Why eyewitness testimony isn't reliable ....

Originally posted by RJHinds
The judicial system must depend and rely on eyewitness testimony all the time. So what you present is nothing more than rambling psychobabble. 😏

I included links from Stanford Law, Yale Law Review, The Innocence Project,
and the American Bar Association.

You may disagree, [why not, you disagree with everything else science says]
but it is undeniable that science says that eyewitness testimony is highly unreliable.

You are simply too pig headed to admit that you are wrong.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The judicial system must depend and rely on eyewitness testimony all the time. So what you present is nothing more than rambling psychobabble. 😏

here is a nice simple cbs documentary discussing some of the issues of eye witness testimonies.

YouTube

Originally posted by stellspalfie
here is a nice simple cbs documentary discussing some of the issues of eye witness testimonies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFRiDtUbeAQ

Elizabeth Loftus: The fiction of memory

YouTube


TED talk.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
here is a nice simple cbs documentary discussing some of the issues of eye witness testimonies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFRiDtUbeAQ

I understand that some people are better eyewitnesses than others, but that still does not justify making a blanket statement that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. I believe that some eyewitness testimony is very reliable.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I understand that some people are better eyewitnesses than others, but that still does not justify making a blanket statement that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. I believe that some eyewitness testimony is very reliable.

then you are simply just ignoring the facts.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I understand that some people are better eyewitnesses than others, but that still does not justify making a blanket statement that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. I believe that some eyewitness testimony is very reliable.

But you believe things based on faith, which by definition means you believe things for
which there is no evidence, or for which there is considerable evidence against.

As faith allows a person to believe literally anything, and thus cannot be a valid justification
for any belief.

Why should anyone care that you believe something?

The statement that you believe something carries precisely zero weight because you
believe based on faith.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
then you are simply just ignoring the facts.

No, not really. 😏

Originally posted by googlefudge
But you believe things based on faith, which by definition means you believe things for
which there is no evidence, or for which there is considerable evidence against.

As faith allows a person to believe literally anything, and thus cannot be a valid justification
for any belief.

Why should anyone care that you believe something?

The statem ...[text shortened]... t that you believe something carries precisely zero weight because you
believe based on faith.

I have faith in what I believe based on evidence. Some of the evidence is from eyewitness testimony written in the Holy Bible. Some of that evidence is based on eyewitness testimony from scientists and Youtube videos and television news reports. Whereas, you have faith in unreliable testimony from evolutionists, some of which are known liars. 😏

Originally posted by RJHinds
I have faith in what I believe based on evidence. Some of the evidence is from eyewitness testimony written in the Holy Bible. Some of that evidence is based on eyewitness testimony from scientists and Youtube videos and television news reports. Whereas, you have faith in unreliable testimony from evolutionists, some of which are known liars. 😏

Word salad.

Smug word salad at that.

Originally posted by googlefudge

Have you heard of this thing we have called Science?

Been proving stuff for 200+ years...

Right.
There are nine planets.
No there are eight.
No, its nine again.

Can't argue with the proofs of science.

Originally posted by sonship

Have you heard of this thing we have called Science?

Been proving stuff for 200+ years...

Right.
There are nine planets.
No there are eight.
No, its nine again.

Can't argue with the proofs of science.

Not that one again. I am fairly sure you were included in a discussion of that in the past. But in case you weren't, please explain why scientists changing the definition of a word somehow detracts from the proofs of science as you seem to be implying.
If mathematicians decided to redefine the term 'rational numbers' to exclude zero, would that in any way shape or form detract from any mathematical proof ever?

Originally posted by googlefudge
[b]Why eyewitness testimony isn't reliable or sufficient for extraordinary claims.
Or why I wont [and we shouldn't] accept your 'personal experience' as evidence

It is often claimed by believers of all stripes that while they don't have any evidence
to show you to back up their claims of the supernatural, they have had a personal
exper ...[text shortened]... f you cannot prove it, you cannot know it.
........
If you cannot show it, you cannot know it.[/b]

So you had some lunch yesterday, but you cannot show it to us now. Therefore, you do not know whether you indeed had lunch yesterday. Because your memory may fool you.
This has got to be the end to calling witnesses into trials too....

Originally posted by twhitehead

But in case you weren't, please explain why scientists changing the definition of a word somehow detracts from the proofs of science as you seem to be implying.

Though you probably have a point I am sure you would also argue that
if it were not the case science could not grow as it should. So I don't think it is a completely bad thing that definitions of scientific terms change.


I think I will just refer to a funny cartoon I saw once.

A group of white coated scientists are huddled around a chalk board which is filled with complicated equations. And one of them is saying -

"The most depressing thing is that everything we believe here today will one day be proved wrong."

Originally posted by googlefudge
But you believe things based on faith, which by definition means you believe things for
which there is no evidence, or for which there is considerable evidence against.

As faith allows a person to believe literally anything, and thus cannot be a valid justification
for any belief.

Why should anyone care that you believe something?

The statem ...[text shortened]... t that you believe something carries precisely zero weight because you
believe based on faith.

This is blatantly incorrect and I've told you this a zillion times. Yes, a zillion.

And besides, you have zero evidence "against" my faith. It's wrong? Prove it. Something you cannot do. Does this mean it's wrong? Absolutely not. In fact, you cannot know it is wrong, and therefore you err when saying that it is wrong (with zero evidence).

Therefore, you telling me that my faith is wrong carries precisely zero weight. I'd rather listen all day to what a person believes without evidence than what a person calls "fact" with no evidence.

That's right. What you call a "fact" should be significantly less-regarded if there is no evidence to back it up than what someone believes if there is no evidence to back it up.

Why should anyone care that you call something a "fact" without evidence? Does it suddenly have weight if you call it a "fact"? No.

Even a "fact", without evidence, is only as good as "faith". So, basically, you only "believe" that my faith is wrong, a "belief" that you cannot have any valid justification for.

And, as you ask, why should anyone care that you believe something?

Originally posted by Flower04
So you had some lunch yesterday, but you cannot show it to us now. Therefore, you do not know whether you indeed had lunch yesterday. Because your memory may fool you.
This has got to be the end to calling witnesses into trials too....

Witnesses are essential for court trials, however eyewitness testimony is also very fragile
evidence that it's easy to corrupt and isn't reliable.

There are a number of links to people discussing this very problem in the thread.

The problem is that evidence is NEVER black and white binary true or false, 100% reliable
or unreliable.

It's all probabilistic.

I usually have lunch when I am at work, I go order it from the shop on the corner around
11:30 and they deliver it sometime around 12:15~12:40 pretty much every working day.

So If I claim to have had lunch yesterday at work, that is a very ordinary claim, because
A) people having lunch is a very common thing, its an ordinary and not extraordinary claim.
B) I have lunch almost every working day and thus for me it would be highly unlikely to not
have lunch on any given workday.

And I can also have evidence I had lunch, it's basically the only thing I pay for with actual
cash so it's easy to track how much I spent on it over the week, and they will have a written
record that I ordered lunch that day... ect ect.

And memory isn't 100% unreliable either, so the fact that I remember doing something like
this IS evidence I did it. But it's not very strong evidence.

In this case of my ordering lunch, coupled with the other physical evidence and the people in
the shop remembering as well [we chat most days] and other evidence like not remembering
being really hungry later because I hadn't eaten, I can be pretty confident that I did in
fact have lunch.

But I still can't be certain.

However it doesn't matter generally because whether or not I had lunch on any given day
is not really important.


When we start talking about eyewitnesses to crimes, it's a lot more important, and typically
the conditions are much less optimal for forming accurate memories [crimes tend to be stressful
and fast].

In a study in the states cited in several of the links/videos that have been posted in the thread
they found that out of several hundred convicted prisoners freed because DNA evidence exonerated
them, 75% were convicted on the basis of eyewitness identification. Some of these people had
been on death row. They were sentenced to death on the basis of sometimes one persons
faulty identification and memory.

And then we get to the point of the thread, because this is spirituality and not science or crime
solvers forum.


We know people can and do hallucinate, we know peoples memories are very far from faulty and
people can be easily made to remember things that never happened and that even at the best of times
memories are always part fiction as the brain fills in the huge gaps in our perception.

And because we know this we know that we should not and cannot accept eyewitness testimony as
convincing evidence for any kind of extraordinary supernatural claim.
And that even the people who have these experiences shouldn't find those experiences to be convincing
that they actually happened.

Extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence, and eyewitness testimony, even your own, doesn't
come close to that standard.