What is the value of first hand knowledge.
First-hand knowledge is grand, but when you testify to your personal knowledge, or someone else's personal knowledge, the result is subjective, likely anecdotal, and quite possibly incorrect.
Or I could grab a ball go outside, throw it in the air and have her experience gravity first hand.
Exactly. You'd be showing her the evidence. You wouldn't be giving her testimony.
However, that does not make the gravity-related equations incorrect or unimportant. It also does not mean that they are 'testimony', since they are objective and remain verifiable.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by Jasonb, posted 08-19-2004 5:41 PM Jasonb has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Jasonb, posted 08-19-2004 6:17 PM pink sasquatch has replied

  
Jasonb
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 24 (135364)
08-19-2004 6:07 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by CK
08-19-2004 5:45 PM


Re: Disney Study
Hey Knight.
Here is that disney study:
Oh I believe the study. People’s recall ability is terrible. Most of the people on death row in the US who were eventually proven not guilty, were done so by DNA evidence overturning eye witness testimony. But I am just making the observation that eye witness testimony is not always wrong and therefore should not always be discarded.
Another thing I just thought of is that the same people who were fooled by the Disney experiment could be the same joker doing the DNA test in a murder trial. How scary is that?

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 Message 16 by CK, posted 08-19-2004 5:45 PM CK has not replied

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 Message 19 by pink sasquatch, posted 08-19-2004 6:12 PM Jasonb has not replied

  
pink sasquatch
Member (Idle past 6023 days)
Posts: 1567
Joined: 06-10-2004


Message 19 of 24 (135366)
08-19-2004 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Jasonb
08-19-2004 6:07 PM


Re: Disney Study
I am just making the observation that eye witness testimony is not always wrong
But it is sometimes (and apparently often) wrong, which is why we rely on veriable objective evidence.
the same people who were fooled by the Disney experiment could be the same joker doing the DNA test in a murder trial. How scary is that?
It isn't scary. That's the difference between testimony and evidence.
The DNA test is objective and does not require reliable memory, while the bugs bunny test is based on past memory and therefore subjective.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by CK, posted 08-19-2004 6:14 PM pink sasquatch has not replied

  
CK
Member (Idle past 4128 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 20 of 24 (135367)
08-19-2004 6:14 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by pink sasquatch
08-19-2004 6:12 PM


Re: Disney Study
Another thing I just thought of is that the same people who were fooled by the Disney experiment could be the same joker doing the DNA test in a murder trial. How scary is that?
I also fail to see the connection.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by pink sasquatch, posted 08-19-2004 6:12 PM pink sasquatch has not replied

  
Jasonb
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 24 (135370)
08-19-2004 6:17 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by pink sasquatch
08-19-2004 6:03 PM


Re: Evidence and testimony: a fundamental split
Hey PS
First-hand knowledge is grand, but when you testify to your personal knowledge, or someone else's personal knowledge, the result is subjective, likely anecdotal, and quite possibly incorrect.
Excellent point. And that’s kind of what I am saying about first hand knowledge.
Can we agree that this human error exists in all humans, preachers and scientists included? Lets face it most of us have never split an atom, or had the awesome privilege of peering into space through the Hubble Telescope. We take peoples word on a lot of things. And these are the same people fooled by the Disney experiment Knight mentioned.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by pink sasquatch, posted 08-19-2004 6:03 PM pink sasquatch has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by CK, posted 08-19-2004 6:28 PM Jasonb has not replied
 Message 23 by pink sasquatch, posted 08-19-2004 6:43 PM Jasonb has not replied

  
CK
Member (Idle past 4128 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 22 of 24 (135375)
08-19-2004 6:28 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Jasonb
08-19-2004 6:17 PM


Re: Evidence and testimony: a fundamental split
Come Jason - that is still not the same thing at all.
When a claim is made in science, the first thing that 100s of scientists will try and do is disprove that idea (because it upset their own views on the subject). Then people will try and disprove their results. This is the whole basic of the peer-review process - it acts as both an "honesty" check and a "validaity".
That's why someone like Ron Wyatt saying "I had a chariot wheel but I lost it" and "I had the blood of jesus but lost it" is not taken seriously.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Jasonb, posted 08-19-2004 6:17 PM Jasonb has not replied

  
pink sasquatch
Member (Idle past 6023 days)
Posts: 1567
Joined: 06-10-2004


Message 23 of 24 (135385)
08-19-2004 6:43 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Jasonb
08-19-2004 6:17 PM


Re: Evidence and testimony: a fundamental split
We take peoples word on a lot of things.
Not in the world of science - we take the evidence into consideration.
When I read a scientific paper, it is a very rare instance when I accept everything in it, especially the details of the conclusions, even though they are based on results within the paper. Also, individual experiments are sometimes carried out in a problematic manner (sometimes accidentally, sometimes because of necessity), and thus the data carries some qualification to the trained scientist.
Sometimes I read a paper and arrive at an entirely different set of conclusions than the authors, based on their evidence.
Scientists do not communicate with conclusions, they do so with data - if you've ever been to a scientific seminar you know what I'm talking about.
And these are the same people fooled by the Disney experiment Knight mentioned.
They might be the same people, but in the Disney experiment they are communicating with testimony, and in science they are communicating via evidence.
Thus their flaws in memory-based testimony do not apply to evidence-based conclusions.

This message is a reply to:
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Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6476 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 24 of 24 (135550)
08-20-2004 3:50 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Jasonb
08-19-2004 5:30 PM


Re: Evidence and testimony: a fundamental split
quote:
That leads me down a new path, bare with me I haven’t thought this through. Unless you actually did the DNA test you would be relying on someone else’s verification. You could read their results but they could make up results, so unless you actually performed the test you would not have true knowledge of the results. But here’s the catch, why should I trust your analysis, unless I do the analysis I will not have true knowledge and so on and so on.
Hi jasonb,
It is a good point but it requires that there is an implicit agreement between the various labs to falsify the results. And this is unlikely as science is hyper competitive. Thus far, scientific fraud has been confined to those who wish to further their own individual careers at the expense of others. I have a few friends in molecular forensics labs. The people doing the work usually have no idea what the samples are that they are testing. It is really almost impossible that even if they wanted to independently falsify results so that results would match from different labs, that it would be possible. The other reason this is unlikely to occur broadly is that science is a building process. I myself often have to repeat techniques or re-generate materials reported in other studies for my own work. If what has been reported is wrong, and artifact, fraud..I cannot continue my own work. This is why such things get flushed out relatively rapidly.
If a group of people testify that they saw a spaceship land in a corn field, it is still not confirmed as you and I could not reproduce that observation independently. If I say that person X was at the scence of a crime based on DNA evidence from blood at the crime scene, you or I, or anyone else could verify (or falsify) that finding. I am not saying that all testimony is crap. If a group of people can independently verify that they were all at a place at the same time and all saw an event, this is usually held as evidence in a court of law. However, such evidence is not entirely objective and cannot be reproduced and would be difficult to falsify. Thus, it is not as useful as other forms of evidence. It could supplement say ballistic evidence i.e. somebody claims to have seen a guy shoot a specific type of gun at a crime scene and ballistics shows that the weapon carried by the accused matches the type of gun described etc.
cheers,
M

This message is a reply to:
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