Eyewitness testimony. This is a person testifying about something they have seen. One might expect the first blow to be dealt over definition ("Did it wobble, or was it wavering?"), but I'll leave that for another time. Firstly, let's consider some basic facts about how accurate eyewitnesses are.
(The quotes below preceede their respective links. Please visit them for more information.)
"...in 1887 Richard Hodgson and S. John Davey held seances in Britain (in which phenomena were faked by trickery) for unsuspecting sitters and requested each sitter to write a description of the seance after it had ended. Hodgson and Davey reported that sitters omitted many important events and recalled others in incorrect order. Indeed, some of the accounts were so unreliable that Hodgson later remarked: The account of a trick by a person ignorant of the method used in its production will involve a misdescription of its fundamental conditions . . . so marked that no clue is afforded the student for the actual explanation (Hodgson and Davey 1887, p. 9)."
(http://www.csicop.org/si/9511/eyewitness.html)
This immediately points to the fallability of a witness when placed in a strange setting (of which, seeing an alien ship is one), but I can almost hear many readers considering the weight an eyewitness has in a court room. It has been touted that witnesses can put a criminal away with no other supporting evidence. This is innacurate as the next quote I found on a legal research site explains.
"In People v Franklin Anderson, 389 Mich 155 (1973), the Court reviewed the basis of the holdings in the "Wade cases" and considered their application to cases involving photographic identification procedures. The Court relied on studies showing that eyewitness confidence had little relation to accuracy, the stress of events could severely distort memory, and identification procedures encouraged "positive identification of things merely similar." Id., at 205. The Franklin Anderson Court took judicial notice of four procedural and psychological factors involved in eyewitness identifications:
1. the natural and usually necessary reliance on eyewitness identification of defendants by the police and prosecution;
2. the scientifically and judicially recognized fact that there are serious limitations on the reliability of eyewitness identification of defendants;
3. the scientifically and judicially recognized fact that frequently employed police and prosecution procedures often (and frequently unintentionally) mislead eyewitnesses into misidentification of the defendant;
4. the historical and legal fact that a significant number of innocent people have been convicted of crimes they did not commit and the real criminal was left at large." Id., at 172."
(http://catalog.dogpile.com/texis/redir/main.bin?q=%22Eyewitness+testimony%22+reliability&u=www.ezlawlocator.com)
So here we have documentation of the United States judicial system not wholly taking a witness at their word. Impeachment is a process in which a lawyer will attempt to raise doubts in the eyewitness. Sometimes this is successful and other times it fails, but this is mainly due to the determination and will of the witness, and not on how convinced they are that they are accurate. Seemingly, the witness would rather not be percieved as wrong.
Even when an eyewitness is certian of a thing, the possibility that the memory is distorted comes into play. This is the reason police reports are written at the time of the incident, and why journalists use recording devices rather than just their memories alone to preserve a moment in time. The mind is a wonderful and widely mysterious organ, and as we will soon see, quite open to persuasion and manipulation.
"Even where there are memory experiences, when one seems to relive the experience, these experiences are not merely the playing back of something previously recorded into one's memory. Memories can be constructed. If a witness to an automobile accident is asked whether the red car stopped at the yield sign, the witness may very well picture a scene with a yield sign and try to recall or recognize what happened. Later, if asked whether there was a yield sign, the witness may clearly remember seeing a yield sign even if there was a stop sign instead. The imagined yield sign has become part of the memory of the accident.[12]
In one experiment, a child was asked whether he had ever seen caught his finger in a mouse trap in his basement. The child had never seen a mouse trap and had to have it described to him. A week later, asked the same thing, he says, "Well, I saw a mouse trap in my basement once, but I didn't catch my finger in it." Another week and the same question. "Yes, it was terrible. It really hurt."[13] There are many similar cases...
In some cases people who are asked about certain situations that it is known they never experienced later have more or less vivid memories of having been in those situations.[14]
There have been various cases in which after suggestive questioning children claimed with great conviction that they had been subject to serious sorts of abuse..."
(http://mind.princeton.edu/~ghh/Legal.html)
So once again, we ask the question: How reliable are the eyewitnesses?
Well, from my limited (and admittedly one sided search), I entered ""Eyewitness testimony" & reliability". My search revealed NOTHING that supported the testimony of anyone. I uncovered no document, nor read any line which stated or inferred that witnesses are even acceptable as far as evidence goes.
I remember a story about a law class: On the first day, the teacher began class with a discussion about eyewitnesses. He lectured for about 15 minutes and then the doors to the classroom burst open. Two people ran screaming down the steps and then out a second door. Without a pause, the professor asked everyone to quietly take out a piece of paper and write down an account of what they saw. The reports varied so widely that an outside party would not be able to discern even the sex of the two people for absolute certian.
Of course, I could be remembering the story incorrectly...
I suppose that is exactly my point.
-242
(The quotes below preceede their respective links. Please visit them for more information.)
"...in 1887 Richard Hodgson and S. John Davey held seances in Britain (in which phenomena were faked by trickery) for unsuspecting sitters and requested each sitter to write a description of the seance after it had ended. Hodgson and Davey reported that sitters omitted many important events and recalled others in incorrect order. Indeed, some of the accounts were so unreliable that Hodgson later remarked: The account of a trick by a person ignorant of the method used in its production will involve a misdescription of its fundamental conditions . . . so marked that no clue is afforded the student for the actual explanation (Hodgson and Davey 1887, p. 9)."
(http://www.csicop.org/si/9511/eyewitness.html)
This immediately points to the fallability of a witness when placed in a strange setting (of which, seeing an alien ship is one), but I can almost hear many readers considering the weight an eyewitness has in a court room. It has been touted that witnesses can put a criminal away with no other supporting evidence. This is innacurate as the next quote I found on a legal research site explains.
"In People v Franklin Anderson, 389 Mich 155 (1973), the Court reviewed the basis of the holdings in the "Wade cases" and considered their application to cases involving photographic identification procedures. The Court relied on studies showing that eyewitness confidence had little relation to accuracy, the stress of events could severely distort memory, and identification procedures encouraged "positive identification of things merely similar." Id., at 205. The Franklin Anderson Court took judicial notice of four procedural and psychological factors involved in eyewitness identifications:
1. the natural and usually necessary reliance on eyewitness identification of defendants by the police and prosecution;
2. the scientifically and judicially recognized fact that there are serious limitations on the reliability of eyewitness identification of defendants;
3. the scientifically and judicially recognized fact that frequently employed police and prosecution procedures often (and frequently unintentionally) mislead eyewitnesses into misidentification of the defendant;
4. the historical and legal fact that a significant number of innocent people have been convicted of crimes they did not commit and the real criminal was left at large." Id., at 172."
(http://catalog.dogpile.com/texis/redir/main.bin?q=%22Eyewitness+testimony%22+reliability&u=www.ezlawlocator.com)
So here we have documentation of the United States judicial system not wholly taking a witness at their word. Impeachment is a process in which a lawyer will attempt to raise doubts in the eyewitness. Sometimes this is successful and other times it fails, but this is mainly due to the determination and will of the witness, and not on how convinced they are that they are accurate. Seemingly, the witness would rather not be percieved as wrong.
Even when an eyewitness is certian of a thing, the possibility that the memory is distorted comes into play. This is the reason police reports are written at the time of the incident, and why journalists use recording devices rather than just their memories alone to preserve a moment in time. The mind is a wonderful and widely mysterious organ, and as we will soon see, quite open to persuasion and manipulation.
"Even where there are memory experiences, when one seems to relive the experience, these experiences are not merely the playing back of something previously recorded into one's memory. Memories can be constructed. If a witness to an automobile accident is asked whether the red car stopped at the yield sign, the witness may very well picture a scene with a yield sign and try to recall or recognize what happened. Later, if asked whether there was a yield sign, the witness may clearly remember seeing a yield sign even if there was a stop sign instead. The imagined yield sign has become part of the memory of the accident.[12]
In one experiment, a child was asked whether he had ever seen caught his finger in a mouse trap in his basement. The child had never seen a mouse trap and had to have it described to him. A week later, asked the same thing, he says, "Well, I saw a mouse trap in my basement once, but I didn't catch my finger in it." Another week and the same question. "Yes, it was terrible. It really hurt."[13] There are many similar cases...
In some cases people who are asked about certain situations that it is known they never experienced later have more or less vivid memories of having been in those situations.[14]
There have been various cases in which after suggestive questioning children claimed with great conviction that they had been subject to serious sorts of abuse..."
(http://mind.princeton.edu/~ghh/Legal.html)
So once again, we ask the question: How reliable are the eyewitnesses?
Well, from my limited (and admittedly one sided search), I entered ""Eyewitness testimony" & reliability". My search revealed NOTHING that supported the testimony of anyone. I uncovered no document, nor read any line which stated or inferred that witnesses are even acceptable as far as evidence goes.
I remember a story about a law class: On the first day, the teacher began class with a discussion about eyewitnesses. He lectured for about 15 minutes and then the doors to the classroom burst open. Two people ran screaming down the steps and then out a second door. Without a pause, the professor asked everyone to quietly take out a piece of paper and write down an account of what they saw. The reports varied so widely that an outside party would not be able to discern even the sex of the two people for absolute certian.
Of course, I could be remembering the story incorrectly...
I suppose that is exactly my point.
-242