From what I’ve read on the internet since I posted the statement to which you’ve replied, I tend to share your view that there’s no physical evidence, for lack of a better term, of more than one attacker. Similarly, I’ve encountered nothing that suggests the shattered window is evidence of anything other than a genuine break-in. Maybe that’s been discussed extensively in the threads, too.
I’ll qualify that, in two ways. First, the things I’ve read have been second-hand reports, at websites where the case has been discussed. I would prefer to have read primary sources, i.e., trial testimony, official evidentiary reports, and the like; but to be honest, I’m not caught up in the case enough to track such things down.
Second, my sense—identical to yours—that a cleanup that removed all the evidence except that from Guede would have to be amazingly selective is pretty much the sort of hunter-gatherer thinking that the author of the present post disparages; I don’t think I could say I’m being scientific.
Komponisto translated what documentation was available to the public in Italy for people on this site to peruse. They’re probably still linked on this or some related page, but if you’re not invested enough to check them out yourself, I’ll at least say that having spent a fair amount of time examining them during a protracted debate on the subject, I’d regard them as pretty damning to the prosecution.
Given some of your statements in this thread though, I think it might be a good idea (at least if you want to get an understanding of why people have been downvoting your comments,) to check out Privileging the Hypothesis and 0 and 1 Are Not Probabilities. Reading the entire How To Change Your Mind sequence would definitely give a better understanding of where people in this thread are coming from, but to be fair, it’s pretty long.
I appreciate your alerting me to Komponisto’s translations. If the information I’ve encountered at pro-guilty and anti-guilty websites had not given me identical impressions of the murder-room evidence, I might well be inclined to read those translations. As things are, my caveat that my sources are second hand is a minor one. From what I know, your assessment of the prosecution doesn’t sound off-base.
After seeing your links to them, I took quick looks at “Privileging the Hypothesis” and “0 and 1 are Not Probabilities.” I’m not sure I understand why you’ve suggested I read them, but I’ll address what I’ll guess you have in mind:
Suppose we say that the investigators of the Kercher murder privileged the hypothesis that Knox and Sollecito participated in it. Once convinced of it, those investigators went looking for every little thing that seemed to support it, even while the murder premises were all but shrieking: “Guede did it; case closed.” That has nothing to do with Knox’s story-changing. Whether the interrogation of Knox would have proceeded differently if the investigators had not been privileging the hypothesis, Knox gave different stories, one of which included a false accusation. Once she did that, the story-changing itself became a legitimate focus of concern. To put that another way: One can say, “If the investigators hadn’t privileged the hypothesis that Knox participated in the murders, the story-changing wouldn’t have occurred.” Maybe so—but they did privilege it, and the story-changing did occur. That is as much a part of reality as the DNA in that room.
As for probability 1.00--well, I’ve already linked to that clip from The Godfather. When William the Conqueror was having trouble getting his Saxon subjects to accept the presence in their country of their new overlords, his Norman kin, he passed a law that said, I think, that, if a Norman were to be found dead in a Saxon town, the town was guilty of killing him. The thinking, I imagine, was rather like that of Don Corleone: “[even] if he’s struck by a bolt of lightning.” That’s what I mean when I say the probability of the guilt of a person who has engaged in story-changing like Knox’s is 1.00. Whether that’s quite in the spirit of this website, I’m not equipped to say.
Suppose we say that the investigators of the Kercher murder privileged the hypothesis that Knox and Sollecito participated in it. Once convinced of it, those investigators went looking for every little thing that seemed to support it, even while the murder premises were all but shrieking: “Guede did it; case closed.” That has nothing to do with Knox’s story-changing. Whether the interrogation of Knox would have proceeded differently if the investigators had not been privileging the hypothesis, Knox gave different stories, one of which included a false accusation. Once she did that, the story-changing itself became a legitimate focus of concern. To put that another way: One can say, “If the investigators hadn’t privileged the hypothesis that Knox participated in the murders, the story-changing wouldn’t have occurred.” Maybe so—but they did privilege it, and the story-changing did occur. That is as much a part of reality as the DNA in that room.
Since the false accusation, or rather, the statement that she had an impression that Lumumba had some association with the crime, which is what Knox provided, was itself almost certainly due to pressure from the police to give exactly that testimony, then it seems more than a little unreasonable to hold her accountable for “story changing.” The only reason that Knox pointed to Lumumba was that the police pointed her to him.
Suppose that you were living in a rather more paranoid country, where the government suspected you of subversive activities. So, they took a current captive suspect, tortured them, and told them they’d stop if the suspect accused you. If the suspect caved, would you blame them for accusing you, or the government for making them do it?
From what I’ve read on the internet since I posted the statement to which you’ve replied, I tend to share your view that there’s no physical evidence, for lack of a better term, of more than one attacker. Similarly, I’ve encountered nothing that suggests the shattered window is evidence of anything other than a genuine break-in. Maybe that’s been discussed extensively in the threads, too.
I’ll qualify that, in two ways. First, the things I’ve read have been second-hand reports, at websites where the case has been discussed. I would prefer to have read primary sources, i.e., trial testimony, official evidentiary reports, and the like; but to be honest, I’m not caught up in the case enough to track such things down.
Second, my sense—identical to yours—that a cleanup that removed all the evidence except that from Guede would have to be amazingly selective is pretty much the sort of hunter-gatherer thinking that the author of the present post disparages; I don’t think I could say I’m being scientific.
Komponisto translated what documentation was available to the public in Italy for people on this site to peruse. They’re probably still linked on this or some related page, but if you’re not invested enough to check them out yourself, I’ll at least say that having spent a fair amount of time examining them during a protracted debate on the subject, I’d regard them as pretty damning to the prosecution.
Given some of your statements in this thread though, I think it might be a good idea (at least if you want to get an understanding of why people have been downvoting your comments,) to check out Privileging the Hypothesis and 0 and 1 Are Not Probabilities. Reading the entire How To Change Your Mind sequence would definitely give a better understanding of where people in this thread are coming from, but to be fair, it’s pretty long.
I appreciate your alerting me to Komponisto’s translations. If the information I’ve encountered at pro-guilty and anti-guilty websites had not given me identical impressions of the murder-room evidence, I might well be inclined to read those translations. As things are, my caveat that my sources are second hand is a minor one. From what I know, your assessment of the prosecution doesn’t sound off-base.
After seeing your links to them, I took quick looks at “Privileging the Hypothesis” and “0 and 1 are Not Probabilities.” I’m not sure I understand why you’ve suggested I read them, but I’ll address what I’ll guess you have in mind:
Suppose we say that the investigators of the Kercher murder privileged the hypothesis that Knox and Sollecito participated in it. Once convinced of it, those investigators went looking for every little thing that seemed to support it, even while the murder premises were all but shrieking: “Guede did it; case closed.” That has nothing to do with Knox’s story-changing. Whether the interrogation of Knox would have proceeded differently if the investigators had not been privileging the hypothesis, Knox gave different stories, one of which included a false accusation. Once she did that, the story-changing itself became a legitimate focus of concern. To put that another way: One can say, “If the investigators hadn’t privileged the hypothesis that Knox participated in the murders, the story-changing wouldn’t have occurred.” Maybe so—but they did privilege it, and the story-changing did occur. That is as much a part of reality as the DNA in that room.
As for probability 1.00--well, I’ve already linked to that clip from The Godfather. When William the Conqueror was having trouble getting his Saxon subjects to accept the presence in their country of their new overlords, his Norman kin, he passed a law that said, I think, that, if a Norman were to be found dead in a Saxon town, the town was guilty of killing him. The thinking, I imagine, was rather like that of Don Corleone: “[even] if he’s struck by a bolt of lightning.” That’s what I mean when I say the probability of the guilt of a person who has engaged in story-changing like Knox’s is 1.00. Whether that’s quite in the spirit of this website, I’m not equipped to say.
Since the false accusation, or rather, the statement that she had an impression that Lumumba had some association with the crime, which is what Knox provided, was itself almost certainly due to pressure from the police to give exactly that testimony, then it seems more than a little unreasonable to hold her accountable for “story changing.” The only reason that Knox pointed to Lumumba was that the police pointed her to him.
Suppose that you were living in a rather more paranoid country, where the government suspected you of subversive activities. So, they took a current captive suspect, tortured them, and told them they’d stop if the suspect accused you. If the suspect caved, would you blame them for accusing you, or the government for making them do it?