Your characterisation of the evidential value of GI contents is simplistic, naive and poorly informed. In other words, I'm afraid you have no idea at all what you're talking about.
Rolfe.
It can get very frustrating trying to conduct a worthwhile debate with people who are either stunningly ignorant of relevant facts, or who have a blinkered agenda that they are determined to follow no matter what.
The ToD issue is a very interesting case study. As you're no doubt well aware, a JREF member who is a prominent pro-guilt commentator employed ignorance and confirmation bias* in a failed attempt to rubbish/denounce/nullify the work that Kevin, I and others had done into ToD. This poster repeatedly claimed - here and elsewhere - that there was no scientific validity to the work done by those of us arguing that the stomach/duodenum/small intestine contents found at autopsy (when considered alongside a likely start time of the last meal of around 6.30pm, and the established fact that the victim was still alive just before 9pm) clearly indicated a ToD before 10pm, and most likely between 9.00 and 9.30pm. The poster implied that we didn't know what we were talking about, that we were dabbling in things we knew nothing about, and that we were ourselves allowing confirmation bias to dictate our conclusions.
The next bit was the most interesting: this poster knew that you had medical qualifications, and that you were a reasonable and logical person. He therefore assumed that you would be more than happy to weigh in on his side: to chastise and criticise Kevin, me and others here for our cod-knowledge of pathology and gastro-intestinal physiology, and our ludicrously incorrect deductions. This would then give this poster the "seal of approval" he wanted in order to fully ridicule this argument.
Instead, quite the opposite actually happened. You belatedly had a look at the evidence, and used your knowledge, experience and reason to conclude that the argument put forward by Kevin, I and others here was in fact essentially entirely correct. And you were quite happy both to endorse the argument, and to use it as a key factor in your own reasoning on the wider issue of the guilt/non-guilt of Knox and Sollecito. And this particular pro-guilt commentator does not now seem fit to respect your opinion on the matter - and nor do a bunch of similarly ill-informed and/or confirmation-biased pro-guilt commentators.
The fact remains that Kevin, I and others bothered to do some decent and scientifically-robust research into this subject, and came to the objective conclusion that the available evidence clearly showed that Meredith had to have died well before 10pm - and most likely between 9.00 and 9.30pm. What's more, this pathology-based view clearly tends to be corroborated by other important factors: notably Meredith's failure to call her mother back after the aborted 8.56pm call, the fact that she was still wearing her outer jacket and trainers when she was attacked, and (significantly) Guede placing her scream at "around 9.20pm" in his Skype conversation. As you say, Massei's court (and to a certain extent the defence teams) made a serious error in placing the ToD at 11.45pm. I am highly confident that this is one of very many issues that Hellmann's court will correct in the appeal trial.
* And yes, I do know exactly what "confirmation bias" means and where it should correctly be applied. The simple truth is that the term is applicable to huge swathes of pro-guilt "arguments" - since they simply do not stand up to any decent disinterested scrutiny. It's therefore clear that those making the "arguments" are either ignorant or they are willfully shaping their arguments to fit with prior beliefs. And that would be confirmation bias. But I always appreciate getting patronising lectures on how and when to use the phrase, from people whose opinions I don't respect......
