Human rationality has failed repeatedly in the past when encountering evidence from the physical world. We rationalized the earth being the center of the universe, until “ci sono tres!” We rationalized newtonian physics until general relativity. We rationalized deterministic physics until quantum. Its only by expanding our understanding the other evidence that we’ve corrected wrong or incomplete theories and hypotheses.
As I’ve argued in another comment that apparently one (or more) readers rationalized wasn’t worthy of the discussion, there is other, physical, evidence outside your hypothesis of Knox’s innocence that isn’t accounted for in your approach. Your hypothesis was flawed from the onset, as it didn’t incorporate what is typically considered part of a “crime scene”. Without expanding your hypothesis such that it can explain the other physical evidence, your conclustion will be either incomplete, or worse, completely wrong.
Case in point- A bloody bare half footprint was found in the bathroom. There was no such footprint revealed in the bedroom, nor were there any steps between the bedroom and the bathroom. At some point, you have to posit that that bare foot stepped in blood, but there is no such physical evidence of that to be found in the bedroom. Its a thorn in the side of the Guede acted as a “Lone Wolf” hypothesis. You could chose to let it remain just a thorn, as the church tried to do with “Ci sono tres”; but thankfully under our legal systems a much more thorough look is usually followed.
I quite expect this challenge of your assumption of Knox’s innocence to be voted down, like all of the others I’ve posted. But I challenge those who would do so- is the hypothesis put forth by the author of the article strong enough to stand on its own against such challenges, or does it require looking away from what we disagree with?
there is other, physical, evidence outside your hypothesis of Knox’s innocence that isn’t accounted for in your approach.[...] Without expanding your hypothesis such that it can explain the other physical evidence, your conclustion will be either incomplete, or worse, completely wrong.
It is not the job of a rationalist to account for every single puzzling detail; the job of a rationalist is to arrive at the correct conclusion as efficiently as possible. This means following the strong signal. The strength of evidence matters. Yes, there are puzzling details about the crime scene, but none are so strange as to make Knox and Sollecito’s guilt a more parsimonious explanation than the “Lone Wolf” hypothesis.
You are committing at least one (probably more) of the following errors:
-Underestimating the complexity of the hypothesis “Knox and Sollecito did it”;
-Failing to comprehend the difference in strength between the evidence against Guede and the evidence against Knox and Sollecito;
-Not adequately adjusting for your own evolved cognitive biases, which may lead your mind to play tricks on you (reading LW would help with this, btw).
In short, you haven’t gotten the point of the post. I suggest reading it again, and reading other articles here on LW. (Start here.)
In response to your first point, reportedly 19 judges found time and again in the year of hearings leading up to the trial there was sufficient cause that Knox and Sollecito were involved. While I myself have argued elsewhere about how complex the explanation is that is required from the prosecution’s theory of the three of them in the room in some sex orgy gone wrong, neither do I think that a full examination of all of the physical evidence of the crime scene supports a theory of Guede acting alone.
Your assessment that the Knox/Sollecito theory is a physically complex one is based on the evidence in the room and our conventional understanding of DNA. I’ll agree that based on that there’s a much higher factor of probability of the Guede “Lone Wolf” then there is of Knox/Sollecito.
I’ll also agree that there is strong evidence found that Guede was in the room at or near the time of death, compared to almost none found for Knox/Sollecito.
As far as cognitive biases, I’ve tried to examine each part of physical evidence and testimony on its merits, not on what conclusions other people have made. In doing so, I’ve learned about Luminol and its interactions with bleach and LCN DNA testing which both assist in assessing the weight of the evidence presented. In the case of the other physical evidence of the house, i.e. the potentially staged break-in I’ve looked at it in terms of plausibility. I have argued elsewhere that it was entirely plausible the break-in was real; that plausibility took a hit when I saw the physical evidence of how the glass was broken in the window.
I’ll also agree that Occam’s razor make the Prosecution’s theory highly implausible.
But there are other hypothesis suggested by the physical evidence. I find that after arriving at your conclusion that Guede is the one that the “winds of evidence” blow to, you then use that to dismiss evidence that would point to the involvement of others as “noise.” This is despite your earlier statement that one should ” be blown by the winds of evidence toward one or more possible suspects.”
A bloody half-footprint on the bathmat in the bathroom is such evidence. It is in the victim’s blood. No prints leading up to it were found-no other bare footprints in visible blood were found at all. On that basis, the police conducted a physical test and found two-three other prints revealed by luminol near the scene, two of them of a quite different foot size. That is physical evidence that doesn’t point to Guede.
With physical evidence that points to someone other then Guede, I therefore disagree with your conclusion that the jury’s decision was a “gigantic, disastrous rationality failure on the part of our species.”
Human rationality has failed repeatedly in the past when encountering evidence from the physical world. We rationalized the earth being the center of the universe, until “ci sono tres!” We rationalized newtonian physics until general relativity. We rationalized deterministic physics until quantum. Its only by expanding our understanding the other evidence that we’ve corrected wrong or incomplete theories and hypotheses.
As I’ve argued in another comment that apparently one (or more) readers rationalized wasn’t worthy of the discussion, there is other, physical, evidence outside your hypothesis of Knox’s innocence that isn’t accounted for in your approach. Your hypothesis was flawed from the onset, as it didn’t incorporate what is typically considered part of a “crime scene”. Without expanding your hypothesis such that it can explain the other physical evidence, your conclustion will be either incomplete, or worse, completely wrong.
Case in point- A bloody bare half footprint was found in the bathroom. There was no such footprint revealed in the bedroom, nor were there any steps between the bedroom and the bathroom. At some point, you have to posit that that bare foot stepped in blood, but there is no such physical evidence of that to be found in the bedroom. Its a thorn in the side of the Guede acted as a “Lone Wolf” hypothesis. You could chose to let it remain just a thorn, as the church tried to do with “Ci sono tres”; but thankfully under our legal systems a much more thorough look is usually followed.
I quite expect this challenge of your assumption of Knox’s innocence to be voted down, like all of the others I’ve posted. But I challenge those who would do so- is the hypothesis put forth by the author of the article strong enough to stand on its own against such challenges, or does it require looking away from what we disagree with?
It is not the job of a rationalist to account for every single puzzling detail; the job of a rationalist is to arrive at the correct conclusion as efficiently as possible. This means following the strong signal. The strength of evidence matters. Yes, there are puzzling details about the crime scene, but none are so strange as to make Knox and Sollecito’s guilt a more parsimonious explanation than the “Lone Wolf” hypothesis.
You are committing at least one (probably more) of the following errors:
-Underestimating the complexity of the hypothesis “Knox and Sollecito did it”;
-Failing to comprehend the difference in strength between the evidence against Guede and the evidence against Knox and Sollecito;
-Not adequately adjusting for your own evolved cognitive biases, which may lead your mind to play tricks on you (reading LW would help with this, btw).
In short, you haven’t gotten the point of the post. I suggest reading it again, and reading other articles here on LW. (Start here.)
In response to your first point, reportedly 19 judges found time and again in the year of hearings leading up to the trial there was sufficient cause that Knox and Sollecito were involved. While I myself have argued elsewhere about how complex the explanation is that is required from the prosecution’s theory of the three of them in the room in some sex orgy gone wrong, neither do I think that a full examination of all of the physical evidence of the crime scene supports a theory of Guede acting alone.
Your assessment that the Knox/Sollecito theory is a physically complex one is based on the evidence in the room and our conventional understanding of DNA. I’ll agree that based on that there’s a much higher factor of probability of the Guede “Lone Wolf” then there is of Knox/Sollecito.
I’ll also agree that there is strong evidence found that Guede was in the room at or near the time of death, compared to almost none found for Knox/Sollecito.
As far as cognitive biases, I’ve tried to examine each part of physical evidence and testimony on its merits, not on what conclusions other people have made. In doing so, I’ve learned about Luminol and its interactions with bleach and LCN DNA testing which both assist in assessing the weight of the evidence presented. In the case of the other physical evidence of the house, i.e. the potentially staged break-in I’ve looked at it in terms of plausibility. I have argued elsewhere that it was entirely plausible the break-in was real; that plausibility took a hit when I saw the physical evidence of how the glass was broken in the window.
I’ll also agree that Occam’s razor make the Prosecution’s theory highly implausible.
But there are other hypothesis suggested by the physical evidence. I find that after arriving at your conclusion that Guede is the one that the “winds of evidence” blow to, you then use that to dismiss evidence that would point to the involvement of others as “noise.” This is despite your earlier statement that one should ” be blown by the winds of evidence toward one or more possible suspects.”
A bloody half-footprint on the bathmat in the bathroom is such evidence. It is in the victim’s blood. No prints leading up to it were found-no other bare footprints in visible blood were found at all. On that basis, the police conducted a physical test and found two-three other prints revealed by luminol near the scene, two of them of a quite different foot size. That is physical evidence that doesn’t point to Guede.
With physical evidence that points to someone other then Guede, I therefore disagree with your conclusion that the jury’s decision was a “gigantic, disastrous rationality failure on the part of our species.”