Rolf raises a number of points that were already widely discussed (and widely dismissed) in the comments on komponisto’s posts. He has not added any new information to the discussion that was not already contained in the voluminous commentary surrounding those two posts.
More importantly, he seems to have missed/ignored a fairly central point from komponisto’s posts as relates to rationality (which is what we are generally here to discuss) which is that all of the physical and circumstantial evidence against Knox and Sollecito is irrelevant within a wide range of plausible weights assigned to it in light of the prior probabilities surrounding a case of this type. The reason this case is interesting as a test of rationality is that you can reach a likely-correct conclusion without examining any of the evidence discussed here in detail. You would need orders-of-magnitude more compelling evidence to outweigh the very small priors that should have been assigned to the joint guilt of Knox and Sollecito given the compelling evidence against Guede.
The reason this case is interesting as a test of rationality [...] compelling evidence against Guede.
That much I understand. And I did read a lot of the previous discussions. But just to take a random example, rolf_nelson brought up how DNA of random people couldn’t have easily gotten onto the bra clasp, that there had to be some more direct contact. And, RS’s DNA is clearly on it.
Where was that specific point already addressed in previous discussion?
This CNN story covers some of the doubts around the handling of the bra and the validity of the DNA results:
Bremner says that evidence on the clasp is fundamentally flawed, like much from the crime scene collection, calling the work “Fellini forensics.”
“In the [crime scene] video, you can see it went from being white in color to nearly black because it got so dirty being moved around,” Bremner said of the clasp, noting that tainted the only evidence that placed Sollecito at the scene.
Here’s a source for the ‘three unidentified individuals’ DNA’ claim:
The other key plank of the prosecution’s DNA evidence related to a clasp severed from Meredith’s bra that was found at the scene.
This was said to have Sollecito’s DNA on it. But the defence has long challenged its evidential value because it was not recovered from the floor of the victim’s bedroom until 47 days after the murder.
During that time, they claim, it was contaminated—an argument apparently supported by the fact that the rest of the bra did not show any such DNA traces.
That police could have missed the clasp for so long is also put forward as being indicative of the way in which the murder investigation was carried out.
Video footage by detectives on November 3, 2007, two days after the murder, shows the bra clasp on the floor of Meredith’s room, next to where her body was found. It had been cut from the bra she was wearing when she was attacked.
But it was not until December 18, when police revisited the crime scene, that they found the clasp at a different location in the room and finally collected it as evidence.
It was then subjected to testing, which revealed microscopic traces of DNA belonging to Sollecito as well as at least three other unidentified people.
This DNA test result is central to the prosecution’s case, because no other evidence links Sollecito or Knox to the room where the murder took place.
Emphasis mine. There is sufficient doubt around the DNA evidence to render it largely irrelevant in light of the prior probabilities for this kind of crime.
Okay, thanks—I wasn’t sure if the rolf_nelson’s claim about the three other people was the consensus at this point. I assumed he said it because he had found a good refutation of that point [1]. Confusion resolved. Disappointment with rolf_nelson’s posts on this matter understood.
[1]Note: This is not a common practice of mine, but due to the factors at play for this specific discussion.
I wasn’t endorsing the general dislike of rolf_nelson, just saying why I understand the hostility now. And the issue is about more than just his top level post, but the broader exchange between him and komponisto.
(And why do you insist on the underscore?)
ETA: Come on, it’s a joke, people. I criticized wedrifid for simply following my usage (plus making it the possessive form), even though I use that exact form all the time. I was jokingly making it look like it’s wedrifid who insists on the practice of adding underscores. Get it? Ha ha? No? Okay then...
ETA: I notice that many people have since picked up the practice of referring to other users with their exact username, and replacing spaces therein with underscores. I’m not going to say it was because of me … but I had been doing that since way back into the OB days, when no one else was …
I’m confused. I just added ’s post in this instance. More generally I tend to refer to a user by either their username or their first name. Maybe a last name instead if the reference was towards a more formal academic contribution.
It’s worth considering who’s at fault when nobody “gets” a joke.
The purpose of humor is to entertain or communicate in some form; if a joke flops with every member of its target audience, I don’t think you can blame said audience without lowering yourself to the standards of smug postmodernist writers.
Tangential: Nietzsche could conceivably be accused of this attitude, but he was really aiming to discourage lightweight thinkers from reading and misunderstanding his work. Obviously, it didn’t work.
Zack_M_Davis got the joke, as did everyone who modded him up. Only those who modded up the above wedrifid, and down my “whoosh” comment, didn’t get the joke.
I think a sufficient fraction of the audience got it. wedrifid was an outlier on this one.
If you’re referring to claim C2 (Amanda Knox’s guilt), then if komponisto follows through on his agreement to debate me, you will see that these points cannot be dismissed as easily as you believe, and that these dismissals are bogus.
Teaching requires empathy. A small application of empathy should tell you that no one in your audience will take your word for granted on this. This lack of trust could be very easily remedied with a single example: “cannot be dismissed as easily as you believe, because of some refuting point that wasn’t brought up in any of the previous discussions, as you will also see wasn’t brought up in any previous discussions”.
I honestly don’t see any valid reason to wait for a debate with komponisto in particular to provide this sort of evidence, either; which makes it sound suspiciously like an excuse for delay.
I think that is highly unlikely. Nothing you presented in your post here was new information to me (or to anyone else who spent some time reading the original comment threads and did some research of their own I imagine). I’m familiar enough with it to know where you’ve been misleading or selective. Unless you have some secret new previously undisclosed information to reveal in your debate I rate the probability of me changing my estimates for Knox’s guilt significantly as pretty low.
Have you updated your own probabilities in light of the widespread disagreement with your position here? If so how?
Rolf raises a number of points that were already widely discussed (and widely dismissed) in the comments on komponisto’s posts. He has not added any new information to the discussion that was not already contained in the voluminous commentary surrounding those two posts.
More importantly, he seems to have missed/ignored a fairly central point from komponisto’s posts as relates to rationality (which is what we are generally here to discuss) which is that all of the physical and circumstantial evidence against Knox and Sollecito is irrelevant within a wide range of plausible weights assigned to it in light of the prior probabilities surrounding a case of this type. The reason this case is interesting as a test of rationality is that you can reach a likely-correct conclusion without examining any of the evidence discussed here in detail. You would need orders-of-magnitude more compelling evidence to outweigh the very small priors that should have been assigned to the joint guilt of Knox and Sollecito given the compelling evidence against Guede.
Click.
That much I understand. And I did read a lot of the previous discussions. But just to take a random example, rolf_nelson brought up how DNA of random people couldn’t have easily gotten onto the bra clasp, that there had to be some more direct contact. And, RS’s DNA is clearly on it.
Where was that specific point already addressed in previous discussion?
Here for one.
This CNN story covers some of the doubts around the handling of the bra and the validity of the DNA results:
Here’s a source for the ‘three unidentified individuals’ DNA’ claim:
Emphasis mine. There is sufficient doubt around the DNA evidence to render it largely irrelevant in light of the prior probabilities for this kind of crime.
Okay, thanks—I wasn’t sure if the rolf_nelson’s claim about the three other people was the consensus at this point. I assumed he said it because he had found a good refutation of that point [1]. Confusion resolved. Disappointment with rolf_nelson’s posts on this matter understood.
[1]Note: This is not a common practice of mine, but due to the factors at play for this specific discussion.
ETA: Changed phrasing to be less personal.
Can we say “disappointment with rolf_nelson’s post”? I feel more comfortable with that.
I wasn’t endorsing the general dislike of rolf_nelson, just saying why I understand the hostility now. And the issue is about more than just his top level post, but the broader exchange between him and komponisto.
(And why do you insist on the underscore?)
ETA: Come on, it’s a joke, people. I criticized wedrifid for simply following my usage (plus making it the possessive form), even though I use that exact form all the time. I was jokingly making it look like it’s wedrifid who insists on the practice of adding underscores. Get it? Ha ha? No? Okay then...
Who are you and what have you done with Silas??
LOL! :-)
ETA: I notice that many people have since picked up the practice of referring to other users with their exact username, and replacing spaces therein with underscores. I’m not going to say it was because of me … but I had been doing that since way back into the OB days, when no one else was …
I’m confused. I just added ’s post in this instance. More generally I tend to refer to a user by either their username or their first name. Maybe a last name instead if the reference was towards a more formal academic contribution.
whoosh! ;-)
It’s worth considering who’s at fault when nobody “gets” a joke.
The purpose of humor is to entertain or communicate in some form; if a joke flops with every member of its target audience, I don’t think you can blame said audience without lowering yourself to the standards of smug postmodernist writers.
Tangential: Nietzsche could conceivably be accused of this attitude, but he was really aiming to discourage lightweight thinkers from reading and misunderstanding his work. Obviously, it didn’t work.
Zack_M_Davis got the joke, as did everyone who modded him up. Only those who modded up the above wedrifid, and down my “whoosh” comment, didn’t get the joke.
I think a sufficient fraction of the audience got it. wedrifid was an outlier on this one.
Updated phrasing to a happy medium.
If you’re referring to claim C2 (Amanda Knox’s guilt), then if komponisto follows through on his agreement to debate me, you will see that these points cannot be dismissed as easily as you believe, and that these dismissals are bogus.
Teaching requires empathy. A small application of empathy should tell you that no one in your audience will take your word for granted on this. This lack of trust could be very easily remedied with a single example: “cannot be dismissed as easily as you believe, because of some refuting point that wasn’t brought up in any of the previous discussions, as you will also see wasn’t brought up in any previous discussions”.
I honestly don’t see any valid reason to wait for a debate with komponisto in particular to provide this sort of evidence, either; which makes it sound suspiciously like an excuse for delay.
I think that is highly unlikely. Nothing you presented in your post here was new information to me (or to anyone else who spent some time reading the original comment threads and did some research of their own I imagine). I’m familiar enough with it to know where you’ve been misleading or selective. Unless you have some secret new previously undisclosed information to reveal in your debate I rate the probability of me changing my estimates for Knox’s guilt significantly as pretty low.
Have you updated your own probabilities in light of the widespread disagreement with your position here? If so how?