Julian Assange: rapist or not?

[Korren]

This sounds like a 'Romney', my new slang for a long answer that says nothing.

If that's your honest view of what I said, then there's no point in continuing this discussion.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If that's your honest view of what I said, then there's no point in continuing this discussion.

You said, "at least do a thorough questioning of the alleged perpetrator".

He was questioned.

Do you seriously think JA is going to say something that would incriminate himself?

 

[BenBurch]

I asked you for examples of things the police could uncover talking to JA more and you had none.

Oh, and your straw man exaggeration is duly noted.

No, actually, I thought the question far too elementary to answer.

Interrogation/Interview is something criminal justice majors spend at least a semester on, and I am obviously not going to educate you on that on a message posting.

Trust me that it is a whole lot more involved than you can possibly do in an hour.

 

[BenBurch]

...

Do you seriously think JA is going to say something that would incriminate himself?

Yes. Very possibly. The more clever a suspect believes he is, the more likely he will play with what he says in a clever way and hang himself.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Answer not forthcoming? Just claim it's far too elementary to answer. Got it.

 

[nathan]

You are confusing an example simply meant to illustrate a point with an anecdote that was intended to say X occurred..

and the sophistry continues.

What exactly is different about 'illustrate a point' and 'say X occurred'?

 

[nathan]

Do you seriously think JA is going to say something that would incriminate himself?

well, he's doing plenty

 

[nathan]

Answer not forthcoming? Just claim it's far too elementary to answer. Got it.

Haven't you noticed the back and forth in this discussion? How someone makes a claim, and someone else may go away and search for confirming or refuting evidence for it, and then come back? Well it's a bit like that. Does that help?

Unlike this discussion though, there are time limits

Or alternatively, even though TV cop shows are fictional, I'm pretty sure the broad stroke of interrogation/suspend-and-research/resume-interrogation cycle is a reasonable facsimile of reality.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

and the sophistry continues.

What exactly is different about 'illustrate a point' and 'say X occurred'?

There's no fallacious argument here.

If I say I took a pill and my headache went away, that is anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of the pill.

If I said, "If I thought every headache I had was a brain tumor, I'd be in the ED every week", that would be illustrating a point.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Haven't you noticed the back and forth in this discussion? How someone makes a claim, and someone else may go away and search for confirming or refuting evidence for it, and then come back? Well it's a bit like that. Does that help? ...

No. I'm asking a simple question:

What are the possible things the prosecutor is going to uncover from interviewing JA that wasn't already uncovered in this case?

We know they had sex.
We know the women claim certain things occurred during sex.
We know JA denies those things occurred during sex.
We know the torn condom one of the women presented had no DNA on it.
We know the women asked JA to get an HIV test and he refused.

It is extremely improbable that JA would confess or implicate himself in further interviews.

What you have is one side in this thread claiming, the investigation is incomplete. And the other side saying, if there isn't enough evidence now (and there doesn't appear to be), a further interview with JA is so unlikely to add anything, people can't even give hypothetical examples of what JA might say that would add any evidence to the case.

Does the prosecutor think she's so clever, she'll trip JA up?
Does she plan to use techniques known to get false confessions?
Or, is she pursuing the case for ulterior motives (for example: miffed to have her authority challenged by JA, fame, covert political or ideological motives)?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Haven't you noticed the back and forth in this discussion? How someone makes a claim, and someone else may go away and search for confirming or refuting evidence for it, and then come back? Well it's a bit like that. Does that help?

No, it doesn't help. You are saying there could be some magical thing no one can name.

There is only one thing, a confession, and that is so unlikely as to truly be Ny grasping straws or believing a tad too much in her skills.

 

[Here_to_learn]

No, it doesn't help. You are saying there could be some magical thing no one can name.

There is only one thing, a confession, and that is so unlikely as to truly be Ny grasping straws or believing a tad too much in her skills.

As I've said before:

Please read paragraphs 142 and 144 in the High Court judgement. (I can't copy the relevant text from this document).

There you can read text from a signed statement by Ms. Ny regarding the state of the investigation and what she expects to happen. If you read there, you can see that she doesn't seem to expect a confession, so maybe it's you that believe a tad too much in your skills in judging the value of the current evidence that the Swedish police and prosecution holds.

 

[nathan]

There's no fallacious argument here.

If I say I took a pill and my headache went away, that is anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of the pill..

Your anecdote didn't say that though did it? It was more like

I took a red pill and got a headache

I've taken blue pills all my life and never got a headache

See the problem?

 

[nathan]

No. I'm asking a simple question:

What are the possible things the prosecutor is going to uncover from interviewing JA that wasn't already uncovered in this case?

We know JA denies those things occurred during sex.

He's not done that since the case was reinvestigated (if he's done it at all), for the very simple reason that he's not been interviewed by the swedish prosecutor, as he skipped the country before a previously agreed appointment.

So, there are certainly accusations that JA has not answered in an interview situation.

ETA: AFAICT your argument is that because JA's a paranoid fantasist we should indulge him.

 

[nathan]

There is only one thing, a confession, and that is so unlikely as to truly be Ny grasping straws or believing a tad too much in her skills.

Well, I'm glad you don't work in law enforcement, if that's what you think investigators do.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As I've said before:


There you can read text from a signed statement by Ms. Ny regarding the state of the investigation and what she expects to happen. If you read there, you can see that she doesn't seem to expect a confession, so maybe it's you that believe a tad too much in your skills in judging the value of the current evidence that the Swedish police and prosecution holds.

From your link:

142: preliminary investigation is at an advanced stage. "I consider that it is necessary to interrogate Assange, in person, regarding the evidence"

I.e., because Ny said so.

And 144 says two things - its a technicality and we can't close the case without the technicality. And, 144 contradicts 142 which said, Ny was already convinced there was enough evidence for a trial, when 144 says, a charge was not decided yet.


It's like I said, this whole case is no more than exploiting technicalities. Ny is being an ass. Nowhere in 142 or 144 can you find one single thing described that an interrogation would provide except the nebulous, magical, 'there could be something' that 'might require further follow up questioning the women'.

The whole premise is they can't close the case without this step, not that there is any real thing to be discovered by the interrogation.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

See the problem?

Yes, you don't understand the difference between an example meant to illustrate a point: the charges even if true, are extremely weak, and and anecdote intended to be evidence for causality.

 

[Here_to_learn]

I.e., because Ny said so.´

Yes, who else would say so? She has the responsibility for the investigation, so of course it's her responsibility to say so.

And:

In the case of most crimes, the prosecutor has what is known as an absolute duty to prosecute. This means that the prosecutor is obliged to initiate a prosecution if he or she considers there to be sufficient evidence to prove that a crime has been committed and that a certain person has committed it.

And 144 says two things - its a technicality and we can't close the case without the technicality. And, 144 contradicts 142 which said, Ny was already convinced there was enough evidence for a trial, when 144 says, a charge was not decided yet.

Yes? As you well know, he is not charged. From what I see it, it's saying something "unless something new comes up during interviews, he will be charged".

Nowhere in 142 or 144 can you find one single thing described that an interrogation would provide

So the prosecution does not spell out exactly what questions they will ask, and exactly what they expect to happen in detail? Now that is a real surprise...

The whole premise is they can't close the case without this step, not that there is any real thing to be discovered by the interrogation.

No, the whole premise is that they cannot charge without this step. (142.10 in the document).

 

[nathan]

Yes, you don't understand the difference between an example meant to illustrate a point: the charges even if true, are extremely weak, and and anecdote intended to be evidence for causality.

You do know that anecdotes are not evidence, right?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You do know that anecdotes are not evidence, right?

You do know you are wrong, right?

If we didn't use anecdotal evidence half the medical treatments and drugs we use today would not exist.

You are confusing the conclusion with the evidence.

Relaying a single observation (an anecdote) is not likely to be evidence of causality. In other words random anecdotal evidence is very unreliable.

But if you can collect anecdotes systematically, using controls to rule out other variables, then anecdotal evidence is very useful. For example, if I'm doing an epidemiological investigation into a food-borne illness outbreak I would interview everyone who got sick and the people around them who did not get sick. I can then use the anecdotal evidence to look for an association between something the people ate who became ill, that the people who did not become ill, did not eat.