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You know, I think I'm OK with this. Sherlock Holmes was a detective, not a judge. What was appropriate for his line of work isn't appropriate in the courtroom.

You know, I think I'm OK with this. Sherlock Holmes was a detective, not a judge. What was appropriate for his line of work isn't appropriate in the courtroom. Courts are not about what MIGHT happen (or have happened); they are about what DID (or did not) happen. Probability can be an excellent guide for further investigation into these things, but it should be left to the investigators. If they can't find anything harder than a set of odds, then judges have no place betting on them.

Tichy 14y ago
Still, the argument "either A has happened or it has not happened" is silly. What matters is the knowledge we base our decisions on (ultimately we don't even know the outside world really exists, we only have a set of measurements and infer the existence of an outside world from that), and sometimes that is only partially certain.
alan_cx 14y ago
Very good point. I wish I could vote that up a few times. One will have to do.
chimeracoder 14y ago
> If they can't find anything harder than a set of odds, then judges have no place betting on them. But this is how our entire legal system is set up. For criminal proceedings, we have to find the defendant 'guilty beyond reasonable doubt'. What is 'reasonable doubt' if not a (theoretically) quantifiable or parameterizeable representation of our belief that the defendant committed the criminal act? We don't explicitly quantify this threshold as, eg. a 95% chance, but that's still the exact same process we require a jury to undergo, even if we don't attach quantifiable numbers to the results. The jury can never return a probability of 1 (in statistical terms, 'almost certain'), or else the entire appeal system wouldn't exist.
- Torgo 14y ago
  I believe that the purpose of randomize juries could be said to exist because while there are parameters, no one person or entity knows all the parameters.

Tichy 14y ago

Still, the argument "either A has happened or it has not happened" is silly. What matters is the knowledge we base our decisions on (ultimately we don't even know the outside world really exists, we only have a set of measurements and infer the existence of an outside world from that), and sometimes that is only partially certain.

alan_cx 14y ago

Very good point. I wish I could vote that up a few times. One will have to do.

chimeracoder 14y ago

> If they can't find anything harder than a set of odds, then judges have no place betting on them. But this is how our entire legal system is set up. For criminal proceedings, we have to find the defendant 'guilty beyond reasonable doubt'. What is 'reasonable doubt' if not a (theoretically) quantifiable or parameterizeable representation of our belief that the defendant committed the criminal act? We don't explicitly quantify this threshold as, eg. a 95% chance, but that's still the exact same process we require a jury to undergo, even if we don't attach quantifiable numbers to the results. The jury can never return a probability of 1 (in statistical terms, 'almost certain'), or else the entire appeal system wouldn't exist.

Torgo 14y ago
I believe that the purpose of randomize juries could be said to exist because while there are parameters, no one person or entity knows all the parameters.