The only consideration I can think of even close to the insightfulness of komponisto's analysis of how the coverup is the only hard question in the Knox case would be to ask how often mothers cover up a murder of their children they were not culpable in. And when you ask it like that, then Anthony looks highly likely to be guilty.
This morning I read the following. I still don't have statistics on this but this should be relevant:
Nicholson, who worked as a social worker on the child abuse team at Dayton Children’s before becoming director of Care House in 1998, said there are facts about the case that she finds extremely troubling. “What I can tell you definitively is that the parents of children who die accidentally don’t lie about it; they don’t wait 31 days before reporting the deaths, and those are facts of this case that are seemingly indisputable,” Nicholson said.
That doesn't really tell us much - lying about accidents is rare, OK. Parents murdering their children, accidentally or deliberately, are also pretty rare. It's the ratio of rarity which tells us which to prefer in lieu of any other evidence - which is rarer?
I'm just curious if anyone has weighed the evidence from the Casey Anthony murder using a Bayesian filter. Someone made a very useful post like this for the Amanda Knox case, but I think for this case it would be even more useful. Given the apparent hysteria in traditional media, social networks, etc. it would be great to have a nice dose of rationality about the case.
My gut feeling is that most people have not bothered to weight the evidence, but look at the surface layers of the case and judge based on questionable heuristics. It also seems to me that the members of the jury had a lot more time and reason to carefully weigh the evidence (even if they aren't Bayesians) than your average, angry twitter user. Additionally, coming out on one side or another gives a great opportunity to signal (think of the children vs. strict constitutionalism).
Any thoughts?