Given the number of convicted people who were later exonerated by DNA evidence it isn’t obvious to me that juries expecting physical evidence is a bad thing. One thing entailed by komponisto’s discussion of the emphasis humans put social and mental facts is that the pre-CSI judicial system assigned too much weight to such facts and likely imprisoned innocent people. And it turns out they really did imprison innocent people. So maybe it is the judicial system’s bias, not komponisto’s...
We’re discussing a claim that someone convicted of murder has a 90-99% chance of being innocent. That could be true, but not merely because they used evidence other than DNA evidence.
Oh. Obviously P(Guilty | untested DNA evidence) doesn’t equal P(Guilty | no solid physical evidence of any kind & no motive & extensive physical evidence implicating someone else)… and I actually think .1 is too low a probability of Knox’s guilt. I was just pointing out that the mere fact that CSI has lead to some jurors expecting physical evidence does not mean that those jurors are more biased than those content to convict without physical evidence. If we have an evolved bias to over-emphasize social and behavioral evidence then it is perfectly possible that watching CSI compensates for a bias rather than creates one.
Given the number of convicted people who were later exonerated by DNA evidence it isn’t obvious to me that juries expecting physical evidence is a bad thing. One thing entailed by komponisto’s discussion of the emphasis humans put social and mental facts is that the pre-CSI judicial system assigned too much weight to such facts and likely imprisoned innocent people. And it turns out they really did imprison innocent people. So maybe it is the judicial system’s bias, not komponisto’s...
Even so, the number of people exonerated by later DNA evidence is nowhere near 90%.
What is special about 90%?
We’re discussing a claim that someone convicted of murder has a 90-99% chance of being innocent. That could be true, but not merely because they used evidence other than DNA evidence.
Oh. Obviously P(Guilty | untested DNA evidence) doesn’t equal P(Guilty | no solid physical evidence of any kind & no motive & extensive physical evidence implicating someone else)… and I actually think .1 is too low a probability of Knox’s guilt. I was just pointing out that the mere fact that CSI has lead to some jurors expecting physical evidence does not mean that those jurors are more biased than those content to convict without physical evidence. If we have an evolved bias to over-emphasize social and behavioral evidence then it is perfectly possible that watching CSI compensates for a bias rather than creates one.