Why eyewitness testimony isn't reliable ....

Originally posted by sonship
Oh! Is [b]that what you've witnessed googlefudge?

But eyewitness testimony isn't reliable.
So why should we believe you?[/b]

Well it is what I have witnessed... But it's also what we have huge amounts
of empirical data for.

So it's not JUST what I have witnessed, it's what we have evidence for.

It's also, not an extraordinary claim.

Anyone who is honest will be able to think of situations where they have been
forgetful, or deceived by illusions, or jumped to the wrong conclusion ect ect.

And thus it is not at all surprising or extraordinary to find out that our evolved
brains do not work as reliably as computers or video recorders in capturing what
is going on and storing that information accurately.


What I was demonstrating in this thread, and this should be obvious to anyone with
half a brain who chooses to use it, is that eyewitness testimony is not necessarily
sufficient on it's own to be sure about ordinary claims, let alone extraordinary ones.

And thus to be able to justify belief in such claims you need evidence OTHER than
eyewitness testimony... even if that testimony is your own.


As anyone reading this thread can see, I have been posting link after link after link to
places where you can see evidence for what I am claiming science says.


Now as it stands I am not even asking Suzianne to accept that what I am saying is true.
I am just trying to get her to admit that it IS what SCIENCE says is true.
I would have thought that posting links to science articles, and scientists, saying what I
have been saying, would be sufficient to convince any reasonable person that this is what
the consensus of science is on this subject.

Evidently she is not a reasonable person.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Well it is what I have witnessed... But it's also what we have huge amounts
of empirical data for.

So it's not JUST what I have witnessed, it's what we have evidence for.

It's also, not an extraordinary claim.

Anyone who is honest will be able to think of situations where they have been
forgetful, or deceived by illusions, or jumped to the w ...[text shortened]... what
the consensus of science is on this subject.

Evidently she is not a reasonable person.

So eyewitness testimony along with evidence is reliable, right? 😏

Originally posted by googlefudge

Well it is what I have witnessed... But it's also what we have huge amounts of empirical data for.

So it's not JUST what I have witnessed, it's what we have evidence for.

So you are then saying that increased numbers of eyewitnesses is more reliable.

So then your thread title could now be subtitled "Why multiplied eyewitness testimony is more reliable."

Eyewitness testimony isn't reliable unless the number of eyewitnesses is increased to a larger amount.

It's also, not an extraordinary claim.

I think it is.

If you had said "Eyewitness testimony isn't always reliable" then I would not have considered that an extraordinary claim. But you didn't say that, did you?

Oh no, you trumpeted out "Why eyewitness testimony isn't reliable ..."

That's kind of an extraordinary claim as a broad generalization.
Next time you might qualify your claim a bit more.

Anyone who is honest will be able to think of situations where they have been forgetful, or deceived by illusions, or jumped to the wrong conclusion ect ect.

Of course. At times we THOUGHT we witnessed something but were mistaken.

But you didn't say "at times". Oh no .... "Why eyewitness testimony isn't reliable ..." What you announced was not that reliable because it was too general.

And thus it is not at all surprising or extraordinary to find out that our evolved brains

No one has eyewitnessed the evolution of the brain.

You trust some people who taught you that.
For lack of a better word, I reluctantly inform you that you had something like faith in some people who told you their theory about the brain evolving.

They never eye witnessed this. And neither have you.

do not work as reliably as computers or video recorders in capturing what
is going on and storing that information accurately.

As we move more and more into the next decade we will discover, if we have not already, that video can be extremely misleading. The millions paid to the special effects industry in Hollywood has demonstrated that.

As the future advances, VIDEO recorded images will come under greater skepticism. A photograph is not what it use to be. And the Internet should clue you that you're a fool to believe everything somebody puts up there as a video of something that occurred in reality.

I have said before - Eventually we all will trust somebody.

I am not saying fake video and fake audio cannot be tested. But technology is such that a whole lot can be faked. And we can be deceived by what someone purports is a camera image.

And as long as hackers and clever technocrats exist, (and I think that will be at least all night long), computers too can be programmed to deceive people.

Pixels can be munipulated. Data points can be fabricated. It all can be FAKED, FAKED, FAKED.

What I was demonstrating in this thread, and this should be obvious to anyone with half a brain who chooses to use it, is that eyewitness testimony is not necessarily sufficient on it's own to be sure about ordinary claims, let alone extraordinary ones.

But you didn't take the the cautious time to qualify that eyewitness testimony can be at times unreliable.

And now I inform you that video or audio recording CAN at times be ... unreliable.

And thus to be able to justify belief in such claims you need evidence OTHER than eyewitness testimony... even if that testimony is your own.

I don't dispute that that is sometimes the case.

As anyone reading this thread can see, I have been posting link after link after link to places where you can see evidence for what I am claiming science says.

I didn't see your links. I am just responding to what I saw in your thread generalization.

Now as it stands I am not even asking Suzianne to accept that what I am saying is true. I am just trying to get her to admit that it IS what SCIENCE says is true. I would have thought that posting links to science articles, and scientists, saying what I have been saying, would be sufficient to convince any reasonable person that this is what the consensus of science is on this subject.

Evidently she is not a reasonable person.

On this Spirituality Forum I think the concept of the occasional unreliability of eyewitness testimomy is interesting.

And as it relates to something I care about, the resurrection of Christ, I can see why God did not make it so that ALL people in EVERY age would be eyewitnesses to the event, though SOME were.

Excuse me for relating your topic to Spirituality. But the eyewitness activity of the doubting disciple Thomas, was not guaranteed to every person.

"Jesus answered and said to him, Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." (John 20:29)

I believe, that God in His wisdom of all things, including human nature and the nature of eyewitness testimony, put so much emphasis on it. He did not put MORE emphasis upon eyewitness testimony than He deemed necessary.

Thomas empirically witnessed the resurrected body of Jesus - the nail prints in His hands and the spear wound in His side. He requested and was given scientific and empirical proof of Jesus' resurrection.

"The other disicples therefore said to him [Thomas] , We have seen the Lord! But he said to them, Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails and put my finger into the mark of the nails and put my hand into His side, I will by no means believe." (John 20:25)

The disciple Thomas was truly the scientist among the twelve disciples. His request was answered -

I admit that I did not eyewitness this resurrected body of Jesus.
I was not promised that I and everyone else since that day, would like the twelve be eyewitness.

But I believe I have partaken of the blessedness of believing the truth though I have not seen.

" .. Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."

In this life eventually we all will put our trust in someone.
I like the straightforward "heads up" the Bible gives me, that what I am reading is so that I WOULD believe what I did not eyewitness.

"Moreover indeed many other signs also Jesus did before His disciples, which are not written in this book.

But these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name." (John 20:30,31)

Do you think that it is possible that a man, a fisherman from Galilee, may have witnessed something so cataclysmic upon his life, so much impacting the rest of his life, that he would write and willing to die for something he just had to let the world know about?

Do you think a man's life could be so turned upside down by what he experienced that he had to let the world and generations of people to come, to know about?

" ... these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name."

Originally posted by sonship

Well it is what I have witnessed... But it's also what we have huge amounts of empirical data for.

So it's not JUST what I have witnessed, it's what we have evidence for.

So you are then saying that increased numbers of eyewitnesses is more reliable.

So then your thread title could now be subtitled [b] "Why multiplied eyewitness ...[text shortened]... ness testimony isn't reliable unless the number of eyewitnesses is increased to a larger amount.

no no no no.

That is not what I am saying at all.

Eyewitness testimony is really bad weak evidence.

It's not the only kind of evidence however.

Eyewitness testimony is inherently subjective, however we have developed many
ways of measuring things, and of gathering objective quantifiable empirical data.

Which is entirely NOT the same thing as eyewitness testimony.


You REALLY need to learn how science works, because you evidently have absolutely
no clue at all.

Originally posted by googlefudge
no no no no.

That is not what I am saying at all.

Eyewitness testimony is really bad weak evidence.

It's not the only kind of evidence however.

Eyewitness testimony is inherently subjective, however we have developed many
ways of measuring things, and of gathering objective quantifiable empirical data.

Which is entirely NOT the same thin ...[text shortened]... REALLY need to learn how science works, because you evidently have absolutely
no clue at all.

Regardless of how much you advise me to learn how science works
the scientific method is not the ONLY way of knowing truth.

Albert Einstein was a decent scientist. Yet his subjectivity in preference as to what he wanted to believe about an eternal universe caused him to make what he called the biggest blunder of his life.

He said so himself.
In that case the eyewitness activity of what Edwin Hubble showed him in the telescope corrected Einstein's prejudiced and preferred subjective assumptions.

Originally posted by sonship
Regardless of how much you advise me to learn how science works
the scientific method is not the ONLY way of knowing truth.

Albert Einstein was a decent scientist. Yet his subjectivity in preference as to what he wanted to believe about an eternal universe caused him to make what he called the biggest blunder of his life.

He said so himself.
In ...[text shortened]... howed him in the telescope corrected Einstein's prejudiced and preferred subjective assumptions.

No.

Hubble's observations are NOT eyewitness testimony.

For starters, Hubble did not observe galaxy red-shift with his eye's, he used a spectrograph.

Secondly, ANYONE [with the right equipment] can replicate the observations
and verify the result. And this has been done many times, and will continue to
be done. In fact it was further observations of galactic red-shift that demonstrated
that the rate of expansion of the universe is actually increasing.

What Hubble had was data, not eyewitness testimony.

And crucially what Hubble had was independently verifiable data.

Which brings me back to my opening paragraph from the OP...

It is often claimed by believers of all stripes that while they don't have any evidence
to show you to back up their claims of the supernatural, they have had a personal
experience or encounter with god/s or the supernatural. And this means that they
know that they are right, even if they cannot prove it to other people.

What Hubble had was independently verifiable and verified evidence to back up his claim.

Which is the exact opposite of someone claiming personal experience of the supernatural.

Regardless of how much you advise me to learn how science works
the scientific method is not the ONLY way of knowing truth.

Given that you evidently have no clue how science works how can you possibly justify that
claim?

Also, what kind of truth?

I don't know that 2+2=4 because of science.

But if you want to know anything about reality, and not hypothetical logical/mathematical
models of possible realities, then science is the ONLY thing that has ever been shown to work.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No.

Hubble's observations are NOT eyewitness testimony.

For starters, Hubble did not observe galaxy red-shift with his eye's, he used a spectrograph.

Secondly, ANYONE [with the right equipment] can replicate the observations
and verify the result. And this has been done many times, and will continue to
be done. In fact it was further observa ...[text shortened]...
models of possible realities, then science is the ONLY thing that has ever been shown to work.

So ii you mean it is not reliable to claim that a star is billions of years old just because of our observational (eyewitness) measurements, then I will agree. 😏

Originally posted by RJHinds
So ii you mean it is not reliable to claim that a star is billions of years old just because of our observational (eyewitness) measurements, then I will agree. 😏

No, I don't mean that... Possibly the way that you can tell I don't mean that
is that you agree with that statement.

I think you are failing to comprehend what eyewitness means... but with the
sheer tonnage of stuff you don't understand it's hard to tell.


I also wonder if you are stupid enough to actually believe that astronomers
age stars simply by looking at them through a telescope?

Originally posted by googlefudge
No, I don't mean that... Possibly the way that you can tell I don't mean that
is that you agree with that statement.

I think you are failing to comprehend what eyewitness means... but with the
sheer tonnage of stuff you don't understand it's hard to tell.


I also wonder if you are stupid enough to actually believe that astronomers
age stars simply by looking at them through a telescope?

Of course not. I said observational (eyewitness) measurements. Didn't you notice?

Originally posted by RJHinds
Of course not. I said observational (eyewitness) measurements. Didn't you notice?

I did indeed notice.

However what you said was contradictory nonsense blather, so you could
have meant anything.

We don't make 'eyewitness' measurements of star ages.

In fact, the fact that you are 'measuring' something pretty much rules out
the observation as being eyewitness from the start.

Of course, being a completely ignorant moron, you wouldn't understand that.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I did indeed notice.

However what you said was contradictory nonsense blather, so you could
have meant anything.

We don't make 'eyewitness' measurements of star ages.

In fact, the fact that you are 'measuring' something pretty much rules out
the observation as being eyewitness from the start.

Of course, being a completely ignorant moron, you wouldn't understand that.

What did you think I meant by this:

So eyewitness testimony along with evidence is reliable, right?

Originally posted by RJHinds
What did you think I meant by this:

So eyewitness testimony along with evidence is reliable, right?

The evidence may or may not be reliable, it depends on the evidence.

Eyewitness testimony is low quality unreliable evidence, and insufficient on it's own
even for many non-extraordinary claims, let alone extraordinary ones.

If you have other evidence then together that evidence may [or may not] be
sufficient to justify belief in the claim.

However what makes the evidence sufficient is the stuff that wasn't the eyewitness
testimony. It was the evidence that corroborated it.

Originally posted by googlefudge
The evidence may or may not be reliable, it depends on the evidence.

Eyewitness testimony is low quality unreliable evidence, and insufficient on it's own
even for many non-extraordinary claims, let alone extraordinary ones.

If you have other evidence then together that evidence may [or may not] be
sufficient to justify belief in the claim.

...[text shortened]... t is the stuff that wasn't the eyewitness
testimony. It was the evidence that corroborated it.

It does not really matter if the claim is ordinary or extraordinary.

1. Eyewitness testimony alone may be reliable.
2. Eyewitness testimony alone may not be reliable.
3. Evidence alone may be reliable.
4. Evidence alone may not be reliable.
5. Eyewitness testimony accompanied by evidence may be reliable.
6. Eyewitness testimony accompanied by evidence may not be reliable.

Does that about cover it?

Originally posted by RJHinds
It does not really matter if the claim is ordinary or extraordinary.

1. Eyewitness testimony alone may be reliable.
2. Eyewitness testimony alone may not be reliable.
3. Evidence alone may be reliable.
4. Evidence alone may not be reliable.
5. Eyewitness testimony accompanied by evidence may be reliable.
6. Eyewitness testimony accompanied by evidence may not be reliable.

Does that about cover it?

Does that about cover it?

No.

It does not really matter if the claim is ordinary or extraordinary.

Wrong. The amount and quality of evidence for a claim required to justify belief in that claim
is proportionate both to how important it is that you be right, and how probable that claim
is a priori.
Extraordinary claims are both improbable by definition, and typically it's important whether
you are correct or not, and thus they have a very high burden of proof to justify believing
that they are true.

1. Eyewitness testimony alone may be reliable.
2. Eyewitness testimony alone may not be reliable.

Eyewitness testimony is ALWAYS weak and unreliable evidence.
It might, IF the claim is ordinary and unimportant, be sufficient to justify accepting the claim,
but it's never reliable evidence that it is true.

3. Evidence alone may be reliable.
4. Evidence alone may not be reliable.

This is almost a tautology. If the evidence is sufficiently good then it is sufficiently good.
If it is not sufficiently good then it is not sufficiently good.

5. Eyewitness testimony accompanied by evidence may be reliable.
6. Eyewitness testimony accompanied by evidence may not be reliable.

No. You are not getting it.

Eyewitness testimony is ALWAYS unreliable.

However you can become confident that the eyewitness testimony is true IF it is backed up
by sufficient corroborating reliable empirical evidence.

This evidence does not however make the eyewitness testimony reliable, it is the empirical
evidence and not the testimony that is what is reliable and convincing. [assuming that this
evidence is sufficiently reliable and convincing]