It was a few years back, or maybe even longer, that I read a book (can't remember the title!) about the difficulties of memory. Hopefully, I remember the basic thesis which was something like this: we are lousy in our memory of specific details, but pretty good at the general themes of the memories. Memories, though, are subject to being compressed into other memories, changed, and such.
You know what? I found it very disturbing at a certain level in me. You mean that clear memory I have of catching a baseball for the first time is, well, not so clear, and maybe not even real?
I submit, then, that there are least two factors in what makes eyewitness testimony compelling to our species in general: one is that we believe that our own memories are accurate always, and two, memories in general do good work in teaching us what's important. A species that could not fundamentally trust in its own memories wouldn't stand a chance in evolution.
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