Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kaosium]

That's a very big IF to put it mildly.

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof as skeptics sites often remind us.

No badgers or pathologists were harmed in the making of this post

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I'm betting the time of death in the appeals trial will be closer to Kevin Lowe's estimate than what was the conclusion of the Massei Report. You are welcome to dismiss his work and conclusion.

 

[platonov]

It asks a pertinent question. One that seems to have been overlooked. If Amanda never left there's no reason--other than the 'crap' Raffaele feels stupid about--to think Amanda ever asked him to conceal that she did.



I am saying that you can get innocent people to say all sorts of silly things if you lie to them, convince them you have evidence against them, and threaten them. If they know you have someone in the other room being interrogated too, that just heightens the chances they might blurt forth something untrue to save themselves, especially if they think the other person is throwing them under the bus.



I am unaware of what you're referring to, What did PL's attorney suggest?

What's being overlooked is the part of my post you snipped [unannounced].
Its very pertinent to the issue - which is why I highlighted it

You need to read the trial testimony of AK.
Your arguments suffer from failing to take account of the actual evidence/ testimony.

Simply putting forward arguments for why AK/ RS are innocent / confused is fine but in court there are 2 (more actually) sets of advocates.

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[Kaosium]

What's being overlooked is the part of my post you snipped [unannounced].
Its very pertinent to the issue.

You need to read the trial testimony of AK.
Your arguments suffer from failing to take account of the actual evidence/ testimony.

Simply putting forward arguments for why AK/ RS are innocent / confused is fine but in court there are 2 (more actually) sets of advocates.

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I just snipped the part where you said my logic proved something without telling me what it was. There's no point in replying to that, if you want to make a point I'm sure you'll tell me what it is eventually.

 

[platonov]

I just snipped the part where you said my logic proved something without telling me what it was. There's no point in replying to that, if you want to make a point I'm sure you'll tell me what it is eventually.

Fair enough - you may choose to disregard it, we can move on.

But in a court the jury would have heard it and understood.

That was partly my point about 2 sets of advocates.

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[Kevin_Lowe]

That's a very big IF to put it mildly.

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof as skeptics sites often remind us.

No badgers or pathologists were harmed in the making of this post

A theory about the arguments we are seeing in play here:

I have a theory, which this post (and SherlockHolmes') tend to bear out, that a great deal of the miscommunications that happen in this thread occur because believers in Knox and Sollecito's guilt come here with absolutely no idea about how logical, rigorous, scientific thought works, and when they get here they rapidly realise this.

However they can't admit this, because it would be tantamount to giving up the faith they came here to proclaim, so they try to fake their way through by copying our terms and turns of phrase, trying to ape us as best they can without any real understanding of the processes we use.

When we were discussing the stomach contents evidence, for example, we cited peer-reviewed scientific literature, which we had read in its entirety and put into proper context. The guilter community responded with a hand-picked snippet taken from a textbook chapter that actually contradicted them, and a hand-picked snippet from the abstract of a paper they hadn't read that also contradicted them - but they didn't realise when they did so that there was any difference between what they were doing and what we were doing. As they frequently stated, as far as they were aware what they were doing was not only rational but conclusive.

So after being beaten over the head with that for a while, some of them half-grasped the concept that you have to read it all and understand it all. Platonov demonstrably hasn't because Platonov still thinks we haven't proved that Massei's time of death is nonsense, but Treehorn for example kind of got it. Just not quite.

So now we see Treehorn's new argument that attempts to learn from the mistakes of the past: He has gotten the idea that peer-reviewed scientific literature is the gold standard, so he demands citations from the peer-reviewed scientific literature for trivial details and proclaims victory when he is ignored. He thinks that the fairy story Massei pulled out of thin air, that "improperly placed ligatures" may have somehow allowed Lalli to squeeze food matter all the way from one end of Meredith's bowel right down to the very far end without noticing that he had done so, must be true unless someone provides peer-reviewed citations from the literature to show that ligatures actually work to restrict the flow of food matter as opposed to acting as some kind of vacuum pump, and that Lalli used ligatures made of something that would actually work such as catgut or for that matter a ball of twine from the local newsagent as opposed to camembert or or raspberry jelly.

(He also seems to think that because on TV forensic psychologists can psychoanalyse a criminal by looking at the crime scene, therefore amateur sleuths in the guilter community can diagnose mental illness by looking at cherry-picked, unsupported anecdotes from the tabloid media, and he hasn't seemed to figure out the role the peer-reviewed scientific literature might play in supporting such a claim... but it's early days yet).

It's like playing chess with someone who doesn't even understand how the pawns move, and it seems to have ended in them pointing at their lone and surrounded king and saying "Clearly we have won this match! I have no real idea what's going on, but I'm sure we won! Let us go home in triumph!".

 

[platonov]

I'm betting the time of death in the appeals trial will be closer to Kevin Lowe's estimate than what was the conclusion of the Massei Report. You are welcome to dismiss his work and conclusion.

Ok but in the betting world as I understand it, much attention is given to 'the form'.

We have some form in this situation - the 1st trial.

No 'expert witness' for the defence tried to claim a ToD at exactly 9.05 or 9.15 or whatever.

Admittedly these experts are encumbered by access to the autopsy data, qualifications & experience in the field, a professional reputation to uphold & opposing expert witnesses.

As these conditions are unlikely to change in the appeal I suspect such certainty will not appear.

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[Withnail1969]

An observer might as well perceive you as condescendent when you step in with lapidary affirmations meant to be definitive like nobody ever could attribute a print like this to anybody, labelling like psedo-science...
Charlie Wilkes is also very much on the line "I know more" and "I am right" with little explanation, but not condescending as for what I perceive. The fact is time is a tyrant, often we don't spend our time in attempts to be more pleasant.

It's not about being pleasant. If you are going to tell someone else that 'they don't know anything', or claim that you are 99% certain of something but you won't give your reasoning for some reason, then you aren't engaging in debate.

Childish ad hominems and claims to secret knowledge such as you frequently display do not constitute debate or even adult discussion. It's a shame, because I think you have many worthwhile things to say.

 

[Justinian2]

An appeal to authority is a fallacy if the authority is not qualified on the subject at hand. For example, if someone said that my football team had no chance to win the Super Bowl because Bill Clinton said so, 'appeal to authority' is a polite if stuffy way of saying: "WTF does Bill Clinton know about football? You expect that to end the debate?"

What Treehorn doesn't realize is that if a guy with a rational mind and access to medical journals can show how the time of death in the Massei report is basically scientifically impossible, no amount of badgering him about credentials is going to change that.

No appeal to authority is going to change the fact that 2+2=4. Having said that, a court of law might want that fact stated by a mathematician. Or maybe not. However, appeals to authority would fail if someone were trying to say that 2+2=5.

Someone here can calculate an accurate ToD. Getting the court to believe it is going to require that the same information be presented by an expert. The expert can't change the truth, but he can confirm the truth and give it credibility.

Even if what I say is correct, a judge is going to use his expert opinion to confirm that it's so. Anyway, I believe that there are rules of evidence that have to be met. I saw a document about proposed rules for evidence for use in court.

Thing is, an authority can't change a fact, but he can lie or be incompetent.

An appeal to authority implies that an authority still needs to quote his reasons or his authority is a fallacy.

Ya know, without electronic data to back them up, those DNA findings should have been considered worthless appeals to authority as per the rules of argumentation.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

And I don't see a problem for Raffaele reconciling his statements before the Court of Claudia Matteini. Apparently he said before the Court what he wrote in Diary, the "revised" version: We spent the night together, insofar as I can remember/ I lied to the cops about her leaving, because she asked me to. Two consistent statements.

I view these statements as inconsistent. If Raffaele said Amanda asked him to lie by telling the police she did not go out, his implication is that she did go out. But when he went in front of Matteini, he said she stayed in with him to the best of his recollection.

It seems to me that you are grasping at straws. The position of Raffaele, his family, and his attorneys is that there is only one truth, and it is that Raffaele and Amanda spent the night at his apartment. Can you point to anything that came out in the trial that would suggest otherwise?

 

[Kaosium]

No appeal to authority is going to change the fact that 2+2=4. Having said that, a court of law might want that fact stated by a mathematician. Or maybe not. However, appeals to authority would fail if someone were trying to say that 2+2=5.

Someone here can calculate an accurate ToD. Getting the court to believe it is going to require that the same information be presented by an expert. The expert can't change the truth, but he can confirm the truth and give it credibility.

Even if what I say is correct, a judge is going to use his expert opinion to confirm that it's so. Anyway, I believe that there are rules of evidence that have to be met. I saw a document about proposed rules for evidence for use in court.

Thing is, an authority can't change a fact, but he can lie or be incompetent.

An appeal to authority implies that an authority still needs to quote his reasons or his authority is a fallacy.

Ya know, without electronic data to back them up, those DNA findings should have been considered worthless appeals to authority as per the rules of argumentation.

Yes, authorities can be wrong, but that's not the fallacy. The fallacy is thinking because a professor of physics says something about another subject, say the intelligence of dolphins, that his opinion carries special weight in the debate. In truth he may know less about it than the average surfer dude.

The professor of physics might say something wrong about his field, but employing his opinion in a debate wouldn't be an appeal to authority fallacy.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Ya know, without electronic data to back them up, those DNA findings should have been considered worthless appeals to authority as per the rules of argumentation.

I don't agree with this. The real problem is that the two DNA results most useful to the prosecution both involve unusual circumstances relative to other DNA tests in this case. The e-gram for the knife blade scored markers that were lower than any scored for other samples. The bra fastener was handled in a way that is known to cause contamination and does not conform to published guidelines for handling DNA evidence. We therefore know, on the basis of information we already have, that neither of these test results should be considered reliable.

 

[platonov]

I view these statements as inconsistent. If Raffaele said Amanda asked him to lie by telling the police she did not go out, his implication is that she did go out. But when he went in front of Matteini, he said she stayed in with him to the best of his recollection.

It seems to me that you are grasping at straws. The position of Raffaele, his family, and his attorneys is that there is only one truth, and it is that Raffaele and Amanda spent the night at his apartment. Can you point to anything that came out in the trial that would suggest otherwise?

'The best of his recollection' - that's hardly emphatic.
& cold comfort for AK when she is facing a murder 'charge' and simultaneously invoking her 'silence right'.
Grasping at straws indeed.

CW much of the trial was taken up with this very subject.

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[Kevin_Lowe]

Yes, authorities can be wrong, but that's not the fallacy. The fallacy is thinking because a professor of physics says something about another subject, say the intelligence of dolphins, that his opinion carries special weight in the debate. In truth he may know less about it than the average surfer dude.

The professor of physics might say something wrong about his field, but employing his opinion in a debate wouldn't be an appeal to authority fallacy.

Actually this isn't quite right.

Strictly speaking an appeal to authority is a philosophical fallacy because it's not absolutely watertight - an authority could conceivably be wrong.

For example a pathologist could get up and say "t(lag) for a small-to-moderate sized meal eaten by a normal, healthy young woman who was not under stress, had drunk no alcohol, did not engage in heavy exercise or for that matter do anything else known to modify t(lag) could easily be six hours. It happens all the time". They would be completely wrong. Authorities are usually right - that's why they are authorities - but they are not infallible.

So in serious writing you wouldn't just quote some authority figure, you'd cite the relevant literature directly.

 

[Kaosium]

Actually this isn't quite right.

Strictly speaking an appeal to authority is a philosophical fallacy because it's not absolutely watertight - an authority could conceivably be wrong.

For example a pathologist could get up and say "t(lag) for a small-to-moderate sized meal eaten by a normal, healthy young woman who was not under stress, had drunk no alcohol, did not engage in heavy exercise or for that matter do anything else known to modify t(lag) could easily be six hours. It happens all the time". They would be completely wrong. Authorities are usually right - that's why they are authorities - but they are not infallible.

So in serious writing you wouldn't just quote some authority figure, you'd cite the relevant literature directly.

I was thinking that would just be a case of an incompetent 'authority' rather than an actual example of an appeal to authority fallacy. I've gotten the impression some assumed that any reference to an authority they didn't like constituted an 'appeal to authority,' as did credentialism.

However I suppose quoting an incompetent authority would constitute a fallacious appeal to authority, thus I cede your point.

 

[Kaosium]

Ok but in the betting world as I understand it, much attention is given to 'the form'.

We have some form in this situation - the 1st trial.

No 'expert witness' for the defence tried to claim a ToD at exactly 9.05 or 9.15 or whatever.

Admittedly these experts are encumbered by access to the autopsy data, qualifications & experience in the field, a professional reputation to uphold & opposing expert witnesses.

As these conditions are unlikely to change in the appeal I suspect such certainty will not appear.

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They're so encumbered by all that data they mumble 'compatible' and slink off the stand.

What do you think about the arguments presented that the time of death was before that decided upon in the Massei Report?

 

[platonov]

They're so encumbered by all that data they mumble 'compatible' and slink off the stand.

What do you think about the arguments presented that the time of death was before that decided upon in the Massei Report?

I dismiss the ' early ToD ' arguments presented on this thread with even more disdain, if it were possible, than that which you apply here to the actual 'expert witness' defence employed in the trial.

But I have at least looked over these ' early ToD ' arguments, and posted on them previously - and more than 1 dismissive line at that.
Are you as familiar with the defence evidence so you casually dismiss - seems unfair to the experts involved otherwise.

A cursory examination is in order surely - have a look when you are researching the Q posed by PL's attorney that came up earlier.

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[Kaosium]

It's like playing chess with someone who doesn't even understand how the pawns move, and it seems to have ended in them pointing at their lone and surrounded king and saying "Clearly we have won this match! I have no real idea what's going on, but I'm sure we won! Let us go home in triumph!".

"...When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
FEED YOUR HEAD"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oRKvpZ7PjE&feature=related

That's what it feels like going down the rabbit hole. I was reading that passage in Raffaele's diary and trying to see how it could be construed the way some were seeing it, and for a little while I could. The same thing happened with the foot some claimed looked more like Raffaele's than Rudy's. It took a special effort, but I could pretend black was white, and white was black for a little while.

Of course it still made no sense in context, but I guess that just confuses some further.

 

[Kaosium]

I dismiss the ' early ToD ' arguments presented on this thread with even more disdain, if it were possible, than that which you apply here to the actual 'expert witness' defence employed in the trial.

But I have looked over these ' early ToD ' arguments, and posted on them previously.
Are you as familiar with the defence evidence so you casually dismiss - seems unfair to the experts involved otherwise.

A cursory examination is in order surely - have a look when you are researching the Q posed by PL's attorney that came up earlier.

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I take then you're sticking with the ToD in the Massei Report? Why?

Is this the one about the misplaced comma or something to do with Raffaele standing up in court? I read something along those lines a while back but haven't recently. What are you getting at?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

'The best of his recollection' - that's hardly emphatic.
& cold comfort for AK when she is facing a murder 'charge' and simultaneously invoking her 'silence right'.
Grasping at straws indeed..

Cold comfort, perhaps, but not compatible with the claim that Amanda asked him to lie about whether she went out. That is the point we are discussing, right?

CW much of the trial was taken up with this very subject.
.

Are you saying that Raffaele's defense was based on the claim that he stayed home while Amanda went out alone?

 

[platonov]

I take then you're sticking with the ToD in the Massei Report? Why?

Is this the one about the misplaced comma or something to do with Raffaele standing up in court? I read something along those lines a while back but haven't recently. What are you getting at?

You appear to have misinterpreted my post - perhaps the lack of clarity was down to my prose.

But we don't want to go round in circles so I'm happy to move on.

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