> I don't understand how. Aren't you suppose to study logic to be a a judge ? Surely laws and argumentation are a central topic, and they all require a brain. H

> I don't understand how. Aren't you suppose to study logic to be a a judge ? Surely laws and argumentation are a central topic, and they all require a brain. How somebody unable to understand simple concept like probabilities can be judge ? Some of this gets solved via the use of expert witnesses- people who weren't at the scene of the crime that have expertise in a related topic, and their job is, basically, to explain some part of what happened, or how something works, under oath- for instance, a computer forensics expert, who investigated the computer of a hacker, can, during testimony, explain how something works and why that's important. Because experts are under oath, and assumed to have a knowledge of the field they're representing, the judges (and jury, too) generally place trust in them. In this case, the defendant scientist was concerned because of a lack of data: Ms. Stajic, 69, said she felt vindicated. “As a forensic scientist, I am fully aware of the importance of validating each study,” she said in an interview. “My concern was if that study was not done, there could be wrongful convictions. And if the wrong people were convicted, that would mean the wrong person would be walking free.” This is especially important considering the following lines: Low Copy Number testing involves very minute amounts of DNA — often lifted from crime scene surfaces, such as weapon handles or bicycle handlebars, that multiple people have touched. The city first adopted this technique in 2006, and it is estimated to have been used in thousands of cases before it was phased out in January 2017. New York was the only crime lab in the country believed to have used the method. This sounds a little fishy to me- like a computer forensics expert testifying in court that the only reason to use Tor is for bad-guy activities, shortcutting the process of finding what else they might need it for- for instance, I personally use Tor in a VM for looking at the occasional site that I just don't trust. In conclusion- yes, logic is an important part of being a judge, and a part that you more or less have to have in order to get very far. Judges also trust expert witnesses to fill them in on what they don't know (such as how this exact model of car works, or what a particular weapon's spray is like, or if shells from bullets match the defendant's gun) and generally trust them. The problem in the article is that the NYC's science department was more or less in bed with its prosecutors, which is not fair, and that the science department was using less data than it ought to to produce often-damning evidence. It's not really the fault of the judge for not understanding that the shortcuts that the science department were using weren't good, especially when they're under oath, which is a HUGE psychological part of law. Also, if it helps, here's a good overview of how a court case works, in the form of a movie scene critique (legitimately the best primer on how a court with a jury generally functions, or at least ought to): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1I7QBCHqng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1I7QBCHqng