2 ms·
When something extraordinary happens, people tend to have vivid memories that are false or even impossible. What were you doing when the Challenger exploded?
by fjsolwmv 9y ago
When something extraordinary happens, people tend to have vivid memories that are false or even impossible.
What were you doing when the Challenger exploded?
- matwood 9y agoExactly. Even when something extraordinary events occur people are bad at remembering. Eye witness testimony should be barely passable as evidence, yet it is given huge weight in a courtroom.
- speedplane 9y agoA single eyewitness is rarely sufficient to convict, you would at least need some circumstantial evidence as well (e.g., a weapon, a motive, that defendant was in the area, etc.)
- logfromblammo 9y agoI was reading that part in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman where he's participating in a panel investigating the Challenger explosion, and sticks the model o-rings in the ice water. Quite impossible, obviously. But I can't remember a single detail of what I was really doing. Probably ignoring the television with my nose in some fantasy novel, based purely on statistics. Kimmel's late night television show does "lie-witness news", which effectively demonstrates that ordinary people will say pretty much anything if you prompt and cue them towards what you want to hear.
- cr0sh 9y ago> What were you doing when the Challenger exploded? Walking from one class to another, while I was in the 8th grade. I was likely walking from my English class, but I don't recall what class I was walking to. I was told by a friend of mine who had just gotten out of his science class. We both participated at the time in the "Young Astronauts Program" as an afterschool thing, taught by our science teacher. I was walking past the PE locker / gym building, in a grassy area. For all I know, though, this was so long ago that I could be completely wrong, so I don't really trust that memory too much; that's just how I remember it.