Since the elimination of the faulty DNA evidence (which was previously the best evidence against them), the best evidence against Knox and Sollecito come from the police interrogation, specifically Knox’s confession, and the fact that they knew the victim.
The strongest bit here is the confession, as knowing the victim is, at best, a pointer for where to look for a suspect—it is incredibly weak evidence on its own (in fact, there are dozens of people who fit better based on just knowing the victim) and does not in any way eliminate the possibility of a random stranger committing the crime. By all accounts the three got along reasonably well, if not particularly friendly to each other.
There are some interesting facts about the confession that I think you’re missing:
1.) It is factually incorrect. The statements in the confession do not fit the facts of the crime. This severely damages the validity of the confession.
2.) The confession came after 24 hours of non-stop interrogation by the Italian police. There have been a number of studies that have shown that suspects become highly confused after long, intense interrogation sessions—particularly those that include sleep deprivation as was the case here. Suspects can be coerced into making whatever statements the interrogators want. In fact, in the US we have laws against this kind of treatment, including things like the right to silence and the right to have an attorney present during an interrogation to prevent exactly these scenarios. As an attorney I’d expect to know this.
Taken together, by far the most likely scenario is that the police coerced the confession out of Knox. Just on the facts relating to the interrogation alone, I’d put the likelihood that the confession was genuine at 10% at the very highest.
If the confession were genuine, we would expect some physical evidence of Knox and Sollecito at the crime scene. Given the fact that there is literally zero physical evidence of Knox and Sollecito’s involvement, the likelihood that the confession is genuine must drop even further, to below 1%.
Considering the confession is about the only evidence for their involvement, I have to place the likelihood of their guilt at <1%. (There was a homeless man who claimed he saw them enter the apartment, but this is so weak as to be irrelevant given the poor track record of eyewitness accounts even immediately after a highly memorable event, the credibility of a detailed recollection of a mundane event over a year after it occurred is virtually non-existent, particularly without any evidence to back it up of any kind.)
Also, the reason I suggested you re-read the sequences is because you stated that you were 90% certain that all three were guilty, yet 90% that Guide was guilty even if the other two were not. This is a major failure in probability (and is actually a pretty common bias), as the options are Guide acted alone, or Guide acted with accomplices. Eliminating Knox and Sollecito from the equation eliminates a point of uncertainty, no matter how certain you are of Knox and Sollecito’s guilt, and aught to increase your confidence in the individual assessment of Guide’s guilt. Being 99% certain that Guide is guilty, and 90% certain that Guide, Knox, and Sollecito are guilty is logically consistent. Being 90% certain that Guide is guilty, yet 90% certain that all three are guilty is not logically consistent. You have to either lower you confidence in the guilt of all three, or raise your confidence in the guilt of Guide.
I may have phrased that last paragraph poorly, but most people should be able to understand it. I may edit for clarity later.
Edited to add: Here is a good article on coerced confessions, written by a forensic scientist.
Second edit, sorry, pertinent quote from the article:
When a confession is admitted and later retracted and claimed to have been made under duress, an additional question is whether the jury can understand the pressures that led up to the confession. Milgram’s (1963, 1964) obedience studies suggest that, although most people may believe they personally would never succumb to pressure, their behavior in a coercive environment is to conform. Jury members may be unable to perceive how an innocent person could actually confess to something he did not do. Widespread overconfidence in personal ability to resist coercion may lead jurors to give undue and erroneous weight to a coerced confession. Expert testimony may be necessary to help jurors understand the circumstances that lead to nonvoluntary confessions, but trial courts have not always admitted such testimony.
There are some interesting facts about the confession that I think you’re missing:
Not really, since I put little weight on what Knox said under interrogation. I have no problem believing that an innocent person would buckle under the pressure and point the finger at someone else. To me, what’s most interesting about this “confession” was that the authorities arrested another person (the wrong person) based on Knox’s statements. This is evidence that the authorities had something of an open mind about the situation.
Anyway, I disagree with you that this is the strongest piece of evidence against Knox and I think I can demonstrate it to you if you will indulge me by answering (or trying to answer) a few questions:
(1) When did Knox first become concerned about Kercher’s absence?
(2) When did Sollecito and Knox first call the police and why?
(3) If it turns out that the ransacking of Romanelli’s room was a staged burglary, do you agree that this is decent evidence against Knox?
Also, the reason I suggested you re-read the sequences is because you stated that you were 90% certain that all three were guilty, yet 90% that Guide was guilty even if the other two were not.
Can you show me where I did that? My recollection is I estimated roughly 99% for Guede’s guilt.
I agree that it would not make sense to estimate 90% for Knox, Sollecito, and Guede to all be involved in the murder and 90% for Guede alone.
Can you show me where I did that? My recollection is I estimated roughly 99% for Guede’s guilt.
I agree that it would not make sense to estimate 90% for Knox, Sollecito, and Guede to all be involved in the murder and 90% for Guede alone.
My apologies, I misread/misremembered your original assessment. I should have double checked before posting; you can ignore that whole portion of my post.
(1) When did Knox first become concerned about Kercher’s absence?
(2) When did Sollecito and Knox first call the police and why?
These circumstances are enough to drive suspicion toward Knox and Sollecito, but without any sort of physical evidence to back up the suspicions they are insignificant. There are a lot of possible explanations for their behavior and the vast majority don’t include murder.
(3) If it turns out that the ransacking of Romanelli’s room was a staged burglary, do you agree that this is decent evidence against Knox?
If it is proven that it was staged by Knox/Sollecito, then absolutely. The inverse is also true, however: if Knox/Sollecito are innocent, then they didn’t fake the break-in. The evidence that the break-in was staged is very weak, which is exactly what you expect to see if they are innocent.
This is the part, I think, that you are missing: the physical evidence (including reliable electronic evidence) is extremely strong evidence. It is “trumps everything” kind of strong. Slightly odd behavior is incredibly weak evidence. There is a huge amount of physical evidence in this case, and none of it points to Knox or Sollecito. The likelihood that they could be guilty of murder without leaving any evidence behind is incredibly small. Without evidence of any sort of link between Guide and Knox/Sollecito the complete lack of physical evidence of their involvement trumps the little bit of circumstantial evidence by a wide margin.
These circumstances are enough to drive suspicion toward Knox and Sollecito, but without any sort of physical evidence to back up the suspicions they are insignificant. There are a lot of possible explanations for their behavior and the vast majority don’t include murder.
It seems you are unable to answer two questions which would have been pretty easy if you understood the case against Knox and Sollecito and were still satisfied of their innocence. To be sure, they are komponisto-disingenuous questions. But still, why not simply try to answer them anyway?
This is the part, I think, that you are missing: the physical evidence (including reliable electronic evidence) is extremely strong evidence. It is “trumps everything” kind of strong. Slightly odd behavior is incredibly weak evidence.
Again, it seems pretty clear to me that you do not understand the case against Knox and Sollecito, which is far more than “slightly odd behavior.”
Without evidence of any sort of link between Guide and Knox/Sollecito
By the way, did you know that there was in fact evidence of such a link presented? I was surprised myself to learn about it.
Again, it seems pretty clear to me that you do not understand the case against Knox and Sollecito, which is far more than “slightly odd behavior.”
You act as if there is one unified “case against Knox and Sollecito”. There is not. There are many, as different people who believe Knox and Sollecito did it find different aspects to be more convincing. We understand plenty of cases against Knox and Sollecito just fine—the ones we have read that have been made clearly. What is true is that we don’t understand the case you have in mind. This is because you have never made that case, nor pointed us to someone clearly making that case. Yet you do expect us to miraculously understand the details of it. If we guess, unsurprisingly, it is counted as evidence that we don’t understand, yet you never attempt to correct that understanding. It is your responsibility to say why some bit evidence actually means anything. I’m disinclined to continue unless this is rectified.
Stop trolling and put up or if that’s too hard, at least shut up.
You act as if there is one unified “case against Knox and Sollecito”. There is not. There are many, as different people who believe Knox and Sollecito did it find different aspects to be more convincing.
Perhaps reasonable people can differ on fine gradations of significance among the more important pieces of evidence, but, for example, anyone who seriously believes that Knox’s “mannerisms” are among the best pieces of evidence against her has seriously missed the boat.
Anyway, if I have the time I will put together a blog post laying out what I think are the most important pieces of evidence and Knox (and Sollecito).
I’m happy that you’ve finally posted this. However, much of this piece makes me cringe. I don’t know if it is the style, an actual failure of logic or something else. Parts like:
It’s interesting that in this case, Sollecito had taken a strong interest in deviant pornography. I think he would have been really turned on by the idea of setting up a pretty white girl to be raped by a black thug.
Really doesn’t help your case more than simply inflame issues. Moreover, “deviant pornography”, seriously? What fraction of the population watches BDSM themed porn or other forms of non-standard porn? The fraction is orders of magnitude larger than the set of people who murder or arrange for murders. It isn’t even obvious to me that that’s even more common among murderers.
I’m happy that you’ve finally posted this. However, much of this piece makes me cringe. I don’t know if it is the style, an actual failure of logic or something else. Parts like:
It’s interesting that in this case, Sollecito had taken a strong interest in deviant pornography. I think he would have been really turned on by the idea of setting up a pretty white girl to be raped by a black thug.
Really doesn’t help your case more than simply inflame issues. Moreover, “deviant pornography”, seriously? What fraction of the population watches BDSM themed porn or other forms of non-standard porn? The fraction is orders of magnitude larger than the set of people who murder or arrange form murders. It isn’t even obvious to me that that’s even more common among murderers.
Frankly, I would guess a big part of the problem is that you did not read my post very carefully. Because you seem to be under the impression that I argued that Sollecito’s (alleged) interest in deviant pornography was evidence of guilt.
I even went so far as to put the following at the bottom the post:
Second, please try to respond to the arguments I actually make. I can already imagine some joker saying “Sollecito’s interest in deviant pornography is not evidence that he was a murder!!!” Dude, that’s not the argument I am making. I have no tolerance for people who strawman me.
If the porn is not relevant either way, then it should not be mentioned. Mentioning it in a short piece invites the viewer to interpret it that way or, if they read it so carefully as to (non-)interpret it as you say, it comes off as sheer rhetoric and an attempt to contaminate the reader’s mind with unfounded assertions.
(“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I would like you to imagine the defendant late one night holding down his daughter and raping her repeatedly in every orifice in defiance of every law of God and man. There is of course no evidence he has actually done this and we are here to discuss his tax evasion, but I simply wanted you to imagine it for a little bit. Moving on to the first tax filing exhibit...”)
If anything, I would say that the porn is evidence against Sollecito’s guilt. After all, considering how common “black guy rapes white girl” porn is, if that’s something he was interested in seeing and his porn viewing is indicative of his interests, then it would be more reasonable to expect him to have it than not.
Anyway, the idea that the porn could be not evidence, but something to show a plausible scenario, is simply nonsense. The prior probability for Sollecito’s guilt reflects all possible scenarios in which Sollecito could have been involved, and is based on our best available knowledge of how often people in his circumstances commit the sort of crime attributed to him. Any meaningful information must either show that our prior was inappropriate (people in Sollecito’s reference class commit this sort of crime more often than we thought) or show that Sollecito in particular was more likely to have committed this particular crime. Brazil disavowed its relevance in the latter respect, and it’s obviously not relevant in the former.
If the porn is not relevant either way, then it should not be mentioned.
I think it’s relevant because it helps to show that there is a remotely plausible scenario in which Knox murders her roommate; that it’s not like asserting that Elvis was actually an extra-terrestrial.
It’s the same reason I mentioned the Janet Chandler murder. The fact that one white girl took part in the rape and murder of another white girl in Michigan in the 70s is not evidence that Knox is guilty either. Again, it just helps to show that such a scenario is remotely plausible.
I would hope and expect that many of the posters on this board will accept this point about remote plausibility without any narrative. Such people should feel free to ignore that part of my blog post.
I think you’ve run afoul of the principle of charity here, in that your piece was taken as an argumentative essay and thus it was charitable to assume that each part of it was intended to support your stated conclusion. In future it would help a lot if you made your conclusions explicit at each stage of the argument rather than leaving them implicit because otherwise readers are forced to guess at what you think the evidence means.
Having read your piece I also think that you’re reasoning from some false premises. If you read enough of the popular material on the internet about this case it becomes evident fairly quickly that in pro-guilt circles the evidence has taken on a life of its own and grown in the telling.
There is no actual evidence that Sollecito had ” a strong interest in deviant pornography”, although plenty of sites would claim that. There is evidence he was once in possession of one film clip involving bestiality in his university years, which is not proof of a strong interest, and evidence he was in possession of a mainstream and unremarkable manga book, but that’s the extent of the evidence that he had any deviant sexual tendencies.
Similarly there was no evidence Amanda Knox had a promiscuous lifestyle by student standards nor that Knox had numerous male visitors. Knox gave a complete list of her lifetime sexual partners to the police when they (falsely) told her she had tested HIV+, and she wasn’t any more promiscuous than your average student.
It’s simply not true that Knox and Sollecito called the police after the police had already arrived. That misconception arose due to incorrect police testimony but it was later cleared up.
There was never any evidence that the break-in at the house was staged and the appeal court exonerated Knox and Sollecito of those charges on the grounds that particular crime had never in fact happened.
To your credit you state clearly that you are basing your opinion on popular sources and that you are open to the possibility that your evidence is faulty, and it’s no sin to reason rigorously from false premises and get to a false conclusion.
(By contrast the evidence of egregious police misconduct in the Knox case is very strong indeed. Italy is a curiosity in that it has no meaningful police oversight body and hence the police can get away with virtually anything. In every other First World country the relevant misconduct investigation body would have their metaphorical foot right up the Perugian authorities’ collective metaphorical posterior by now).
I think you’ve run afoul of the principle of charity here, in that your piece was taken as an argumentative essay and thus it was charitable to assume that each part of it was intended to support your stated conclusion. In future it would help a lot if you made your conclusions explicit at each stage of the argument rather than leaving them implicit because otherwise readers are forced to guess at what you think the evidence means.
I would say it doesn’t get much more explicit than this:
Of course, none of the above is proof or even evidence that Knox was involved, it’s pure speculation and I would write it off if there weren’t such compelling evidence against Knox.
In fact, I would go so far as to suspect that some folks here are going on the principle of anti-charity, i.e. looking for the easiest way to attack my post while ignoring the core argument.
Having read your piece I also think that you’re reasoning from some false premises.
Well let’s discuss them then.
There is no actual evidence that Sollecito had ” a strong interest in deviant pornography”,
I would say that having been in possession of a bestiality film as well as “comic books that ’mixed pornography and horror‛” is pretty good evidence of a strong interest in deviant pornography. I’m not sure that it matters, since Sollecito’s alleged interest in deviant pornography is not central to my argument. But perhaps it’s worth discussing.
You seem to dispute that Sollecito was in the possession of such comic books (plural.) Do you happen to have a cite and a link? I am going by the police report as quoted on page 103 of the sentencing report.
Similarly there was no evidence Amanda Knox had a promiscuous lifestyle by student standards nor that Knox had numerous male visitors
I’m not sure what “promiscuous lifestyle by student standards” means. According to one report I read (ETA: this morning), Knox had sex with 3 men after her arrival in Italy and 4 prior. Disagree?
As far as male visitors goes I was able to find this quote:
“Another friend, Robyn Butterworth talked about how their friend Meredith felt awkward because Knox didn’t flush the toilet. All of the girls recalled Meredith talking about how Knox brought strange men home and how she kept in the bathroom a transparent tote bag with condoms and a pink vibrator shaped like a rabbit.
I’m not sure what “numerous” means to you, but it seems clear to me that at a minimum, there is evidence to believe that Knox engaged in sexual activities which Kercher would have resented and perceived as slutty. Agreed?
It’s simply not true that Knox and Sollecito called the police after the police had already arrived. That misconception arose due to incorrect police testimony but it was later cleared up.
Well in your view, when did the police arrive? And more importantly, at the time the police arrived, were Knox and Sollecito concerned about Kercher’s absence? If you look at the evidence carefully, you will see that there is no good answer for this question which is consistent with Knox being innocent.
Also, do you agree that Sollecito at one point stated to police that he had not called the police at the time the police showed up?
There was never any evidence that the break-in at the house was staged
That’s simply not true. For example, Romanelli apparently testified to finding glass on top of her dislodged belongings. She also testified that nothing was taken. And Sollecito told the police that nothing was taken before he should have known it. Now, you may want to debate the strength of this evidence, but it’s still evidence that the break-in was staged.
and it’s no sin to reason rigorously from false premises and get to a false conclusion.
I agree. Could you please share your own sources? Maybe we can figure out which of us (perhaps both) are reasoning from false premises.
As far as sources go, it’s just a fact that so far you have provided few sources and those were vague. I’m happy to take part in a conversation where we each cite our sources properly, or where neither do, but not an asymmetrical one where I am obliged to cite sources and you are not.
I would say that having been in possession of a bestiality film as well as “comic books that ’mixed pornography and horror‛” is pretty good evidence of a strong interest in deviant pornography.
I wouldn’t say that at all. Potential alternative reasons for being in possession of a bestiality film clip include curiosity, desire to shock, or an interest in deviant pornography which does not rise to the level of “strong”. The comic book in question was ‘Blood: The Last Vampire’ which is such a mainstream affair that the animated movie shows regularly on the public broadcasting channel SBS where I live in Australia.
If Sollecito had been found to have a few gigabytes of rape and BDSM porn on his hard drive I would take that to be evidence of a strong interest in deviant pornography. One clip he possessed once in the past and a mundane comic book do not to my mind constitute strong evidence.
I’m not sure what “numerous” means to you, but it seems clear to me that at a minimum, there is evidence to believe that Knox engaged in sexual activities which Kercher would have resented and perceived as slutty. Agreed?
Well no, not based on that evidence. To begin with this was court testimony from long after the murder, from people who have had over a year to cherry-pick anything Meredith could have said at any time which could be taken as evidence of friction between Knox and Kercher. You have to avoid the base rate fallacy here: What are the odds that we would hear testimony like this if there was no serious animosity between the two, under these circumstances? I’d say pretty good.
Bear in mind that if the two had ever, say, had a nasty argument or one had stolen the other’s clothes or anything more serious had ever occurred we would be hearing about that instead. For students living together if the worst instances of friction anyone can recall are complaints about monotonous guitar practice, a transparent toiletries bag and (as I recall) a single instance of Knox bringing a strange man home, who she did not (as far as we can ascertain from her list of sexual contacts) sleep with, then they probably got along quite well.
By all accounts dating from before the murder the two got on well, went on outings together and were friends.
Well in your view, when did the police arrive? And more importantly, at the time the police arrived, were Knox and Sollecito concerned about Kercher’s absence? If you look at the evidence carefully, you will see that there is no good answer for this question which is consistent with Knox being innocent.
The postal police arrived at 13:00 as established by security camera evidence. The carabinieri arrived at 13:34. Raffaele called the police at 12:51. Knox and Sollecito had been trying to find out where Meredith was and whether she was okay from 12:07 onwards as established by phone records.
The postal police incorrectly claimed they had arrived at 12:35 but this was based on their unassisted recollection and was falsified by the security camera nearby.
That’s simply not true. For example, Romanelli apparently testified to finding glass on top of her dislodged belongings. She also testified that nothing was taken. And Sollecito told the police that nothing was taken before he should have known it.
She also testified to finding glass under some of her belongings and mixed through them, and since some things were in fact taken (money and mobile phones) the fact that some things were not taken is not evidence for staging over a real break-in. Sollecito did state that nothing was taken but at that stage he did not know anything had been taken, and while an ideal rationalist with time to think would have said “I am aware of no evidence anything was taken” a university student under stress being imprecise is not more consistent with guilt than innocence.
There were also scuff marks on the wall outside consistent with someone climbing in, freshly exposed brickwork consistent with someone chipping the wall while climbing in, white powdery deposits in Filomena’s room consistent with someone having scuffed their feet on the white wall outside while climbing in, and several large chunks of glass on the outside windowsill consistent with someone positioned on the window sill manually enlarging the hole in the glass to access the window’s latch. This is all evident from photographs of the crime scene yet the police inexplicably testified that there was no evidence of a break-in.
The comic book in question was ‘Blood: The Last Vampire’ which is such a mainstream affair that the animated movie shows regularly on the public broadcasting channel SBS where I live in Australia.
Wait, that was what was being referenced when Brazil quoted
“comic books that ’mixed pornography and horror‛”
‽ My high school anime club showed the movie of that twice (we ran under schedule one day) so I remember it well… Good grief. And Brazil is still arguing. I don’t know why you guys are still bothering—I’m not going to, even if it seems tempting.
I’m happy to take part in a conversation where we each cite our sources properly, or where neither do, but not an asymmetrical one where I am obliged to cite sources and you are not.
The way I do things with sources is that if somebody represents to me that he is seriously skeptical of a claim I have made, I will normally try to find a source. Similarly, I will not ask for a source (or cite) unless I am seriously skeptical of a claim which has been made. The reason I do things this way is because I do think in general people should provide sources (or cites) to back up their claims, but at the same time I have encountered problems in online debate with people who demand cites for claims which they don’t seriously dispute, presumably just to distract the discussion from the critical issues. (Also, keep in mind that for some claims, general knowledge, simple observation, and common sense are potentially reasonable or adequate sources. )
So the upshot is that I will try to find and provide a cite or source for any claim I make if you represent to me that you are seriously skeptical of the claim.
With that out of the way, I am seriously skeptical of your apparent claim that Sollecito was in the possession of a “mainstream and unremarkable manga book” and not multiple “comic books that mixed pornography and horror.” I have provided a cite for my position, now please provide a cite for yours.
Well no, not based on that evidence.
I’m not sure I understand your point.
Do you agree that there was testimony that Kercher advised her friends that Knox had brought “strange men [plural]” over?
Do you agree that such testimony is evidence (although perhaps not proof) that Knox did in fact bring multiple men to the residence?
Based on your knowledge of human nature, do you agree that there is a pretty good chance that Kercher would have resented such behavior?
The postal police arrived at 13:00 as established by security camera evidence.
Can you give me a cite for this please? (I am seriously skeptical)
Raffaele called the police at 12:51. Knox and Sollecito had been trying to find out where Meredith was and whether she was okay from 12:07 onwards as established by phone records.
Ok, then here’s a couple questions for you:
If Knox and Sollecito were concerned about Kercher’s absence when the postal police arrived, why did Knox (apparently) advise them that Kercher normally kept her door locked?
Why did Sollecito (apparently) later admit to the authorities that he had not yet called the police with the postal police showed up?
(And yes, I will provide sources for this stuff if you represent to me that you are seriously skeptical.)
She also testified to finding glass under some of her belongings
I’m not sure what your point is here. Do you dispute that she testified to finding glass on top of some of her belongings? Do you dispute that this is evidence (evidence, not conclusive proof) of a staged break-in?
some things were in fact taken (money and mobile phones) the fact that some things were not taken
Well do you agree that (1) the evidence seems to indicate that nothing was taken from Romenelli’s room; and (2) according to Sollecito’s story, he had seen Romanelli’s room but not Kercher’s room at that point?
a university student under stress being imprecise is not more consistent with guilt than innocence.
Well was he asked about it or did he volunteer it? As far as I know, he first volunteered that there was no theft and then when asked if anything was taken, he said “no.” I could understand him giving an imprecise answer if asked about it, but why would he volunteer that nothing was taken?
There were also scuff marks on the wall outside consistent with someone climbing in,
Again, I am seriously skeptical of this claim. Please back it up with a quote, link, and cite.
Yes, I saw that, but I found it to be as either disingenuous or at best unhelpful. If it is irrelevant then it shouldn’t be mentioned. In context if you are using it for evidence then claiming you aren’t isn’t helpful and simply brings up something that will make people annoyed.
The same thing could be said about my mention of the Janet Chandler murder. The fact that one white girl helped to rape and murder another white girl (who was her roommate) back in the 70s in Michigan is not evidence of Knox’s guilt.
But as I mentioned in the blog post, I think both are helpful to show a remotely plausible scenario in which Knox is guilty.
If you disagree, then I think that under the “principle of charity,” you should simply ignore paragraphs 2 through 7 (which you apparently consider to be irrelevant, inflammatory fluff) and consider the core of my argument.
Yes, and the mention of the Chandler case also falls into the same category.
both are helpful to show a remotely plausible scenario in which Knox is guilty.
Does something increase plausibility or show a plausible scenario? Then it is evidence. If it doesn’t increase plausibility then it isn’t evidence. You can’t have it both ways.
Well, new information could suggest that you applied the wrong prior. If you’re trying to calculate the likelihood of a person’s guilt, and you find that the crime is more common than you originally thought, you’ll have to assign a higher probability of guilt, but you could reasonably say that it’s not evidence of guilt, because you’re revising P(A) rather than introducing a new (B).
This could be said to apply to the mention of the Chandler case, if you don’t have any information on how common such crimes are that would screen it off, but it clearly does not apply to the porn.
Does something increase plausibility or show a plausible scenario? Then it is evidence.
Well sure if you want to take a broad view of what constitutes “evidence,” then everything in my scenario constitutes “evidence.” (ETA: I would take a slightly narrower view, but perhaps it makes sense to agree on a definition.)
Similarly, by your standard the fact that had had sex with at least 7 men by the age of 20 is “evidence.” Why? First, because it raises the probability that she suffers from borderline personality disorder and therefore is lacking in empathy. Someone lacking in empathy is more likely to take part in a serious crime against another person. Second, because it raises the probability that she had male visitors which would have increased tension between her and Kercher, increasing the chances that she had a motive.
Anyway, I have a question for you: Why do you continue to ignore my core argument for Knox’s guilt?
Similarly, by your standard the fact that had had sex with at least 7 men by the age of 20 is “evidence.” Why? First, because it raises the probability that she suffers from borderline personality disorder and therefore is lacking in empathy.
Yes, this is all evidence according to the Bayesian definition. Calling E evidence (with respect to prior knowledge X) for a proposition H just means that p(H | E & X) > p(H | X). That is why quantifying evidence is so important. Just how much evidence is it? If all the evidence you offer raises the probability of H by only a few percent from a very low prior, then it should have practically no effect on how we treat Knox.
Yes, this is all evidence according to the Bayesian definition. Calling E evidence (with respect to prior knowledge X) for a proposition H just means that p(H | E & X) > p(H | X). That is why quantifying evidence is so important. Just how much evidence is it? If all the evidence you offer raises the probability of H by only a few percent from a very low prior, then it should have practically no effect on how we treat Knox.
I basically agree, but sometimes it’s helpful to have a story or narrative or illustration before jumping in to look at the important evidence. That’s just how the human mind works, or at least most peoples’ minds. I realize this can be dangerous, for example it can lead to a “conjunction fallacy,” but I was careful to lable my narrative as speculation.
Just today I was browsing this web site and I came across an article called “Existential Risk” which was complete with (1) a picture of the Earth; (2) a likely apocryphal story about a man who singlehandedly prevented nuclear war; and (3) a picture of a Stanford torus. Is this cheap emotional manipulation? Perhaps, but again, I think this kind of story-telling can be useful to get the mind ready to focus on the meat of the argument.
One can ask what the likelihood is that we are reaching a critical juncture where the decisions and dilligence of just a few humans in the artificial intelligence community will have a massive impact on the future of humanity. Strictly speaking, the fact that some Russian dude did (or didn’t) singlehandedly prevent a nuclear war shouldn’t have much impact on our estimate of this probability. But I think it still might be worth mentioning to demonstrate the plausibility of the claim that one person can have a big impact.
In the same way, I think it’s worth mentioning the Janet Chandler case from the 70s. But again, if you object to this approach, just ignore paragraphs 2 through 7 of my blog post.
In the same way, I think it’s worth mentioning the Janet Chandler case from the 70s. But again, if you object to this approach, just ignore paragraphs 2 through 7 of my blog post.
I agree that it’s worth mentioning Janet Chandler. It would be better to treat it seriously as evidence, rather than merely as a narrative framing device. To treat it seriously as evidence, you should use it to help establish a prior probability for Knox’s guilt (like Desrtopa did).
It would be better to treat it seriously as evidence, rather than merely as a narrative framing device. To treat it seriously as evidence, you should use it to help establish a prior probability for Knox’s guilt
It seems to me that “narrative framing device” is basically a poor man’s method of estimating a prior probability. Here’s what I said in my blog post:
The point is that there are levels of extraordinary. Claiming that Knox participated in her roommate’s murder is not like claiming that the president is actually an extra-terrestrial from Mars.
Of course in terms of assessing probabilities, it might be better if there were a lot of precedents, for example in a situation where a husband is suspected of killing his wife. But here there’s not a lot to go on.
It seems you are unable to answer two questions which would have been pretty easy if you understood the case against Knox and Sollecito and were still satisfied of their innocence. To be sure, they are komponisto-disingenuous questions. But still, why not simply try to answer them anyway?
It’s a very effective rhetorical device to trick the opponent into saying a complicated thing, and then respond with a simple thing. I’m not saying this is what you are attempting, but it could well seem that you are attempting this.
For example homeopaths try to steer conversations about homeopathy so that the skeptic says a lot of complicated things about Avogadro’s Number and the minute time-scale on which water molecule structures persist and the need for double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials and then the homeopath gets to say “Yes, well, it miraculously cured my cat’s cataracts and that’s all I need to know”.
If you tried to explain what evidence you have with regard to when Knox first became concerned about Kercher’s absence, and with regard to when Sollecito and Knox first called the police, and how you conclude from this evidence that they are guilty, you would be put in the position of saying the complicated thing. Other people could then respond with the simple thing, which I predict would be “none of that proves anything”.
Whereas if you make the other person say the complicated thing, then you could respond with a pithy rhetorical question and gain the rhetorical advantage.
I honestly cannot see how the truth-seeking process benefits from you not presenting your evidence. You seem to be taking the discussion to the level of a status battle over who has personal authority and I think we should try to avoid that outcome.
(1) When did Knox first become concerned about Kercher’s absence?
(2) When did Sollecito and Knox first call the police and why?
These questions are disingenuous and pointless. If you think the answers to them are incriminating to Knox and Sollecito, then you should just state (what you believe to be) the answers and explain why they are incriminating. This is what you would do if you were arguing honestly (instead of trying to “catch” your opponent in a mistake), and it would also save time.
(3) If it turns out that the ransacking of Romanelli’s room was a staged burglary, do you agree that this is decent evidence against Knox?
Preface: I disagree with brazil about basically everything he says regarding Knox and reject most of the reasoning he uses to try to argue his case. But:
These questions are disingenuous and pointless.
Disingenuous does not apply to these questions in this context. There is no feigning of naivety, ignorance or unsophistication. The questions are rhetorical, pretentious, annoying, misguided, of dubious relevance and wrapped up with a tad of snide—but not disingenuous.
I do not consider the distinction you are drawing important enough to restrict my use of the term “disingenuous”. As far as I am concerned the questions themselves imply ignorance of the answers, and this is the basis on which the term was used. You are free to disapprove (and your disapproval is noted), but I shan’t be drawn into a status battle over this issue.
You are free to disapprove (and your disapproval is noted), but I shan’t be drawn into a status battle over this issue.
Excuse me? While there is an unfortunate and unavoidable status implication in the mere willingness to correct someone rather than being too intimidated by the potential threat they may pose I went to a lot of trouble to ameliorate that in the correction in question. I prefaced with an indication of full support for you in your status battle with brazil then offered a whole stream of applicable substitute negative labels for brazil’s rheotorical ploy to show that I am not trying to subvert the core of the message “brazil should have lowered status because of what he said to kompo”—because the latter would, in fact, seem appropriate.
The above being the case it actually kind of hurts to be portrayed as trying to ‘draw you into a status battle’. The opening salvo in any such battle would be the parent and I obviously wouldn’t draw it out beyond this one reply. I could only stand to lose by such an engagement.
Regarding the calling of people disingenuous there probably isn’t a problem here—I expect you consider the back and forth you’ve had with brazil over the subject to have gone on long enough. Obviously in general I am always likely to object if somewhat is falsely accused of being disingenuous. It would be outright bizarre if I didn’t when I have already done so when the unjustly accused is someone I consider a troll-minus-malicious-intent. In the context of lesswrong disingenuousness is perhaps one of the most dire things you can accuse someone of!
The above being the case it actually kind of hurts to be portrayed as trying to ‘draw you into a status battle’.
As it happens I gave serious consideration to rewording or dropping the last line, but didn’t get to it in time. It was more heavy-handed than I intended, sorry. But, in fairness to myself, I would point out that the future tense was used, and that there was no intended implication of inappropriate aggression on your part in the preceding exchange. I was, in other words, retreating from a danger that I foresaw (for whose existence I am as surely to blame as anyone, being as I am a human).
I had intended only to communicate that I wasn’t terribly interested in arguing about the meaning of “disingenuous” in this particular context at this particular moment, nothing more. (I’ll mention that I had also considered the wording: “drawn into a status battle with an ally...)
I do not consider the distinction you are drawing important enough to restrict my use of the term “disingenuous”. As far as I am concerned the questions themselves imply ignorance of the answers, and this is the basis on which the term was used.
The questions may have been posed as Socratic questions rather than disingenuous or rhetorical questions.
However the Socratic method is a pedagogical device. It’s not meant to be a tactic used to get out of stating what your argument or beliefs really are when trying to arrive at the truth and it does seem to me that it would save time if brazil84just stated whatever evidence they have and what conclusions they draw from it.
The questions may have been posed as Socratic questions...However the Socratic method is a pedagogical device.
Indeed; hence using it amounts to an assertion of higher status like that of teacher over pupil. This would be another ground on which to object to brazil’s questions.
I disagree, because I suspect that just like desrtopa, bigjeff5 does not understand the case against Knox. If he is unable to answer these questions, it will confirm my suspicions. At the moment, I am not interested in debating Knox’s guilt with biggjeff5 if he hasn’t bothered to study and understand the evidence against her.
Of course it is
Well do you agree that there is decent (if not compelling) evidence that the burglary was staged? For example (1) Romanelli’s testimony that she found glass on top of her disturbed items; (2) Romanelli’s testimony that nothing was taken from her room; and (3) Sollecito’s apparent statement to the police (before Romanelli returned) that there had been a burglary but nothing was taken?
What would not make sense is 90% for all three and 90% for Guede with or without the others.
Yes, I think that’s what I meant. I think I can make things simpler by laying out 4 possibilities:
(1) Guede, Knox, and Sollecito were all involved in the murder;
(2) Guede was involved in the murder but not Knox or Sollecito;
(3) Guede was not involved in the murder but Knox and Sollecito were;
(4) None of Guede, Knox, or Sollecito were involved in the murder.
I think that the probability of (1) is roughly 90%; (2) is roughly 9+%; (3) is negligible; and (4) is negligible.
Make sense?
(I also think that the chances that Knox was involved but not Sollecito or vice versa are negligible)
I disagree, because I suspect that just like desrtopa, bigjeff5 does not understand the case against Knox. If he is unable to answer these questions, it will confirm my suspicions.
Exactly. So, far from “disagreeing”, you admit that your questions were disingenuous.
Well do you agree that there is decent (if not compelling) evidence that the burglary was staged?
No.
For example (1) Romanelli’s testimony that she found glass on top of her disturbed items; (2) Romanelli’s testimony that nothing was taken from her room; and (3) Sollecito’s apparent statement to the police (before Romanelli returned) that there had been a burglary but nothing was taken?
You need evidence that is thousands of times more likely in the case of staging than in the case of an authentic burglary. The notion that any of those items comes anywhere close to meeting such a standard is simply ridiculous.
So, far from “disagreeing”, you admit that your questions were disingenuous.
I clearly prefaced my questions with the following:
Anyway, I disagree with you that this is the strongest piece of evidence against Knox and I think I can demonstrate it to you if you will indulge me by answering (or trying to answer) a few questions:
So it was pretty clear to any reasonable person that I was asking the questions not simply to improve my understanding. Agree?
You need evidence that is thousands of times more likely in the case of staging than in the case of an authentic burglary.
First, I would ask you why that is.
Second, let’s break it down a bit: In your view, how much more likely is it that Romanelli would have discovered glass on top of her disturbed items in the case of a staged burglarly than in a legitimate one?
Next, how much more likely is it that nothing would be taken in the case of a staged burglary than a legitimate one?
So it was pretty clear to any reasonable person that I was asking the questions not simply to improve my understanding.
Yes, your disingenuousness was indeed transparent.
If you thought there was some stronger piece of evidence than what your interlocutor mentioned, you should simply have stated it rather than quizzing the other person.
You need evidence that is thousands of times more likely in the case of staging than in the case of an authentic burglary.
Sorry, no. You are the contrarian here; the onus is on you to explain your position. My view is well known by now; I’ve explained it in a number of posts and comments. Just for the record, my current probability of guilt for Knox and Sollecito is between 0.0001 and 0.001, updated from a prior of between 0.00001 and 0.0001; if you want numerical bounds on my likelihood ratios, you can do the arithmetic yourself.
Yes, your disingenuousness was indeed transparent.
Let’s see if I have this straight: According to you, any question which is for rhetorical, testing, or socratic purposes is “disingenuous” even if the nature of the question is made clear from the beginning? Is that what you are saying?
Read the post I linked,
I’m not sure I see your point. It seems that your “thousands of times more likely” comes from the observation that the prior probability of Knox’s guilt is pretty low. But the exact same thing could be said in connection with Knox’s “confession” and in any event, the unlikelihood of the various evidence resulting from a bona fide break-in would appear to counterbalance the low prior probability.
Sorry, no. You are the contrarian here; the onus is on you to explain your position.
I’m not sure it needs to go by the majority. But anyway, if you don’t want to explain your position, that’s fine by me. I was trying to get down to the nub of our disagreement.
I was trying to get down to the nub of our disagreement.
The nub of our disagreement is quite clearly identifiable: you apparently believe that certain testimony about the position of glass fragments (contrary to the photographic evidence, incidentally) is thousands of times less likely to occur in the case of an actual burglary than in the case of fake one. More generally, you are of the opinion that circumstantial and psychological evidence of the sort produced in this case is powerful enough to overcome not only the incredibly low prior probability of guilt for Knox and Sollecito, but also the total lack of any (significant, non-discredited) physical evidence tying them to the crime, the failure of Guede to implicate them until he knew they were suspects, and the fact that Kercher had both a full stomach and an empty duodenum at death, and thus almost certainly died before 9:30 pm, while Sollecito’s computer was in use at his apartment.
Needless to say, I think this is sheer madness. In my view, you are vastly, hugely overconfident in your model of human behavior. However, in the unlikely event that you can actually produce a compelling argument for why I should (for example) regard the presence of glass on top of clothes as 30-decibel evidence in favor of the hypothesis that Knox and Sollecito staged the burglary over the hypothesis that there was an authentic burglary committed by known burglar Rudy Guede, I am all ears.
Really, however, I’m long past the point where I’m ready to write you off as an incorrigible clacker.
you apparently believe that certain testimony about the position of glass fragments (contrary to the photographic evidence, incidentally) is thousands of times less likely to occur in the case of an actual burglary than in the case of fake one.
Actually I don’t believe that. My estimate is somewhere between 10 and 100. It seems you refuse to tell me yours.
the fact that Kercher had both a full stomach and an empty duodenum at death, and thus almost certainly died before 9:30 pm, while Sollecito’s computer was in use at his apartment.
Where are you getting this from?
According to my research
(1) Sollecito’s computer stopped being used at 9:10pm
(2) Sollecito’s own expert witness—Professor Introna—testified that based on the stomach and duodenum contents, the time of death was between 9:30 pm and 10:30pm.
(3) Professor Bacci, the prosecution’s expert, testified (based on the same digestive issues) that the time of death was between 9:00 to 9:30 pm and 11:00pm to midnight.
Do you disagree with any of this? Because it looks to me like you are suffering from a massive case of confirmation bias. To be sure, I got items (2) and (3) from the sentencing report. But I have a really hard time believing that the report would flat out lie about peoples’ testimony.
And by the way, I would still like an answer to my earlier question:
According to you, any question which is for rhetorical, testing, or socratic purposes is “disingenuous” even if the nature of the question is made clear from the beginning? Is that what you are saying?
Next, how much more likely is it that nothing would be taken in the case of a staged burglary than a legitimate one?
Strictly speaking, this is not evidence we possess. The evidence we possess is that it is reported that nothing was taken. An explanation that involves things being taken but a false report otherwise still fits our observations. Whether this moves the probabilities much, I have too little knowledge of the other facts of the case to say. (Strictly speaking, the facts could even contradict my objection—if, for instance, there was an audit of the apartment conducted by a reliable third party immediately prior to the burglary. I think that unlikely enough to discount, though...)
Strictly speaking, this is not evidence we possess.
I agree. (One could also say that strictly speaking we don’t know that Knox was in Italy at the time of the murder; we don’t even know if there really is a girl named Amanda Knox.)
ETA: One should of course consider the possibility that much of the evidence against Knox is simply fraudulent.
That’s speaking a little more strictly than relevant, I think. My point was that, in the general case, there can be reasons that nothing was reported stolen other than that nothing was reported stolen. “He took my 10 lbs of cocaine” is something someone would be reluctant to tell the police, though I might expect it to nonetheless come out in a murder trial. Alternatively, something might have been taken that the person had forgotten they were in possession of. Adjudge for yourself how likely either of these explanations is, but they should be considered—along with any others that run along similar lines. Asking strictly about the probability of a real vs. staged break-in based on the fact that nothing is taken might be misleading.
That’s speaking a little more strictly than relevant, I think. My point was that, in the general case, there can be reasons that nothing was reported stolen other than that nothing was reported stolen
I agree, and one should of course take Romanelli’s testimony with a grain of salt. She might be forgetful; she might have been coached to give testimony damaging to Knox; and so forth.
However, keep in mind that the question on the table is whether the strongest (piece of?) evidence against Knox is her statement to the police that she was at the apartment at the time of the murder. For these purposes, I think it’s reasonable to accept Romanelli’s testimony at face value.
Since the elimination of the faulty DNA evidence (which was previously the best evidence against them), the best evidence against Knox and Sollecito come from the police interrogation, specifically Knox’s confession, and the fact that they knew the victim.
The strongest bit here is the confession, as knowing the victim is, at best, a pointer for where to look for a suspect—it is incredibly weak evidence on its own (in fact, there are dozens of people who fit better based on just knowing the victim) and does not in any way eliminate the possibility of a random stranger committing the crime. By all accounts the three got along reasonably well, if not particularly friendly to each other.
There are some interesting facts about the confession that I think you’re missing:
1.) It is factually incorrect. The statements in the confession do not fit the facts of the crime. This severely damages the validity of the confession.
2.) The confession came after 24 hours of non-stop interrogation by the Italian police. There have been a number of studies that have shown that suspects become highly confused after long, intense interrogation sessions—particularly those that include sleep deprivation as was the case here. Suspects can be coerced into making whatever statements the interrogators want. In fact, in the US we have laws against this kind of treatment, including things like the right to silence and the right to have an attorney present during an interrogation to prevent exactly these scenarios. As an attorney I’d expect to know this.
Taken together, by far the most likely scenario is that the police coerced the confession out of Knox. Just on the facts relating to the interrogation alone, I’d put the likelihood that the confession was genuine at 10% at the very highest.
If the confession were genuine, we would expect some physical evidence of Knox and Sollecito at the crime scene. Given the fact that there is literally zero physical evidence of Knox and Sollecito’s involvement, the likelihood that the confession is genuine must drop even further, to below 1%.
Considering the confession is about the only evidence for their involvement, I have to place the likelihood of their guilt at <1%. (There was a homeless man who claimed he saw them enter the apartment, but this is so weak as to be irrelevant given the poor track record of eyewitness accounts even immediately after a highly memorable event, the credibility of a detailed recollection of a mundane event over a year after it occurred is virtually non-existent, particularly without any evidence to back it up of any kind.)
Also, the reason I suggested you re-read the sequences is because you stated that you were 90% certain that all three were guilty, yet 90% that Guide was guilty even if the other two were not. This is a major failure in probability (and is actually a pretty common bias), as the options are Guide acted alone, or Guide acted with accomplices. Eliminating Knox and Sollecito from the equation eliminates a point of uncertainty, no matter how certain you are of Knox and Sollecito’s guilt, and aught to increase your confidence in the individual assessment of Guide’s guilt. Being 99% certain that Guide is guilty, and 90% certain that Guide, Knox, and Sollecito are guilty is logically consistent. Being 90% certain that Guide is guilty, yet 90% certain that all three are guilty is not logically consistent. You have to either lower you confidence in the guilt of all three, or raise your confidence in the guilt of Guide.
I may have phrased that last paragraph poorly, but most people should be able to understand it. I may edit for clarity later.
Edited to add: Here is a good article on coerced confessions, written by a forensic scientist.
Second edit, sorry, pertinent quote from the article:
Not really, since I put little weight on what Knox said under interrogation. I have no problem believing that an innocent person would buckle under the pressure and point the finger at someone else. To me, what’s most interesting about this “confession” was that the authorities arrested another person (the wrong person) based on Knox’s statements. This is evidence that the authorities had something of an open mind about the situation.
Anyway, I disagree with you that this is the strongest piece of evidence against Knox and I think I can demonstrate it to you if you will indulge me by answering (or trying to answer) a few questions:
(1) When did Knox first become concerned about Kercher’s absence?
(2) When did Sollecito and Knox first call the police and why?
(3) If it turns out that the ransacking of Romanelli’s room was a staged burglary, do you agree that this is decent evidence against Knox?
Can you show me where I did that? My recollection is I estimated roughly 99% for Guede’s guilt.
I agree that it would not make sense to estimate 90% for Knox, Sollecito, and Guede to all be involved in the murder and 90% for Guede alone.
My apologies, I misread/misremembered your original assessment. I should have double checked before posting; you can ignore that whole portion of my post.
These circumstances are enough to drive suspicion toward Knox and Sollecito, but without any sort of physical evidence to back up the suspicions they are insignificant. There are a lot of possible explanations for their behavior and the vast majority don’t include murder.
If it is proven that it was staged by Knox/Sollecito, then absolutely. The inverse is also true, however: if Knox/Sollecito are innocent, then they didn’t fake the break-in. The evidence that the break-in was staged is very weak, which is exactly what you expect to see if they are innocent.
This is the part, I think, that you are missing: the physical evidence (including reliable electronic evidence) is extremely strong evidence. It is “trumps everything” kind of strong. Slightly odd behavior is incredibly weak evidence. There is a huge amount of physical evidence in this case, and none of it points to Knox or Sollecito. The likelihood that they could be guilty of murder without leaving any evidence behind is incredibly small. Without evidence of any sort of link between Guide and Knox/Sollecito the complete lack of physical evidence of their involvement trumps the little bit of circumstantial evidence by a wide margin.
It seems you are unable to answer two questions which would have been pretty easy if you understood the case against Knox and Sollecito and were still satisfied of their innocence. To be sure, they are komponisto-disingenuous questions. But still, why not simply try to answer them anyway?
Again, it seems pretty clear to me that you do not understand the case against Knox and Sollecito, which is far more than “slightly odd behavior.”
By the way, did you know that there was in fact evidence of such a link presented? I was surprised myself to learn about it.
You act as if there is one unified “case against Knox and Sollecito”. There is not. There are many, as different people who believe Knox and Sollecito did it find different aspects to be more convincing. We understand plenty of cases against Knox and Sollecito just fine—the ones we have read that have been made clearly. What is true is that we don’t understand the case you have in mind. This is because you have never made that case, nor pointed us to someone clearly making that case. Yet you do expect us to miraculously understand the details of it. If we guess, unsurprisingly, it is counted as evidence that we don’t understand, yet you never attempt to correct that understanding. It is your responsibility to say why some bit evidence actually means anything. I’m disinclined to continue unless this is rectified.
Stop trolling and put up or if that’s too hard, at least shut up.
Perhaps reasonable people can differ on fine gradations of significance among the more important pieces of evidence, but, for example, anyone who seriously believes that Knox’s “mannerisms” are among the best pieces of evidence against her has seriously missed the boat.
Anyway, if I have the time I will put together a blog post laying out what I think are the most important pieces of evidence and Knox (and Sollecito).
I await with bated breath.
I’m glad to know you are so interested in what I have to say.
ETA: My blog post is up as of today (11/17/11)
A link to said post would help.
http://fortaleza84.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/is-amanda-knox-guilty/
I’m happy that you’ve finally posted this. However, much of this piece makes me cringe. I don’t know if it is the style, an actual failure of logic or something else. Parts like:
Really doesn’t help your case more than simply inflame issues. Moreover, “deviant pornography”, seriously? What fraction of the population watches BDSM themed porn or other forms of non-standard porn? The fraction is orders of magnitude larger than the set of people who murder or arrange for murders. It isn’t even obvious to me that that’s even more common among murderers.
Frankly, I would guess a big part of the problem is that you did not read my post very carefully. Because you seem to be under the impression that I argued that Sollecito’s (alleged) interest in deviant pornography was evidence of guilt.
I even went so far as to put the following at the bottom the post:
If the porn is not relevant either way, then it should not be mentioned. Mentioning it in a short piece invites the viewer to interpret it that way or, if they read it so carefully as to (non-)interpret it as you say, it comes off as sheer rhetoric and an attempt to contaminate the reader’s mind with unfounded assertions.
(“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I would like you to imagine the defendant late one night holding down his daughter and raping her repeatedly in every orifice in defiance of every law of God and man. There is of course no evidence he has actually done this and we are here to discuss his tax evasion, but I simply wanted you to imagine it for a little bit. Moving on to the first tax filing exhibit...”)
If anything, I would say that the porn is evidence against Sollecito’s guilt. After all, considering how common “black guy rapes white girl” porn is, if that’s something he was interested in seeing and his porn viewing is indicative of his interests, then it would be more reasonable to expect him to have it than not.
Anyway, the idea that the porn could be not evidence, but something to show a plausible scenario, is simply nonsense. The prior probability for Sollecito’s guilt reflects all possible scenarios in which Sollecito could have been involved, and is based on our best available knowledge of how often people in his circumstances commit the sort of crime attributed to him. Any meaningful information must either show that our prior was inappropriate (people in Sollecito’s reference class commit this sort of crime more often than we thought) or show that Sollecito in particular was more likely to have committed this particular crime. Brazil disavowed its relevance in the latter respect, and it’s obviously not relevant in the former.
I think it’s relevant because it helps to show that there is a remotely plausible scenario in which Knox murders her roommate; that it’s not like asserting that Elvis was actually an extra-terrestrial.
It’s the same reason I mentioned the Janet Chandler murder. The fact that one white girl took part in the rape and murder of another white girl in Michigan in the 70s is not evidence that Knox is guilty either. Again, it just helps to show that such a scenario is remotely plausible.
I would hope and expect that many of the posters on this board will accept this point about remote plausibility without any narrative. Such people should feel free to ignore that part of my blog post.
I think you’ve run afoul of the principle of charity here, in that your piece was taken as an argumentative essay and thus it was charitable to assume that each part of it was intended to support your stated conclusion. In future it would help a lot if you made your conclusions explicit at each stage of the argument rather than leaving them implicit because otherwise readers are forced to guess at what you think the evidence means.
Having read your piece I also think that you’re reasoning from some false premises. If you read enough of the popular material on the internet about this case it becomes evident fairly quickly that in pro-guilt circles the evidence has taken on a life of its own and grown in the telling.
There is no actual evidence that Sollecito had ” a strong interest in deviant pornography”, although plenty of sites would claim that. There is evidence he was once in possession of one film clip involving bestiality in his university years, which is not proof of a strong interest, and evidence he was in possession of a mainstream and unremarkable manga book, but that’s the extent of the evidence that he had any deviant sexual tendencies.
Similarly there was no evidence Amanda Knox had a promiscuous lifestyle by student standards nor that Knox had numerous male visitors. Knox gave a complete list of her lifetime sexual partners to the police when they (falsely) told her she had tested HIV+, and she wasn’t any more promiscuous than your average student.
It’s simply not true that Knox and Sollecito called the police after the police had already arrived. That misconception arose due to incorrect police testimony but it was later cleared up.
There was never any evidence that the break-in at the house was staged and the appeal court exonerated Knox and Sollecito of those charges on the grounds that particular crime had never in fact happened.
To your credit you state clearly that you are basing your opinion on popular sources and that you are open to the possibility that your evidence is faulty, and it’s no sin to reason rigorously from false premises and get to a false conclusion.
(By contrast the evidence of egregious police misconduct in the Knox case is very strong indeed. Italy is a curiosity in that it has no meaningful police oversight body and hence the police can get away with virtually anything. In every other First World country the relevant misconduct investigation body would have their metaphorical foot right up the Perugian authorities’ collective metaphorical posterior by now).
I would say it doesn’t get much more explicit than this:
In fact, I would go so far as to suspect that some folks here are going on the principle of anti-charity, i.e. looking for the easiest way to attack my post while ignoring the core argument.
Well let’s discuss them then.
I would say that having been in possession of a bestiality film as well as “comic books that ’mixed pornography and horror‛” is pretty good evidence of a strong interest in deviant pornography. I’m not sure that it matters, since Sollecito’s alleged interest in deviant pornography is not central to my argument. But perhaps it’s worth discussing.
You seem to dispute that Sollecito was in the possession of such comic books (plural.) Do you happen to have a cite and a link? I am going by the police report as quoted on page 103 of the sentencing report.
I’m not sure what “promiscuous lifestyle by student standards” means. According to one report I read (ETA: this morning), Knox had sex with 3 men after her arrival in Italy and 4 prior. Disagree?
As far as male visitors goes I was able to find this quote:
I’m not sure what “numerous” means to you, but it seems clear to me that at a minimum, there is evidence to believe that Knox engaged in sexual activities which Kercher would have resented and perceived as slutty. Agreed?
Well in your view, when did the police arrive? And more importantly, at the time the police arrived, were Knox and Sollecito concerned about Kercher’s absence? If you look at the evidence carefully, you will see that there is no good answer for this question which is consistent with Knox being innocent.
Also, do you agree that Sollecito at one point stated to police that he had not called the police at the time the police showed up?
That’s simply not true. For example, Romanelli apparently testified to finding glass on top of her dislodged belongings. She also testified that nothing was taken. And Sollecito told the police that nothing was taken before he should have known it. Now, you may want to debate the strength of this evidence, but it’s still evidence that the break-in was staged.
I agree. Could you please share your own sources? Maybe we can figure out which of us (perhaps both) are reasoning from false premises.
As far as sources go, it’s just a fact that so far you have provided few sources and those were vague. I’m happy to take part in a conversation where we each cite our sources properly, or where neither do, but not an asymmetrical one where I am obliged to cite sources and you are not.
I wouldn’t say that at all. Potential alternative reasons for being in possession of a bestiality film clip include curiosity, desire to shock, or an interest in deviant pornography which does not rise to the level of “strong”. The comic book in question was ‘Blood: The Last Vampire’ which is such a mainstream affair that the animated movie shows regularly on the public broadcasting channel SBS where I live in Australia.
If Sollecito had been found to have a few gigabytes of rape and BDSM porn on his hard drive I would take that to be evidence of a strong interest in deviant pornography. One clip he possessed once in the past and a mundane comic book do not to my mind constitute strong evidence.
Well no, not based on that evidence. To begin with this was court testimony from long after the murder, from people who have had over a year to cherry-pick anything Meredith could have said at any time which could be taken as evidence of friction between Knox and Kercher. You have to avoid the base rate fallacy here: What are the odds that we would hear testimony like this if there was no serious animosity between the two, under these circumstances? I’d say pretty good.
Bear in mind that if the two had ever, say, had a nasty argument or one had stolen the other’s clothes or anything more serious had ever occurred we would be hearing about that instead. For students living together if the worst instances of friction anyone can recall are complaints about monotonous guitar practice, a transparent toiletries bag and (as I recall) a single instance of Knox bringing a strange man home, who she did not (as far as we can ascertain from her list of sexual contacts) sleep with, then they probably got along quite well.
By all accounts dating from before the murder the two got on well, went on outings together and were friends.
The postal police arrived at 13:00 as established by security camera evidence. The carabinieri arrived at 13:34. Raffaele called the police at 12:51. Knox and Sollecito had been trying to find out where Meredith was and whether she was okay from 12:07 onwards as established by phone records.
The postal police incorrectly claimed they had arrived at 12:35 but this was based on their unassisted recollection and was falsified by the security camera nearby.
She also testified to finding glass under some of her belongings and mixed through them, and since some things were in fact taken (money and mobile phones) the fact that some things were not taken is not evidence for staging over a real break-in. Sollecito did state that nothing was taken but at that stage he did not know anything had been taken, and while an ideal rationalist with time to think would have said “I am aware of no evidence anything was taken” a university student under stress being imprecise is not more consistent with guilt than innocence.
There were also scuff marks on the wall outside consistent with someone climbing in, freshly exposed brickwork consistent with someone chipping the wall while climbing in, white powdery deposits in Filomena’s room consistent with someone having scuffed their feet on the white wall outside while climbing in, and several large chunks of glass on the outside windowsill consistent with someone positioned on the window sill manually enlarging the hole in the glass to access the window’s latch. This is all evident from photographs of the crime scene yet the police inexplicably testified that there was no evidence of a break-in.
Wait, that was what was being referenced when Brazil quoted
‽ My high school anime club showed the movie of that twice (we ran under schedule one day) so I remember it well… Good grief. And Brazil is still arguing. I don’t know why you guys are still bothering—I’m not going to, even if it seems tempting.
I have considered arguing with brazil about Knox to be troll feeding for some time.
(Note that brazil84 earned –208 Karma in the last 30 days, with most of the recent comments having moderately negative rating.)
Outside view explication: a break-in reliably leaves more evidence than what the police found.
The way I do things with sources is that if somebody represents to me that he is seriously skeptical of a claim I have made, I will normally try to find a source. Similarly, I will not ask for a source (or cite) unless I am seriously skeptical of a claim which has been made. The reason I do things this way is because I do think in general people should provide sources (or cites) to back up their claims, but at the same time I have encountered problems in online debate with people who demand cites for claims which they don’t seriously dispute, presumably just to distract the discussion from the critical issues. (Also, keep in mind that for some claims, general knowledge, simple observation, and common sense are potentially reasonable or adequate sources. )
So the upshot is that I will try to find and provide a cite or source for any claim I make if you represent to me that you are seriously skeptical of the claim.
With that out of the way, I am seriously skeptical of your apparent claim that Sollecito was in the possession of a “mainstream and unremarkable manga book” and not multiple “comic books that mixed pornography and horror.” I have provided a cite for my position, now please provide a cite for yours.
I’m not sure I understand your point.
Do you agree that there was testimony that Kercher advised her friends that Knox had brought “strange men [plural]” over?
Do you agree that such testimony is evidence (although perhaps not proof) that Knox did in fact bring multiple men to the residence?
Based on your knowledge of human nature, do you agree that there is a pretty good chance that Kercher would have resented such behavior?
Can you give me a cite for this please? (I am seriously skeptical)
Ok, then here’s a couple questions for you:
If Knox and Sollecito were concerned about Kercher’s absence when the postal police arrived, why did Knox (apparently) advise them that Kercher normally kept her door locked?
Why did Sollecito (apparently) later admit to the authorities that he had not yet called the police with the postal police showed up?
(And yes, I will provide sources for this stuff if you represent to me that you are seriously skeptical.)
I’m not sure what your point is here. Do you dispute that she testified to finding glass on top of some of her belongings? Do you dispute that this is evidence (evidence, not conclusive proof) of a staged break-in?
Well do you agree that (1) the evidence seems to indicate that nothing was taken from Romenelli’s room; and (2) according to Sollecito’s story, he had seen Romanelli’s room but not Kercher’s room at that point?
Well was he asked about it or did he volunteer it? As far as I know, he first volunteered that there was no theft and then when asked if anything was taken, he said “no.” I could understand him giving an imprecise answer if asked about it, but why would he volunteer that nothing was taken?
Again, I am seriously skeptical of this claim. Please back it up with a quote, link, and cite.
Yes, I saw that, but I found it to be as either disingenuous or at best unhelpful. If it is irrelevant then it shouldn’t be mentioned. In context if you are using it for evidence then claiming you aren’t isn’t helpful and simply brings up something that will make people annoyed.
The same thing could be said about my mention of the Janet Chandler murder. The fact that one white girl helped to rape and murder another white girl (who was her roommate) back in the 70s in Michigan is not evidence of Knox’s guilt.
But as I mentioned in the blog post, I think both are helpful to show a remotely plausible scenario in which Knox is guilty.
If you disagree, then I think that under the “principle of charity,” you should simply ignore paragraphs 2 through 7 (which you apparently consider to be irrelevant, inflammatory fluff) and consider the core of my argument.
Yes, and the mention of the Chandler case also falls into the same category.
Does something increase plausibility or show a plausible scenario? Then it is evidence. If it doesn’t increase plausibility then it isn’t evidence. You can’t have it both ways.
Well, new information could suggest that you applied the wrong prior. If you’re trying to calculate the likelihood of a person’s guilt, and you find that the crime is more common than you originally thought, you’ll have to assign a higher probability of guilt, but you could reasonably say that it’s not evidence of guilt, because you’re revising P(A) rather than introducing a new (B).
This could be said to apply to the mention of the Chandler case, if you don’t have any information on how common such crimes are that would screen it off, but it clearly does not apply to the porn.
Well sure if you want to take a broad view of what constitutes “evidence,” then everything in my scenario constitutes “evidence.” (ETA: I would take a slightly narrower view, but perhaps it makes sense to agree on a definition.)
Similarly, by your standard the fact that had had sex with at least 7 men by the age of 20 is “evidence.” Why? First, because it raises the probability that she suffers from borderline personality disorder and therefore is lacking in empathy. Someone lacking in empathy is more likely to take part in a serious crime against another person. Second, because it raises the probability that she had male visitors which would have increased tension between her and Kercher, increasing the chances that she had a motive.
Anyway, I have a question for you: Why do you continue to ignore my core argument for Knox’s guilt?
Yes, this is all evidence according to the Bayesian definition. Calling E evidence (with respect to prior knowledge X) for a proposition H just means that p(H | E & X) > p(H | X). That is why quantifying evidence is so important. Just how much evidence is it? If all the evidence you offer raises the probability of H by only a few percent from a very low prior, then it should have practically no effect on how we treat Knox.
I basically agree, but sometimes it’s helpful to have a story or narrative or illustration before jumping in to look at the important evidence. That’s just how the human mind works, or at least most peoples’ minds. I realize this can be dangerous, for example it can lead to a “conjunction fallacy,” but I was careful to lable my narrative as speculation.
Just today I was browsing this web site and I came across an article called “Existential Risk” which was complete with (1) a picture of the Earth; (2) a likely apocryphal story about a man who singlehandedly prevented nuclear war; and (3) a picture of a Stanford torus. Is this cheap emotional manipulation? Perhaps, but again, I think this kind of story-telling can be useful to get the mind ready to focus on the meat of the argument.
One can ask what the likelihood is that we are reaching a critical juncture where the decisions and dilligence of just a few humans in the artificial intelligence community will have a massive impact on the future of humanity. Strictly speaking, the fact that some Russian dude did (or didn’t) singlehandedly prevent a nuclear war shouldn’t have much impact on our estimate of this probability. But I think it still might be worth mentioning to demonstrate the plausibility of the claim that one person can have a big impact.
In the same way, I think it’s worth mentioning the Janet Chandler case from the 70s. But again, if you object to this approach, just ignore paragraphs 2 through 7 of my blog post.
I agree that it’s worth mentioning Janet Chandler. It would be better to treat it seriously as evidence, rather than merely as a narrative framing device. To treat it seriously as evidence, you should use it to help establish a prior probability for Knox’s guilt (like Desrtopa did).
It seems to me that “narrative framing device” is basically a poor man’s method of estimating a prior probability. Here’s what I said in my blog post:
Of course in terms of assessing probabilities, it might be better if there were a lot of precedents, for example in a situation where a husband is suspected of killing his wife. But here there’s not a lot to go on.
It’s a very effective rhetorical device to trick the opponent into saying a complicated thing, and then respond with a simple thing. I’m not saying this is what you are attempting, but it could well seem that you are attempting this.
For example homeopaths try to steer conversations about homeopathy so that the skeptic says a lot of complicated things about Avogadro’s Number and the minute time-scale on which water molecule structures persist and the need for double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials and then the homeopath gets to say “Yes, well, it miraculously cured my cat’s cataracts and that’s all I need to know”.
If you tried to explain what evidence you have with regard to when Knox first became concerned about Kercher’s absence, and with regard to when Sollecito and Knox first called the police, and how you conclude from this evidence that they are guilty, you would be put in the position of saying the complicated thing. Other people could then respond with the simple thing, which I predict would be “none of that proves anything”.
Whereas if you make the other person say the complicated thing, then you could respond with a pithy rhetorical question and gain the rhetorical advantage.
I honestly cannot see how the truth-seeking process benefits from you not presenting your evidence. You seem to be taking the discussion to the level of a status battle over who has personal authority and I think we should try to avoid that outcome.
These questions are disingenuous and pointless. If you think the answers to them are incriminating to Knox and Sollecito, then you should just state (what you believe to be) the answers and explain why they are incriminating. This is what you would do if you were arguing honestly (instead of trying to “catch” your opponent in a mistake), and it would also save time.
Of course it is, which is why the staging charge carries a burden of proof equal to that of the murder charge.
That would make perfectly good sense. What would not make sense is 90% for all three and 90% for Guede with or without the others.
Preface: I disagree with brazil about basically everything he says regarding Knox and reject most of the reasoning he uses to try to argue his case. But:
Disingenuous does not apply to these questions in this context. There is no feigning of naivety, ignorance or unsophistication. The questions are rhetorical, pretentious, annoying, misguided, of dubious relevance and wrapped up with a tad of snide—but not disingenuous.
There is feigning of ignorance of the answers (even if the feigning is transparent); and they aren’t rhetorical. On the other qualities we agree.
No, there isn’t. Nothing in that passage in any way implies that brazil is ignorant of the answer to those questions.
I do not consider the distinction you are drawing important enough to restrict my use of the term “disingenuous”. As far as I am concerned the questions themselves imply ignorance of the answers, and this is the basis on which the term was used. You are free to disapprove (and your disapproval is noted), but I shan’t be drawn into a status battle over this issue.
Excuse me? While there is an unfortunate and unavoidable status implication in the mere willingness to correct someone rather than being too intimidated by the potential threat they may pose I went to a lot of trouble to ameliorate that in the correction in question. I prefaced with an indication of full support for you in your status battle with brazil then offered a whole stream of applicable substitute negative labels for brazil’s rheotorical ploy to show that I am not trying to subvert the core of the message “brazil should have lowered status because of what he said to kompo”—because the latter would, in fact, seem appropriate.
The above being the case it actually kind of hurts to be portrayed as trying to ‘draw you into a status battle’. The opening salvo in any such battle would be the parent and I obviously wouldn’t draw it out beyond this one reply. I could only stand to lose by such an engagement.
Regarding the calling of people disingenuous there probably isn’t a problem here—I expect you consider the back and forth you’ve had with brazil over the subject to have gone on long enough. Obviously in general I am always likely to object if somewhat is falsely accused of being disingenuous. It would be outright bizarre if I didn’t when I have already done so when the unjustly accused is someone I consider a troll-minus-malicious-intent. In the context of lesswrong disingenuousness is perhaps one of the most dire things you can accuse someone of!
As it happens I gave serious consideration to rewording or dropping the last line, but didn’t get to it in time. It was more heavy-handed than I intended, sorry. But, in fairness to myself, I would point out that the future tense was used, and that there was no intended implication of inappropriate aggression on your part in the preceding exchange. I was, in other words, retreating from a danger that I foresaw (for whose existence I am as surely to blame as anyone, being as I am a human).
I had intended only to communicate that I wasn’t terribly interested in arguing about the meaning of “disingenuous” in this particular context at this particular moment, nothing more. (I’ll mention that I had also considered the wording: “drawn into a status battle with an ally...)
It’s amazing how much difference those few words make. ;)
The questions may have been posed as Socratic questions rather than disingenuous or rhetorical questions.
However the Socratic method is a pedagogical device. It’s not meant to be a tactic used to get out of stating what your argument or beliefs really are when trying to arrive at the truth and it does seem to me that it would save time if brazil84just stated whatever evidence they have and what conclusions they draw from it.
Indeed; hence using it amounts to an assertion of higher status like that of teacher over pupil. This would be another ground on which to object to brazil’s questions.
I disagree, because I suspect that just like desrtopa, bigjeff5 does not understand the case against Knox. If he is unable to answer these questions, it will confirm my suspicions. At the moment, I am not interested in debating Knox’s guilt with biggjeff5 if he hasn’t bothered to study and understand the evidence against her.
Well do you agree that there is decent (if not compelling) evidence that the burglary was staged? For example (1) Romanelli’s testimony that she found glass on top of her disturbed items; (2) Romanelli’s testimony that nothing was taken from her room; and (3) Sollecito’s apparent statement to the police (before Romanelli returned) that there had been a burglary but nothing was taken?
Yes, I think that’s what I meant. I think I can make things simpler by laying out 4 possibilities:
(1) Guede, Knox, and Sollecito were all involved in the murder;
(2) Guede was involved in the murder but not Knox or Sollecito;
(3) Guede was not involved in the murder but Knox and Sollecito were;
(4) None of Guede, Knox, or Sollecito were involved in the murder.
I think that the probability of (1) is roughly 90%; (2) is roughly 9+%; (3) is negligible; and (4) is negligible.
Make sense?
(I also think that the chances that Knox was involved but not Sollecito or vice versa are negligible)
Exactly. So, far from “disagreeing”, you admit that your questions were disingenuous.
No.
You need evidence that is thousands of times more likely in the case of staging than in the case of an authentic burglary. The notion that any of those items comes anywhere close to meeting such a standard is simply ridiculous.
I clearly prefaced my questions with the following:
So it was pretty clear to any reasonable person that I was asking the questions not simply to improve my understanding. Agree?
First, I would ask you why that is.
Second, let’s break it down a bit: In your view, how much more likely is it that Romanelli would have discovered glass on top of her disturbed items in the case of a staged burglarly than in a legitimate one?
Next, how much more likely is it that nothing would be taken in the case of a staged burglary than a legitimate one?
Same question for Sollecito’s phone call.
Yes, your disingenuousness was indeed transparent.
If you thought there was some stronger piece of evidence than what your interlocutor mentioned, you should simply have stated it rather than quizzing the other person.
Read the post I linked, and review Bayes’ theorem if necessary.
Sorry, no. You are the contrarian here; the onus is on you to explain your position. My view is well known by now; I’ve explained it in a number of posts and comments. Just for the record, my current probability of guilt for Knox and Sollecito is between 0.0001 and 0.001, updated from a prior of between 0.00001 and 0.0001; if you want numerical bounds on my likelihood ratios, you can do the arithmetic yourself.
Let’s see if I have this straight: According to you, any question which is for rhetorical, testing, or socratic purposes is “disingenuous” even if the nature of the question is made clear from the beginning? Is that what you are saying?
I’m not sure I see your point. It seems that your “thousands of times more likely” comes from the observation that the prior probability of Knox’s guilt is pretty low. But the exact same thing could be said in connection with Knox’s “confession” and in any event, the unlikelihood of the various evidence resulting from a bona fide break-in would appear to counterbalance the low prior probability.
I’m not sure it needs to go by the majority. But anyway, if you don’t want to explain your position, that’s fine by me. I was trying to get down to the nub of our disagreement.
The nub of our disagreement is quite clearly identifiable: you apparently believe that certain testimony about the position of glass fragments (contrary to the photographic evidence, incidentally) is thousands of times less likely to occur in the case of an actual burglary than in the case of fake one. More generally, you are of the opinion that circumstantial and psychological evidence of the sort produced in this case is powerful enough to overcome not only the incredibly low prior probability of guilt for Knox and Sollecito, but also the total lack of any (significant, non-discredited) physical evidence tying them to the crime, the failure of Guede to implicate them until he knew they were suspects, and the fact that Kercher had both a full stomach and an empty duodenum at death, and thus almost certainly died before 9:30 pm, while Sollecito’s computer was in use at his apartment.
Needless to say, I think this is sheer madness. In my view, you are vastly, hugely overconfident in your model of human behavior. However, in the unlikely event that you can actually produce a compelling argument for why I should (for example) regard the presence of glass on top of clothes as 30-decibel evidence in favor of the hypothesis that Knox and Sollecito staged the burglary over the hypothesis that there was an authentic burglary committed by known burglar Rudy Guede, I am all ears.
Really, however, I’m long past the point where I’m ready to write you off as an incorrigible clacker.
Actually I don’t believe that. My estimate is somewhere between 10 and 100. It seems you refuse to tell me yours.
Where are you getting this from?
According to my research
(1) Sollecito’s computer stopped being used at 9:10pm
(2) Sollecito’s own expert witness—Professor Introna—testified that based on the stomach and duodenum contents, the time of death was between 9:30 pm and 10:30pm.
(3) Professor Bacci, the prosecution’s expert, testified (based on the same digestive issues) that the time of death was between 9:00 to 9:30 pm and 11:00pm to midnight.
Do you disagree with any of this? Because it looks to me like you are suffering from a massive case of confirmation bias. To be sure, I got items (2) and (3) from the sentencing report. But I have a really hard time believing that the report would flat out lie about peoples’ testimony.
And by the way, I would still like an answer to my earlier question:
According to you, any question which is for rhetorical, testing, or socratic purposes is “disingenuous” even if the nature of the question is made clear from the beginning? Is that what you are saying?
Strictly speaking, this is not evidence we possess. The evidence we possess is that it is reported that nothing was taken. An explanation that involves things being taken but a false report otherwise still fits our observations. Whether this moves the probabilities much, I have too little knowledge of the other facts of the case to say. (Strictly speaking, the facts could even contradict my objection—if, for instance, there was an audit of the apartment conducted by a reliable third party immediately prior to the burglary. I think that unlikely enough to discount, though...)
I agree. (One could also say that strictly speaking we don’t know that Knox was in Italy at the time of the murder; we don’t even know if there really is a girl named Amanda Knox.)
ETA: One should of course consider the possibility that much of the evidence against Knox is simply fraudulent.
That’s speaking a little more strictly than relevant, I think. My point was that, in the general case, there can be reasons that nothing was reported stolen other than that nothing was reported stolen. “He took my 10 lbs of cocaine” is something someone would be reluctant to tell the police, though I might expect it to nonetheless come out in a murder trial. Alternatively, something might have been taken that the person had forgotten they were in possession of. Adjudge for yourself how likely either of these explanations is, but they should be considered—along with any others that run along similar lines. Asking strictly about the probability of a real vs. staged break-in based on the fact that nothing is taken might be misleading.
I agree, and one should of course take Romanelli’s testimony with a grain of salt. She might be forgetful; she might have been coached to give testimony damaging to Knox; and so forth.
However, keep in mind that the question on the table is whether the strongest (piece of?) evidence against Knox is her statement to the police that she was at the apartment at the time of the murder. For these purposes, I think it’s reasonable to accept Romanelli’s testimony at face value.