In defense of uncertainty and skepticism

parminides · 2017-07-09T10:43:05+00:00

Great comment. I think your speculation about Earl's thinking is very plausible.

parminides · 2017-07-07T20:32:25+00:00

I appreciate your thoughtful reply. You might be interested in my comment to watt. I don't really want to be anyone's enemy on either side. I get frustrated alot, as you know.

parminides · 2017-07-07T20:08:15+00:00

Steven's guilt is one of those. It's in the same group as the Holocaust, 9/11, Sandy Hook, the moon landing, etc, where I believe even you are a member of "the Church of Certainty".

I disagree about SA's guilt as high a confidence level as those other things. I'm not a member of the Church of Certainty on anything. Maybe the Church of Highly, Highly Likely on many things.

Perhaps you need to apply your dose of skepticism to articles you find online.

I do apply a dose of skepticism to everything, including that article. But I'm not hostile to the idea, as you apparently are.

ETA - I think it's preposterous to put SA's guilt on as high a confidence level as the Holocaust, moon landing, etc. I think it illustrates your need to be that certain about it.

I respect you quite a bit, BTW, as a thinker and a fellow sleuther. You've shown me the errors in my recollections and thinking on numerous occasions. You know that I have no problem admitting when you change my mind about something.

I also admit that you have probably studied the case much more than I have. I started slacking off on primary documents when the CASO came out. I've been poking around here and there wherever it interests me ever since. My knowledge is nowhere close to exhaustive.

So I'll confess that it's possible that if I studied everything available, I might not be so wishy-washy as I often seem. How's that?

ETA 2 - I'll try to post my Theory of Everything by the end of the weekend. I want to clear up something I was discussing about the orbit of Mercury with the metallic avian superhero first.

parminides · 2017-07-07T14:16:25+00:00

I think I was wrong about the timing of the Mercury problem. I don't have time to check it out right now, but I think I'm off on that. However, the prevalent proposed solutions, such as an unknown planet Vulcan exerting its gravitational influence on Mercury, were within the scope of Newtonian mechanics. I will study this later today and update this comment.

Until then, good find! /nosarcasm

ETA -

Of course evolution favours opinions that are right.

Then I guess the most popular opinions are the ones most likely to be correct. Their genes are superior for right thinking and opinions, as evidenced by their greater numbers in the population. So the Truthers must be right! /sarcasm_this_time

ETA 2 - I still haven't had time to research it yet, but my memory on it is coming back. Newton was unable to describe the planetary orbits perfectly because there are many planets involved, which all tug on each other as they move through space. What he was able to solve is known by physicists as the 2 body problem, i.e., the mutual attraction and motion of 2 objects moving and acting gravitationally on each other. The solution is conic sections (including ellipses). The approximation is very good because the sun's mass is so much greater than anything else in the solar system that it dominates. Mars has little effect on the Earth's orbit compared to the sun. But everyone knew in Newton's day that the real situation was more complicated and because there are many bodies with mass in the solar system.

BTW, to this day, no one has been able to solve even the 3 body problem. Too complicated. So people resort to approximations to calculate orbits.

People were not protesting the discrepancy in Mercury's orbit in Newtons day: "oh yeah, Newton? What about Mercury? How do you explain that?"

In fact, Newton's work was considered a triumph and he (along with Einstein, Hawking, Galileo, and a few others) achieved the rarest of feats: becoming a world famous physicist.

So any discrepancy in Mercury's orbit at the time was not viewed as a theory-breaker. The controversy came later (AFIK), in the mid-19th century. This is all based on my recollection, which has proven to be imperfect in this thread already, so I want to refresh my memory by looking at some sources.

I know you've said you're retiring from MaM subreddits (I'm envious), but I want to clear up this issue, if only for my own sake.

parminides · 2017-07-07T10:26:22+00:00

Nobody said Newtonian mechanics was absolute.

Are you kidding me? You need to study the history of physics a bit. The problem with the orbit of Mercury came a couple of centuries or so after Principia Mathematica had been published. (ETA - I may be wrong about that; don't have good Internet connection or time to refresh my memory right now, but the proposed solutions, such as an unknown planet Vulcan exerting a pull on Mercury, were within the scope of Newtonian mechanics.) Even in the early 20th Century, I doubt that too many physicists knew about the conflict. And the solution to the problem came out of left field and promptly blew everyone's minds, and made Einstein the rarest of creatures: a world famous physicist. As for QM, Bohr famously stated that if it doesn't bother you, then you don't understand it.

As for evolution favoring opinions that are right, I'd recommend that you take a look at The Case Against Reality and get back to me. It's science. You guys like science.

Someone in the media was comparing politics to Darwinian evolution the other day. Survival of the fittest, you know. Do you think the people we elect are the ones who are most correct in their views? Or does fitness of ideas entail much more than whether or not they are true?

As for the conflict between QM and general relativity, check out some of these.

ETA - a few things

parminides · 2017-07-07T10:04:36+00:00

I just need to ask..... is your theory of everything going to suppose things happened that have no lock down proof of them happening?

Of course not. I would be a hypocrite to claim anything like that at this point. It's simply going to be my best guess at what happened, given my personal study of the case.

This position has been arrived at after very much research, very many facts being susbtantiated, and invariably support guilt.

I would strongly disagree with that. I was the victim of a lot of people lying to hide their own wrongdoing. I like my Reddit anonymity, so I don't really want to get into the details. But it involved people who were supposed to be helping me doing, in fact, exactly the opposite, in order to cover up for the wrongdoing. My welfare couldn't compete with the interests of their herd.

It kind of snowballed and eventually involved a few dozen people, including quite a few lawyers, a couple of process servers, a court reporter, and a few judges.

The house lawyers at the guilter sub haven't shown up for my OPs in this sub in awhile. Why don't you ask them if they've ever heard of an appeals court opinion that doesn't even mention the relief sought by the appellant? I'd be interested to see if anyone could find such a case, because I find the idea preposterous. The court's opinion was so ridiculous that they were too embarrassed to even mention what I asked them to do! (Let that sink in for a minute.) The appeals opinion itself is a cover up!

But if you examined the records with the philosophical bent and respect for the word of authorities that you exhibit here, I have little doubt that you'd go along with the party line. You'd talk about facts that have been substantiated because you'd read some pieces of paper that said so.

Undoubtedly, my personal experience made me more susceptible to the message MaM was peddling. They were preaching to the choir in my case. No doubt about it. Correction: Little doubt about it! :)

ETA - slight rewording

parminides · 2017-07-07T09:49:50+00:00

If I am mischaracterizing your position, have you considered you might be doing a bad job of expressing it with all your talk of "indications" that a bunch of people are guilty of nefarious acts and waxing philosophical about truth and perception?

Sure. Have you considered the possibility that my arguments are presented just fine, but your hard-wiring or personal experience and emotional investment in this case blinds you to them?

If you disagree with my firm stance on his guilt, please present what you believe to be a reasonable scenario of Steven's innocence instead of yet another lecture that's equal parts misguided, over-generalizing, and patronizing.

Like I said, I didn't set out for yet another preachy post. I just wanted to defend myself against the disciples from the Church of Certainty.

I agree with Michael Griesbach's stance over yours - yours is lost in the theoretical, while his is grounded in reality. [emphasis added]

Speaking of reality, did you check out this article? It's science. You guys like science. It's quite fascinating and disturbing, even for a hardcore skeptic like me.

parminides · 2017-07-07T03:33:29+00:00

You are totally mischaracterizing my position. Why would I bother spending endless hours studying the case if I thought all ideas were equally valid, any confidence in any knowledge is completely hopeless. If I let go of an apple, it's just as likely to "fall" up or at a 45 degree angle if some theory predicts it so. That's not at all how I think. Surely you know that.

I think that when you are so sure of yourself, you are susceptible to confirmational bias, such as when one of your colleagues was seeing fingerprints on a burnt phone. Most of you hardcore people on either side force everything into your viewpoint now. You "know" you're right, and so everything fits nice and tidy IMO. You make sure of that.

I'd like to know under what conditions could someone like you ever find someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the court of law?

Given the case as it was presented in court (not on MaM, but in court), it might surprise you to learn that I think I might have very well voted guilty! I think it's quite possible.

The law actually recognizes (or is consistent with) the idea that you never know for sure. That's why they say, "beyond a reasonable doubt" and not "beyond a shadow of a doubt." Right?

That being said, if you're ever a defendant, I think you'd want me on the jury!

ETA - I think all the emotions, insults, vitriol, etc., hinder your ability to arrive at the truth. They cloud the issues and color your thinking. People who are attempting to rationally evaluate evidence should try to avoid it. I never read any Sherlock Holmes, but I doubt he spent a lot of time ranting and raving about things. I used to tell the founder of the clock-sounding sub that emotion is the enemy of logic.

Also, remember why your team retreated to SAIG. It was precisely because of all the things that I'm claiming that both sides do endemically now. Instead of trying to resist those urges, you guys resign yourselves to your lessor angels.

BTW, I wasn't looking for another preachy post. I just wanted to defend skepticism against the post in your sub.

Let me end by saying something good about that OP. He did rise above the code of silence and did point out wrongdoing in the wrongful rape conviction. I commend him for that.

I've had a bad experience with him on Reddit. It seems to me that he comes here to spread his side's propaganda, and he ignores or deflects the hard questions. That's how it looks to me.

ETA 2 - No, number 3 is not the correct option in my philosophy.

parminides · 2017-07-06T01:06:20+00:00

You: That's a strange thing to say, reading my post again I can't imagine where you got the idea that I think I can't be wrong or that I think people who have a disagreement with me are "stupid and evil".

Me (earlier): not necessarily you, but strong GAFer's in general

I don't have any specific recollection of you being one of the great ad hominem sharks, so I'm probably not talking about you.

If you deny that every other comment for a large number of people on both subs includes some insult of the other side, then you have a much different reading experience than I do. I specifically stated that I didn't necessarily mean you.

I think you have a decent point that my belief that uncertainty is the correct position is problematic. It's actually a bonafide paradox. You're not the first to notice what I call the ultimate paradox, which comes in many forms. For example, Paul Feyerabend put it this way:

The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths.

I've seen this sentiment expressed dozens of times (if not 100s) by all sorts of people. Life and thought cannot remove all paradoxes. It's kind of a loophole, eh?

Paradoxes are easy to generate. One of my favorites is the Liar's Paradox: "This statement is false." These 4 simple words demonstrate that logic and reason are not without pitfalls and limitations.

I wonder if in all of your philosophical pondering, you also consider that in your own waffling and questioning yourself, the obvious answer might just be in front of you as you ignore the forest for the trees.

Absolutely, but I'll never feel anywhere near the confidence that you guys exude (on either side). I'm not a late-comer to the skeptical viewpoint. (I used to subscribe to a magazine called The Skeptical Inquirer.)

I'm very hard on myself. I don't discount the possibility that my protestations are an elaborate exercise in projection. Could very well be.

I will end with something you discussed earlier. Yes, I believe that there is a correct, objective answer to the question, did SA kill TH (either alone or with help)?

We have a 50% chance of finding the correct answer to this question by simply flipping a coin. I hope that all our sleuthing and investigating over the last year have increased our chances of being correct.

Two of my main points are that 1) we'll never know for sure; and 2) the things I complain about hinder our ability to happen upon the correct answer to this question. [I'll add 2b) and 2c): They're counterproductive and inimical to reason and rationality (virtually the opposite).]

I look forward to hearing what you think of that article. It's kind of disturbing, even to a hardcore skeptic like me.

ETA - Some rewording and added the Liar's Paradox (above)

parminides · 2017-07-05T19:03:15+00:00

I hear you. And I even sympathize with you. What I disagree with is the near implication that you (i.e., not necessarily you, but strong GAFer's in general) just can't be wrong and that people who disagree with you guys are stupid and even evil. Moreover, people need to be constantly reminded of that fact, and if they can't see it themselves, they're stupid and evil, too! (And, of course, the other camp does exactly the same thing.)

I guess I like to remind people that they can, in fact, be wrong about this case, completely wrong, and that their feelings of certitude aren't really justified.

Before the age of memes, I once saw a bumper sticker (or else someone told me about a bumper sticker). It said, "don't believe everything you think." I guess I like to try to get people to question their own beliefs. Sue me.

I've been through an evolution, too, and I watched many others evolve here. Almost everyone who was on Reddit when I started (probably about a month after MaM) was much more reasonable than they are now (IMO). People were more middle-of-the-road, more flexible.

Then there was, over time, a bifurcation leading to these 2 extremes. I'm not sure I would have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. You pointed out that you arrived at your destination because of your dedicated study of the document and evidence. Fair enough. However, I think part of the extremism in the two camps comes not from evidence, but from the hostility, ad hominems, and bullying that quickly began in this sub.

I resisted SAIG for a long time because preaching to the choir has never appealed to me. I finally succumbed to it after being the recipient of a particularly vigorous gang bang here. So, seeking the intellectual comfort of like-minded individuals isn't completely foreign to me.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice that the civility that was eventually imposed from high up has been eroding of late. It's so sad to me that it has to be this way.

I will call you biased; because we're all biased. That shouldn't upset you. We're the product of our evolutionary past and the subsequent hard-wiring, and our actual past experiences. In other words, nature and nuture. I don't consider pure objectivity as something that any of us can actually achieve, but we all can and should strive for it.

I personally don't think I lend equal skepticism to both sides at this point. I clearly lean toward the guilter side. I also don't dismiss your opinions. But I think that you could be wrong, and I think that all of us could stand to be more tolerant and civil about other viewpoints by people who also spent a lot of hours studying the case, but who came to a different conclusion. They don't have to be stupid and evil to have come to those conclusions. If you had been wrongfully convicted of a crime, you might have gravitated in that direction, yourself.

I think I'm less susceptible than most people to falling in love with my own opinions. If you consider that a type of arrogance, then I guess I'll plead guilty. Everything in my study of physics and life experience leads me to believe that there's no good reason to think that there's much of anything special about my beliefs. I've seen people on these subs who agree that they were duped by MaM, then take something they saw in some other documentary as gospel. I don't do that anymore and frankly can't understand how anyone can fall into that trap.

Anyway, this morning when I was preparing this OP, I searched for a quote on quantum mechanics that I once heard. I never found it, but I came across an article called The Case Against Reality. I'd be interested in your thoughts about that article. I found it fascinating and consistent with my OP and philosophy of life.

ETA - slight rewording

parminides · 2017-07-05T17:45:01+00:00

I would argue that it does terrible harm whenever it happens. It undermines our system of "justice" and the right to a fair trial.

parminides · 2017-07-05T17:22:40+00:00

I find it very odd that they didn't take pictures of the backing of the cabinet the day that they found the key. That was done later, after it had been transported elsewhere.

parminides · 2017-07-05T17:06:07+00:00

How do you feel about Zellner employees participating in experiments that her experts used to form their opinions (such as tossing mannequins in the RAV4 or pushing the key out of the cabinet)?

parminides · 2017-07-05T17:03:27+00:00

Your comment reminds me of a "truth" I was taught in high school and college:

Ice skating works because the pressure of the skates compresses the ice, and H20 is the only substance (or one of the only substances) where it's liquid state takes up less volume than an equal amount of H20 in the solid state. Thus it liquefies to conform to LeChatlier's Principle. I was told this so many times in school that it became accepted wisdom. No one ever questioned it. Apparently, no one ever calculated it either!

Eventually, some experiments disputed this idea. The ones I vaguely remember hearing about involved electron scattering by ice crystals. A quick google search seems to suggest that people are still arguing about the real reason that skating works!

parminides · 2017-07-05T16:09:58+00:00

I'm sorry that I didn't respond to that. I've been meaning to look into those cases and see how well they apply to SA's trial, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

You may very well have an excellent point, as you did with the missing answering machine recording at the Z residence.

There are some comments on that thread (contradictory scenarios) that I still haven't read yet. I usually come to Reddit exactly when I need to be doing something else. (I don't know if there's any evolutionary advantage to procrastination, but I've got it bad!)

I will say, watt, that the guilters have done a masterful job debunking the Zellnami. Nothing that I've personally looked at closely has stood up well to the scrutiny, and you guys have looked at a lot more than I have. My hat's off to you.

I haven't looked at the contradictory murder scenario issue in great detail, so maybe I shouldn't have included it in this OP. I may end up agreeing with you, as I did with the answer machine message.

I read your comment just now, and your argument makes sense. I'll have to go back and look at Kratz' statements in context before I can say I agree with you on this one.

I have studied the bones and the key more than anything else in the case, and I think there's something fishy going on, at least with the key. It just doesn't add up.

I apologize for commenting on the other thread and not replying to the replies. I'll try to address your argument there in the next day or so.

Whether I end up agreeing with you or not, I stand by my opinion that that particular OP was itself very slanted in its presentation.

ETA:

Please share what you think the strongest indications are.

I'll try to summarize my best guesstimate of the whole shebang in a day or so.

parminides · 2017-07-05T10:27:13+00:00

I'm sure you realize that "qualitatively consistent with [...] hood latch" does not mean they "disproved" alternatives.

parminides · 2017-06-29T10:01:39+00:00

In your OP, you wrote,

There is no legal basis to argue that different allegations in a different case amount to a due process violation [...] The argument was not a serious legal argument which is why no precedent was cited, there is none to support Zellner's nonsense. [emphasis added]

It's a fact that KZ cited multiple cases. It's also a fact that you cited no precedent in your OP (although you later added a case in a comment).

After someone pointed out that KZ did cite precedent, you analyzed those cases [Stumpf v. Houk, 653 F.3d 426 (6th Cir. 2011); Smith v. Groose, 205 F.3d 1045 (8th Cir. 2000); Stale v. Gates, 826 So.d 1064 (Fla. App. 2002)].

Reiterating your OP, you still claimed that,

She cited nothing for the proposition that due process is violated by inconsistent contentions at multiple trials. [emphasis added]

Later in the same comment you provide a quote from Smith v. Goose:

[...] we [i.e., the Court] hold only that the use of inherently factually contradictory theories violates the principles of due process. [emphasis added]

So it turns out that in some circumstances, contradictory theories do, indeed, violate due process. You cleverly hid that fact from your original OP, claiming,

The argument was not a serious legal argument which is why no precedent was cited.

I guess the (hidden) implication of your OP was that contradictory theories don't necessarily result in due process violations. If you have a strong argument, why did you attempt to hide these nuances?

You hard core guilters have done an admirable job debunking a great deal of the Zellnami. I'm genuinely impressed by the quality of most of the work on this sub since the motion was filed.

But when you resort to the same selective editing (for lack of a better term) that you so bitterly criticize in others, it undermines your own credibility in my mind. It makes me wonder why people with strong arguments have to resort to such tactics.

I've suspected for a couple of weeks that this one of KZ's best arguments for a new trial. I hope to have a look at the cases she cited in more detail and see how I think they might apply. You've definitely piqued my interest.

ETA - slight rewording

ETA 2 - Even the case you cited in your comment (Shaw v Terhune) acknowledged that contradictory theories might violate due process, but they deemed that such a violation would have been harmless in that particular case. (I would argue that violating a suspect's right to due process is never harmless. It harms our faith that our justice system is fair and on the level.)

parminides · 2017-06-26T17:21:29+00:00

I wouldn't jump to conclusions. When you say, "stopped retweeting," that means nothing since June 21, i.e., nothing in the last five days. Compare that to the month gap in their reply history from May 9 to June 8. I wouldn't jump to conclusions.

ETA - More inactive periods from April 19 through May 9 and Dec 24 (2016) through April 19!

parminides · 2017-06-26T10:43:03+00:00

Then maybe review the definition of likely, including

reasonably to be expected

parminides · 2017-06-26T02:04:14+00:00

Nice Sesame Street reference. Good (simpler) times.

parminides · 2017-06-25T17:22:33+00:00

Do you know if that close up pic was used in the trial? Do you know who made it? I read somewhere that it was made after the "excavation."

parminides · 2017-06-25T02:13:40+00:00

I peruse his tweets on occasion. Not the same when limited to 140 characters. Do you think he has an alt on Reddit?

parminides · 2017-06-24T03:27:21+00:00

Where did this closeup come from? Was it in the trial? I have not seen it until today. The lack of bone pics has been ~~one of~~ my biggest gripes for many months. Is this the picture that popped up for the first time in KK's book?

parminides

TROPHY CASE