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>> and so I must now tell them that the entire philosophy behind their course has been declared illegal in the Court of Appeal. I hope they don't mind. >Is wha

by davorak 14y ago

>> and so I must now tell them that the entire philosophy behind their course has been declared illegal in the Court of Appeal. I hope they don't mind. >Is what reveals the misunderstanding. Judges don't "declare" things illegal, they rule on matters of what the law is. That the law requires judgements to be rendered in certain terms is not a statement of the legality of making Bayesian arguments. The write seems to be assuming that the court case sets a president that make it hard if not impossible to use Bayesian reasoning in the court room and sums it up as "illegal". > The law requires a decision. The conceptual basis of the common law is a promise that a court will always render a clear and specific set of rulings or orders, and that there will always be an explanation of those rulings or orders. I thought this was a civil case and did not require "beyond a shadow of doubt." but rather just high probability a term I have heard is that it requires a preponderance of evidence. Bayesian statistics/reasoning is supposed to help come to a conclusion with a high likely hood of being correct which seems like the file state I want a judge to be in when ruling. What is not good or counter productive about this state brought about by Bayesian methods?

jacques_chester 14y ago
The problem is that the law requires a statement of cause in order to apportion responsibility. It cannot abide uncertainty at the moment of judgement. It is accepted that, because in civil cases, the consequences of misjudgement are less severe, it is acceptable to relax the standard of judgement to "balance of probabilities". Note the case that was mentioned inline that this case was affirming: Hotson v East Berkshire Area Health Authority[1]. First of all, the linked poster should be railing at that decision, this one merely takes it as precedent. In Hotson there was a question about causality based on the given probability of a child's recovery. Given that a child that fell out of a tree was estimated to be 25% likely to recover, medical staff seemed to have taken the view that the child was basically a hopeless case. Perhaps if they hadn't, went the reasoning, the child might have done better because the staff would have tried harder. In that were so, some responsibility could be apportioned to the Health Authority, and not just to the child falling out of a tree. The Lords ruled that the only thing that certainly happened was the child falling out of the tree. Counterfactuals based on probabilities couldn't be admitted because there's no way to reliably nail the damn things down. Anybody can come along with a different Bayesian network and give you a different estimate. What mattered, in the view of the Lords, was what could be verifiably said to have actually happened. A more-than-standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I was terrible at torts. Torts law is notorious tricky and can vary very widely from country to country -- I studied in Australia and these cases are in England. This post does not constitute legal advice. Hell, it doesn't even make for good reading.
- davorak 14y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the pointe > What mattered, in the view of the Lords, was what could be verifiably said to have actually happened. It would be interesting to see how "verifiably" and "actually happened" would be refined to produce a judgement. I could imagine at least refinement towards frequentist statistics, Bayesian methods, "I know it when I see it"(gut feeling, other non-quantitative standard of obviousness).
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    I would say that main things to remember about law in common law jurisdictions are: 1. The judge does not seek evidence, does not provide evidence, and does not provide arguments. The presentation of fact and law is the job of the plaintiff/respondent or prosecutor/defendant (depending on civil or criminal law). 2. The judge rules on what is introduced during court cases. Judges almost always follow judgements that have been made previously -- precedent, also called stare decisis or "let the decision stand". In this case the precedent identified was Hotson. A lower court judge who presumes to modify a higher court's principles can expect that the higher court will accept an appeal on matters of law. 3. The legal system's purpose is to render certain, verifiable judgements. Judgements can't be uncertain ("You are sentenced to a 95% chance of prison" or "between 20,000 and 50,000 is awarded to the plaintiff for damages" is not helpful), so as a step in the process of legal reasoning, information about uncertainty is deliberately destroyed. This is called "balance of evidence" or "preponderance of evidence" in civil trials, or "beyond reasonable doubt" in criminal trials. It is deliberately imprecise, because all attempts to introduce mechanical rules for evidentiary judgement have so far proved to be even more gameable than the fuzzy statements. The legal system is profoundly introspective. Lawyers will introduce matters of legal interpretation in argument, these must be addressed. Appeals to higher courts are usually only possible on questions of law, meaning that very fine details of legal reasoning are constantly being teased out. Judges must constantly weigh what the law is, and they also at higher levels frequently decide how the law is determined to be what it is. Given that subjects like jurisprudence and interpretation of laws can have massive practical consequences, it's an area that receives great scrutiny. I became interested in the methods of analysis and judgement because of Australian constitutional law, where there are -- depending how you count -- between 4 and 6 basic schools of thought on how to interpret the Australian Constitution.

by davorak 14y ago

jacques_chester 14y ago

The problem is that the law requires a statement of cause in order to apportion responsibility. It cannot abide uncertainty at the moment of judgement. It is accepted that, because in civil cases, the consequences of misjudgement are less severe, it is acceptable to relax the standard of judgement to "balance of probabilities". Note the case that was mentioned inline that this case was affirming: Hotson v East Berkshire Area Health Authority[1]. First of all, the linked poster should be railing at that decision, this one merely takes it as precedent. In Hotson there was a question about causality based on the given probability of a child's recovery. Given that a child that fell out of a tree was estimated to be 25% likely to recover, medical staff seemed to have taken the view that the child was basically a hopeless case. Perhaps if they hadn't, went the reasoning, the child might have done better because the staff would have tried harder. In that were so, some responsibility could be apportioned to the Health Authority, and not just to the child falling out of a tree. The Lords ruled that the only thing that certainly happened was the child falling out of the tree. Counterfactuals based on probabilities couldn't be admitted because there's no way to reliably nail the damn things down. Anybody can come along with a different Bayesian network and give you a different estimate. What mattered, in the view of the Lords, was what could be verifiably said to have actually happened. A more-than-standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I was terrible at torts. Torts law is notorious tricky and can vary very widely from country to country -- I studied in Australia and these cases are in England. This post does not constitute legal advice. Hell, it doesn't even make for good reading.

davorak 14y ago
Interesting, thanks for the pointe > What mattered, in the view of the Lords, was what could be verifiably said to have actually happened. It would be interesting to see how "verifiably" and "actually happened" would be refined to produce a judgement. I could imagine at least refinement towards frequentist statistics, Bayesian methods, "I know it when I see it"(gut feeling, other non-quantitative standard of obviousness).
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  I would say that main things to remember about law in common law jurisdictions are: 1. The judge does not seek evidence, does not provide evidence, and does not provide arguments. The presentation of fact and law is the job of the plaintiff/respondent or prosecutor/defendant (depending on civil or criminal law). 2. The judge rules on what is introduced during court cases. Judges almost always follow judgements that have been made previously -- precedent, also called stare decisis or "let the decision stand". In this case the precedent identified was Hotson. A lower court judge who presumes to modify a higher court's principles can expect that the higher court will accept an appeal on matters of law. 3. The legal system's purpose is to render certain, verifiable judgements. Judgements can't be uncertain ("You are sentenced to a 95% chance of prison" or "between 20,000 and 50,000 is awarded to the plaintiff for damages" is not helpful), so as a step in the process of legal reasoning, information about uncertainty is deliberately destroyed. This is called "balance of evidence" or "preponderance of evidence" in civil trials, or "beyond reasonable doubt" in criminal trials. It is deliberately imprecise, because all attempts to introduce mechanical rules for evidentiary judgement have so far proved to be even more gameable than the fuzzy statements. The legal system is profoundly introspective. Lawyers will introduce matters of legal interpretation in argument, these must be addressed. Appeals to higher courts are usually only possible on questions of law, meaning that very fine details of legal reasoning are constantly being teased out. Judges must constantly weigh what the law is, and they also at higher levels frequently decide how the law is determined to be what it is. Given that subjects like jurisprudence and interpretation of laws can have massive practical consequences, it's an area that receives great scrutiny. I became interested in the methods of analysis and judgement because of Australian constitutional law, where there are -- depending how you count -- between 4 and 6 basic schools of thought on how to interpret the Australian Constitution.