On Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:10:51 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Warp wrote:
>>   It's scary that eyewitness testimony is the *highest* form of
>>   evidence in
>> most courts of law, even though eyewitness testimony is more or less
>> the same thing as anecdotal evidence.
> 
> Uh, not really. The way it works in the USA is that if someone does a
> test, they have to testify what the test was. So the evidence is the
> policeman saying "I measured the skid marks and they were 12 feet long"
> followed by the scientist saying "if you are going 87MPH and slam on the
> brakes, your skid marks will be about 12 feet long."  (Followed by the
> other side saying "if the tire had blown out, the skid marks would be 12
> feet long even if he was only going the legal speed limit at the time"
> perhaps.)
> 
> One can't just present the facts. Some *person* has to present the facts
> *and* testify that they are true, and then the jury has to decide
> whether to believe it or not.  You can't just show a photograph as
> evidence. You can show a photograph as evidence if you have the
> photographer come up and say "I took this photo and what's in the photo
> is what I saw when I took it, and the photo hasn't been doctored."
> 
> In science, the equivalent is peer review and replicated experiments.
> You don't really want to use that technique in a murder investigation.
> ;-)

Well said, Darren.

Jim

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