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Human societies have relied on eye-witness testimony since Cain and Abel. Sure, you can study it and discover that humans are unreliable (film at 11!) but it's

Human societies have relied on eye-witness testimony since Cain and Abel. Sure, you can study it and discover that humans are unreliable (film at 11!) but it's silly to think that we are going to have trials and testimony and leave out eye witnesses. What's important about our trial system and juries-of-peers is that the average person feels the system is doing its best to find the truth so that it's not necessary to form vigilantes. Our system is overall pretty good, better than asking all the people who show up at a crime scene or later to protest.

Teever 5y ago
It is true that trials are imperfect. They are an imperfect approximation of an ideal truth finding endeavour implemented by imperfect humans. That doesn't mean that the imperfections are a feature, it means that as time goes on society should work towards making more accurate approximations of this truth finding process. Just as we have done away with things like expert testimony on phrenology, cruentation, or trial by ordeal there may come a time when we do away with witness testimony or restrict the kinds of things we allow witnesses to testify about, like we already do with hearsay.
zarzavat 5y ago
Cain and Abel didn’t have DNA evidence, security cameras, digital forensics, etc. It’s right to reevaluate in light of the modern world. Some eyewitness testimony is acceptable. People can be reliably expected to recognize people who they know. If a woman’s mother said that she saw the boyfriend hit her daughter, that’s an acceptable form of eyewitness testimony. The kind of eyewitness testimony that should not be accepted, is when the person in question was not previously known to the witness. This kind of evidence has been proven time and time again to be entirely unreliable and should be considered no more compelling than lie detectors.
- ars 5y ago
  BTW Biblical eye witness testimony requires the witness to know they person they are identifying. So, fsckboy, what we are doing today is not exactly what has been done since Cain and Abel, we took the ancient idea of eye witness and extended it beyond where it is reliable.
  - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
    This is a detestable way of disagreeing.
    - ars 5y ago
      That's his name on hn!! I just realized it looks like I'm calling him a bad name!
      - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
        Lmao - I scrolled up to check but I must have missed my alignment. Edited, and my apologies.
  - m_myers 5y ago
    Biblical eyewitness testimony also requires multiple witnesses: > One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. Deuteronomy 19:15 KJV. https://bible.com/bible/1/deu.19.15.KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/deu.19.15.KJV Witnessing falsely was rightly a very big deal to them. It's one of the Ten Commandments, right up there with worshipping idols or committing murder. And according to the following verses of this passage, anyone who witnesses falsely will receive the exact same punishment that the accused would have received.
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    BTW I referenced the time of Cain and Abel as metonymy for "early humans", not advocacy for the Bible. While the Bible(s) contain interesting and thoughtful ideas about how a functioning legal system could be constructed, in terms of advocacy I'd advocate incorporating enlightenment innovations such as the US bill of rights, etc.
- noduerme 5y ago
  Wouldn't proximity and time be rather important? Seeing someone briefly from a distance, in a traumatic and stressful moment, could easily lead to mistaken identification. On the other hand, the Nuremberg trials relied on eyewitnesses to identify people guilty of genocide who were trying hard to disguise their appearance, and this was possible because the witnesses had been in relatively close proximity to the accused for a long period of time. Just like an AI can't make a perfectly accurate 3D replica of a face from a single 2D image, the human brain can't. But that doesn't mean it can't get closer and closer with more data. It seems to me that the real problem is not eyewitness testimony itself, but the methods used to validate the degree of certainty behind it.
  - nvrspyx 5y ago
    I think the parent agrees, hence: > when the person in question was not previously known to the witness
    - noduerme 5y ago
      What I'm taking issue with is the word "previously". "Previously" implies a family member or neighbor. But if you were caught and tortured by someone you didn't previously know for awhile, you would still probably identify them pretty accurately.
      - boomboomsubban 5y ago
        >But if you were caught and tortured by someone you didn't previously know for awhile, you would still probably identify them pretty accurately. If that was your only interaction with them, I doubt it. You're likely in the most stressful situation of your life, memorizing what a person looks like may not be high on your list of priorities. There's the famous Ronald Cotton case where a woman was raped and consciously tried to memorize their attackers face. She proceeded to pick an innocent man out of two lineups until a decade later DNA evidence proved his innocence. The actual perpetrator was also in the lineup, and she swore she had never seen him.
- fsckboy 5y ago
  > Cain and Abel didn’t have DNA evidence, security cameras, digital forensics, etc. It’s right to reevaluate in light of the modern world. you are hopelessly naive if you think the court system could operate only on technology the way you are suggesting. Nowhere did I even hint we should not use physical evidence.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>Human societies have relied on eye-witness testimony since Cain and Abel. pretty sure Cain and Abel relied on having an omniscient Lord going around checking in on people https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/GEN+4.html https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/GEN+4... to quote: Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?" The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
elliekelly 5y ago
> [I]t’s silly to think that we are going to have trials and testimony and leave out eye witnesses. What's important about our trial system and juries-of-peers is that the average person feels the system is doing its best to find the truth so that it's not necessary to form vigilantes. Have you considered that perhaps we’ve reached (or are approaching) the point where trials with eye witness testimony are undermining the trial system by making the average person feel the system isn’t doing it’s best to find the truth? If a method is hopelessly unreliable at finding the truth and people know it’s hopelessly unreliable at finding the truth and we continue to employ the hopelessly unreliable method as a means to find the truth it’s “silly” to think that the public would observe the process and conclude its “doing its best to find the truth”.

Teever 5y ago

It is true that trials are imperfect. They are an imperfect approximation of an ideal truth finding endeavour implemented by imperfect humans. That doesn't mean that the imperfections are a feature, it means that as time goes on society should work towards making more accurate approximations of this truth finding process. Just as we have done away with things like expert testimony on phrenology, cruentation, or trial by ordeal there may come a time when we do away with witness testimony or restrict the kinds of things we allow witnesses to testify about, like we already do with hearsay.

zarzavat 5y ago

Cain and Abel didn’t have DNA evidence, security cameras, digital forensics, etc. It’s right to reevaluate in light of the modern world. Some eyewitness testimony is acceptable. People can be reliably expected to recognize people who they know. If a woman’s mother said that she saw the boyfriend hit her daughter, that’s an acceptable form of eyewitness testimony. The kind of eyewitness testimony that should not be accepted, is when the person in question was not previously known to the witness. This kind of evidence has been proven time and time again to be entirely unreliable and should be considered no more compelling than lie detectors.

ars 5y ago
BTW Biblical eye witness testimony requires the witness to know they person they are identifying. So, fsckboy, what we are doing today is not exactly what has been done since Cain and Abel, we took the ancient idea of eye witness and extended it beyond where it is reliable.
- DiggyJohnson 5y ago
  This is a detestable way of disagreeing.
  - ars 5y ago
    That's his name on hn!! I just realized it looks like I'm calling him a bad name!
    - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
      Lmao - I scrolled up to check but I must have missed my alignment. Edited, and my apologies.
- m_myers 5y ago
  Biblical eyewitness testimony also requires multiple witnesses: > One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. Deuteronomy 19:15 KJV. https://bible.com/bible/1/deu.19.15.KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/deu.19.15.KJV Witnessing falsely was rightly a very big deal to them. It's one of the Ten Commandments, right up there with worshipping idols or committing murder. And according to the following verses of this passage, anyone who witnesses falsely will receive the exact same punishment that the accused would have received.
- fsckboy 5y ago
  BTW I referenced the time of Cain and Abel as metonymy for "early humans", not advocacy for the Bible. While the Bible(s) contain interesting and thoughtful ideas about how a functioning legal system could be constructed, in terms of advocacy I'd advocate incorporating enlightenment innovations such as the US bill of rights, etc.
noduerme 5y ago
Wouldn't proximity and time be rather important? Seeing someone briefly from a distance, in a traumatic and stressful moment, could easily lead to mistaken identification. On the other hand, the Nuremberg trials relied on eyewitnesses to identify people guilty of genocide who were trying hard to disguise their appearance, and this was possible because the witnesses had been in relatively close proximity to the accused for a long period of time. Just like an AI can't make a perfectly accurate 3D replica of a face from a single 2D image, the human brain can't. But that doesn't mean it can't get closer and closer with more data. It seems to me that the real problem is not eyewitness testimony itself, but the methods used to validate the degree of certainty behind it.
- nvrspyx 5y ago
  I think the parent agrees, hence: > when the person in question was not previously known to the witness
  - noduerme 5y ago
    What I'm taking issue with is the word "previously". "Previously" implies a family member or neighbor. But if you were caught and tortured by someone you didn't previously know for awhile, you would still probably identify them pretty accurately.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      >But if you were caught and tortured by someone you didn't previously know for awhile, you would still probably identify them pretty accurately. If that was your only interaction with them, I doubt it. You're likely in the most stressful situation of your life, memorizing what a person looks like may not be high on your list of priorities. There's the famous Ronald Cotton case where a woman was raped and consciously tried to memorize their attackers face. She proceeded to pick an innocent man out of two lineups until a decade later DNA evidence proved his innocence. The actual perpetrator was also in the lineup, and she swore she had never seen him.
fsckboy 5y ago
> Cain and Abel didn’t have DNA evidence, security cameras, digital forensics, etc. It’s right to reevaluate in light of the modern world. you are hopelessly naive if you think the court system could operate only on technology the way you are suggesting. Nowhere did I even hint we should not use physical evidence.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>Human societies have relied on eye-witness testimony since Cain and Abel. pretty sure Cain and Abel relied on having an omniscient Lord going around checking in on people https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/GEN+4.html https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/GEN+4... to quote: Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?" The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

elliekelly 5y ago

> [I]t’s silly to think that we are going to have trials and testimony and leave out eye witnesses. What's important about our trial system and juries-of-peers is that the average person feels the system is doing its best to find the truth so that it's not necessary to form vigilantes. Have you considered that perhaps we’ve reached (or are approaching) the point where trials with eye witness testimony are undermining the trial system by making the average person feel the system isn’t doing it’s best to find the truth? If a method is hopelessly unreliable at finding the truth and people know it’s hopelessly unreliable at finding the truth and we continue to employ the hopelessly unreliable method as a means to find the truth it’s “silly” to think that the public would observe the process and conclude its “doing its best to find the truth”.