komponisto comments on The Amanda Knox Test: How an Hour on the Internet Beats a Year in the Courtroom - Less Wrong

42 Post author: komponisto 13 December 2009 04:16AM

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Comment author: komponisto 23 February 2010 02:11:41AM 1 point [-]

Yes indeed -- our term for that here is privileging the hypothesis.

Comment author: wedrifid 23 February 2010 02:13:39AM 0 points [-]

(Although I do find the point more salient when it is described explicitly rather than by reference to jargon. )

Comment author: komponisto 23 February 2010 02:34:20AM 1 point [-]

Wasn't trying to enforce the use of jargon so much as classify the fallacy.

After all, the point is even more salient when you can relate it to a whole category of error found in many other contexts.

Comment author: AnnaGilmour 23 February 2010 04:44:10AM *  1 point [-]

I find the term useful. I think it is what a lot of the media has done. Since Amanda and Raffaele are in discussion and named in the theory, there must be something to it and they have equal weights of measure for concern as the third suspect, Rudy. When in fact, they are very lightweight and the (heavy) weight should be attributed to the method by which they became suspects. The term helps me to say "Oh that's what is going on." Like komponisto said, a whole category of error. (Not to mention all the contexts apart from this specific case, the topic at hand, indeed.)

Comment author: komponisto 23 February 2010 05:01:13AM 3 points [-]

Quite right. It's actually amazing how little attention was paid to Rudy Guede in the media coverage of this case, particularly in the U.S. and U.K. media. (Numerous stories either omitted all mention of him altogether or else referred briefly and vaguely to "a third suspect" -- without any hint about the disparity in evidence.)