Eyewitness testimony.

It has been claimed often times in this forum that Eyewitness testimony is reliable
and 'used by the courts'...

To those people who have and do claim this...

I suggest you read this story. And then dare you to continue claiming eyewitness
testimony is reliable. Even for mundane ordinary claims, let alone supernatural ones.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/12/the_exoneration_of_kash_register_and_the_problem_of_false_eyewitness_testimony.html

Originally posted by googlefudge
It has been claimed often times in this forum that Eyewitness testimony is reliable
and 'used by the courts'...

To those people who have and do claim this...

I suggest you read this story. And then dare you to continue claiming eyewitness
testimony is reliable. Even for mundane ordinary claims, let alone supernatural ones.

http://www.slate.c ...[text shortened]... ence/2013/12/the_exoneration_of_kash_register_and_the_problem_of_false_eyewitness_testimony.html

The false testimony of these two witnesses could have been uncovered as false had the prosecutor turned over crucial evidence. Under law, the prosecutor is required to do so. The prosecutor shares blame in taking away 34 years of this man's life. Maybe he should share a cell with the scumbag 'eyewitness' for the next 34 years.

Originally posted by Suzianne
The false testimony of these two witnesses could have been uncovered as false had the prosecutor turned over crucial evidence. Under law, the prosecutor is required to do so. The prosecutor shares blame in taking away 34 years of this man's life. Maybe he should share a cell with the scumbag 'eyewitness' for the next 34 years.

There are a catalogue of things that went wrong in this case.

That is one. The idiotic [and likely racist] jury being another.

The point being, eyewitnesses are a really lousy form of evidence.
And come nowhere close to the kind of trustworthiness and veracity
needed to establish an extraordinary claim even when the eyewitness
is still around to be questioned.

There are also the many cases of "false memory". Someone can swear on
their life something happened and it can be pure nonsense. False memories
are common with children who have Attachment Disorder.

Then there is the suggestablity of witnesses. I can't remember (lol) the
specifics, but a theatre of students were shown a film of a car crash and
afterwards had to answer a number of questions about what they had seen.
Save one, all the questions were the same; half the viewers got "At
what speed was the red car going when it smashed into the white car?"
The other half had the same question with the word "bumped"
replacing "smashed". You can guess the responses!!

ALSO
shttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Sins_of_Memory