Comment author: Wes_W 02 February 2014 11:22:36PM 3 points [-]

If you change your story, the probability of your guilt is 1.00.

This is equivalent to stating "no innocent person ever changes their story." Empirically, this is false.

Let me provide a personal example. Several years ago, I was nearby when a co-worker was injured on the job. Two years later, I received a summons - she had ended up suing the company, and as an eyewitness, my testimony was relevant. Lawyers for the two parties asked me questions for a while; I answered to the best of my ability, as honestly as I could. My memory of the event was somewhat fuzzy by then, so I tried to only state things which I was sure I remembered accurately, and expressed my uncertainty when I was uncertain.

Once they finished their questions, they handed me a photocopy of a document in my own handwriting, written on the day of the event. The company had gotten such statements from everyone present on the day of the incident, you see. Not only had I forgotten that I had written such a thing until they showed it to me, my own handwriting directly contradicted the things I'd stated from memory minutes before!

This was before I participated in Less Wrong or was otherwise aware of the breadth of human cognitive failings. I was quite taken aback! My brain had betrayed me - not in old age, in my early twenties! I do not generally consider myself forgetful - if anything, I have an unusually good memory - yet in a fairly short span of time, my brain had managed to confabulate almost every detail of the event.

Since I became aware of it, I've noticed myself mid-confabulation on a regular basis. Despite how much my conscious mind values truth, my underlying hardware doesn't seem to much care.

You may indeed be one of the lucky people with flawless recall. This is not, by a long shot, a universal human trait. Memory is fragile. It is quite easy for many humans to misremember things without knowing anything has gone wrong, especially when under significant amounts of stress.

I know very little of the Amanda Knox case specifically, so this should not be taken as an argument for either side particularly. I am only arguing that your simple rule is not a good rule - it doesn't actually work.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 11:49:15PM -4 points [-]

Your example is a good one--of memory change across a period of two years. From work I've done on a family history based on my own recollections, recollections from other persons, and the occasional bit of documentary evidence, I know I don't have "flawless recall," but that strikes me as a bit of a straw man. In fact, I will mention, in passing, that I have been favorably impressed, in the course of the project, by the number of decades-old recollections that comport--or very-nearly comport--with surviving documentation. On one or two occasions, an erroneous memory has been interestingly explained. A family member recalls, for instance, that a photograph was taken on a date that a relative moved out of a residence, but the photograph itself is seen to be dated three years before the relative's departure from that place. At some point, somebody else's recollection reveals that the photograph was taken on the day a visitor to the residence left it, to go home. The false memory, in other words, included an association with the word "departure."

It's a matter of the details of the story-changing. I haven't read all of Knox's statements to the investigators and don't know the dates on which each of them was made. They appear to have been made within a few days of the murder; and at least one of them seems to have included the following false statement, about the man named Lumumba: "I confusedly remember that he killed her [Kercher]."

The utterance of such a false thing, outside, maybe, a literal torture chamber, is depraved.

Comment author: Creutzer 02 February 2014 11:05:04PM *  2 points [-]

Such a thing is extremely anti-social and is, I hope, criminalized itself.

I doubt that criminalisation would change much. Without having researched this, I would assume that people make false confessions when they believe they would be convicted even if they didn't confess.

I'm also not sure what's supposed to be so extremely antisocial about it. It's not like the police will surely catch the responsible party if only you don't make that false confession to get a more lenient sentence.

If you change your story, the probability of your guilt is 1.00. If one version of your story includes a false accusation (i.e., of another person), that goes up to 2.00

Well, one shouldn't be using such heuristics without prior research into the matter, precisely because of the typical mind fallacy. You couldn't imagine innocent people changing their stories - but it happens. So what does that say about the validity of your inference from your own imagination to the expected behaviour of other people?

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 11:15:20PM -2 points [-]

I also doubt that criminalisation would change much.

It wouldn't hurt.

I'm also not sure what's supposed to be so extremely antisocial about it. It's not like the police will surely catch the responsible party if only you don't make that false confession to get a more lenient sentence.

Presumably, a false confession increases the likelihood that a case will be erroneously closed. That, in my estimation, makes it extremely antisocial, not least because it increases the likelihood that a criminal is not only at large but is unrecognized as such. Every person is obliged to avoid giving his or her fellow human beings false information about crime.

Comment author: V_V 02 February 2014 09:57:18PM 2 points [-]

You state that "some people" are innocent and yet change their story. I don't know whether that's true, but it does not change the fact that story-changing is, in my view, at least, strong evidence of guilt.

I'm not an expert, but AFAIK it's common knowledge in criminology that eyewitness testimony, confessions, alibies, and other statements in a criminal investigation are often unreliable: people misremember facts, or can be induced to make false claims by suggestive or coercive interrogation techniques.

If I understand correctly, in typical legal systems (at least those which provide reasonable guarantees of due process), making an incoherent claim or repudiating a previous claim is generally not considered evidence of guilt, unless deliberate intent to mislead the investigation can be proved.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 10:51:01PM -6 points [-]

Although I'm among those persons who find it very difficult to believe that a person would make a false confession, I have read that such a confession is not unheard of and, in fact, might be made fairly frequently. Such a thing is extremely anti-social and is, I hope, criminalized itself.

I would point out that, in this particular case, we're not really quite talking about any of the things you mention. Knox's statements are not confessions or alibis; they're not even really incoherent claims or repudiations of previous claims--not, at least, from what I can tell from the internet pages where I've seen them discussed. They are story-changing, an inconsistent story, one version of which includes a false accusation (i.e., of another person). I'll mention, too, that it's not out of the question that Knox has falsely stated that she was slapped, by a police officer (or maybe officers, plural), when she was being questioned about the crime.

Let me add that I agree with Komponisto's suggestion, in this essay, that .99 is probably a weak lower bound for the probability of the guilt of Guede. In fact, I would say anything below 1.00 is an insult to the spacetime continuum. Even if we add to that the fact, discussed below, in this thread, that the absence of physical evidence of Knox or Sollecito in the murder room is just about equally certain, I will say that, had I been on any of these juries, I would probably have voted Knox guilty. Komponisto's essay and the reading that I've now done, because of it, have made me realize I have a simple rule in these things:

If you change your story, the probability of your guilt is 1.00. If one version of your story includes a false accusation (i.e., of another person), that goes up to 2.00

Comment author: V_V 02 February 2014 10:13:41PM 1 point [-]

It hasn't been removed.
When a comment score becomes lower than a certain threshold, the forum auto-collapses it and its subthread. You can still read it by clicking on the [+] button on the right.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 10:25:33PM 1 point [-]

Got it. Thank you.

Comment author: V_V 02 February 2014 10:09:51PM 2 points [-]

Although no examples come to my mind, the storylines of many pieces of fiction, I think, turn on such story-changing, whose significance the author feels no need to explain.

Detective fiction isn't exactly known for its realism.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 10:14:27PM -2 points [-]

Detective fiction isn't exactly known for its realism.

Whether that's true, I didn't use the phrase detective fiction. If you're suggesting that the significance of story-changing in a fictional narrative would be lost on you, I would say you're probably mistaken.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2014 02:18:28PM 2 points [-]

Have police ever questioned me about a murder in which I knew I did not take part? Not that I recall. Can I be sure I wouldn't change my story if I were questioned about such a thing? Yes, if the word "sure" is used in an ordinary sense.

Even assuming you're right about yourself, beware of generalizing from one example to other people.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 10:00:12PM -3 points [-]

Maybe the typical-mind-fallacy is typical, but I don't think I've demonstrated it here. Rhetorically, yes, I spoke of what "I personally" would do, and I emphasized the point with a sort of quasi-mathematical use of the word "zero." After that, I remarked as follows: "Story-changing by someone caught in a trap is a significant element of the human condition ...."

That statement seems valid. Although no examples come to my mind, the storylines of many pieces of fiction, I think, turn on such story-changing, whose significance the author feels no need to explain. Its significance lies in empathy, precisely the sort of empathy that the author of the present essay presumes to lecture about, so to speak, when he asks whether we've thought what a ride like the one Knox took to jail after her initial conviction is like. Because the typical person imagines such a ride well enough to want to avoid it, he or she reacts to story-changing. He or she knows that story-changing on his or her own part would be born only of incompetence in avoiding admitting guilt. He or she knows that he or she would carefully avoid story-changing, to avoid inviting such a ride.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 09:29:59PM 0 points [-]

Within the last twenty-four hours, I think, I posted here a comment that has been removed--unless my browser is not displaying the page properly. The comment was a reply--an addendum--to my own comment of 31 January 2014 09:33:17PM. Going by memory, I'll say it read as follows:

Having pursued, over the past twenty-four hours or so, some information about the case, I would say that, whether she was involved in the murder, Knox is a catastrophic failure of personality formation, one who, at the least, increased the agony of Kercher's family by making an understanding of the murder forever impossible. Sympathy for her is as much of a menace as she is.

If the comment has, in fact, been removed, the party who removed it will kindly tell me why. If it was objected to on the ground that it did not address the probability of guilt of Knox, Sollecito, or Guede, I'm not sure the removal was fair. Komponisto's essay to which the comments here are a response is itself not quite limited to that probability question. It expresses and, in a sense, advocates sympathy for Knox and thus opens the door, as a lawyer might say, for a comment such as the one I posted.

Comment author: Protagoras 02 February 2014 08:39:05PM *  1 point [-]

That is at least dubious. The initial coroner's report concluded that probably there was one attacker. That coroner was fired, and the new coroner reported that there was probably more than one attacker. Of course, one could assume that the first coroner was fired for incompetence and that the second report is more likely, but given the levels of incompetence and malfeasance that the Italian authorities seem to have displayed throughout the trial, I'm inclined to give more credibility to the initial report. Certainly the fact that the crime scene had a lot of physical evidence implicating Guede and basically none from anyone else, it seems that if someone else was involved they'd have to have been very indirectly involved, or there'd have to have been an amazingly selective cleanup that successfully removed all the evidence except that from Guede. This was all extensively discussed in the various threads.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 09:15:15PM -1 points [-]

From what I've read on the internet since I posted the statement to which you've replied, I tend to share your view that there's no physical evidence, for lack of a better term, of more than one attacker. Similarly, I've encountered nothing that suggests the shattered window is evidence of anything other than a genuine break-in. Maybe that's been discussed extensively in the threads, too.

I'll qualify that, in two ways. First, the things I've read have been second-hand reports, at websites where the case has been discussed. I would prefer to have read primary sources, i.e., trial testimony, official evidentiary reports, and the like; but to be honest, I'm not caught up in the case enough to track such things down.

Second, my sense--identical to yours--that a cleanup that removed all the evidence except that from Guede would have to be amazingly selective is pretty much the sort of hunter-gatherer thinking that the author of the present post disparages; I don't think I could say I'm being scientific.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 31 January 2014 09:33:17PM -5 points [-]

You've merely restated, at length, the paragraph to which I've objected. Have police ever questioned me about a murder in which I knew I did not take part? Not that I recall. Can I be sure I wouldn't change my story if I were questioned about such a thing? Yes, if the word "sure" is used in an ordinary sense. If you're inclined to get into, let's say, a metaphysical debate about that, I'll have nothing to contribute.

You state that "some people" are innocent and yet change their story. I don't know whether that's true, but it does not change the fact that story-changing is, in my view, at least, strong evidence of guilt. You state that it "can probably [be taken] as weak evidence of guilt," and the author of the present post seems to grant even less than that. Story-changing by someone caught in a trap is a significant element of the human condition, an element you seek to dismiss with the phrase "speculative psychological evidence."

I also don't know whether it's true that "lots of confessions" are coerced and false; but unless you have something specific to point out with respect to such supposed coercion and the changed stories of Knox, you're just throwing up dust.

As for the DNA: again, you have merely restated the author's remark. I personally don't know how much significance may be attributed to the alleged absence of Knox's DNA at the crime scene, and you're not clarifying that by putting the word "strong" in ALL CAPS.

You say it's a given that the murder can be "fully explained" by Guede's guilt. From the little I've heard about the case, my impression is that that's not true. It's not a given; there's some evidence, apparently, that more than one person was involved. If that's incorrect, please let me know.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 01 February 2014 08:28:34PM -5 points [-]

Having pursued, over the past twenty-four hours or so, some information about the case, I would say that, whether she was involved in the murder, Knox is a catastrophic failure of personality formation, one who, at the least, increased the agony of Kercher's family by making an understanding of the murder forever impossible. Sympathy for her is as much of a menace as she is.

Comment author: Ander 31 January 2014 08:42:11PM 3 points [-]

"Personally, I don't know the degree of likelihood of Knox's leaving no single piece of physical evidence when someone else left all kinds of traces. I do know the odds that I personally would change my story if police were investigating me for a murder in which I had no part: zero."

Maybe its true that you would never change your story to the police if you were being investigated for murder (can you be sure? Has this actually happened to you?) But even then, some people are innocent and yet change their story. (Also, lots of 'confessions' that are coerced out of people through interrogations are false).

Anyway, you can probably take the story-changing as weak evidence of guilt. However, compared to actual physical DNA evidence at the crime scene, which is STRONG evidence, this is nothing. Lets say you started out with a prior probability that Knox is guilty as being X (based on association with the victim), and then updated to be somewhat higher due to 'story changing'. But then when you consider the physical DNA evidence you have to MASSIVELY reduce the probability. The phyisical DNA evidence is orders of magnitude more important than various speculative psychological evidence about phone call lengths and story changing and things like that.

After correctly updating for all the evidence, you come to the conclusion that Guede has a very high probability of guilt, due to his actual DNA being at the crime scene, and Knox having a very low probability.

Given that we have a strong, scientific reason to believe that Guede was there, and Knox was not, you should convict Guede and acquit Knox. (Unless there is strong evidence that Knox had conspired to have Guede do the killing for her, which there is not).

Given that the murder can be fully explained by Guede's guilt, and that there is no strong evidence that Knox was also involved, there is no good reason to suspect Knox any more.

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 31 January 2014 09:33:17PM -5 points [-]

You've merely restated, at length, the paragraph to which I've objected. Have police ever questioned me about a murder in which I knew I did not take part? Not that I recall. Can I be sure I wouldn't change my story if I were questioned about such a thing? Yes, if the word "sure" is used in an ordinary sense. If you're inclined to get into, let's say, a metaphysical debate about that, I'll have nothing to contribute.

You state that "some people" are innocent and yet change their story. I don't know whether that's true, but it does not change the fact that story-changing is, in my view, at least, strong evidence of guilt. You state that it "can probably [be taken] as weak evidence of guilt," and the author of the present post seems to grant even less than that. Story-changing by someone caught in a trap is a significant element of the human condition, an element you seek to dismiss with the phrase "speculative psychological evidence."

I also don't know whether it's true that "lots of confessions" are coerced and false; but unless you have something specific to point out with respect to such supposed coercion and the changed stories of Knox, you're just throwing up dust.

As for the DNA: again, you have merely restated the author's remark. I personally don't know how much significance may be attributed to the alleged absence of Knox's DNA at the crime scene, and you're not clarifying that by putting the word "strong" in ALL CAPS.

You say it's a given that the murder can be "fully explained" by Guede's guilt. From the little I've heard about the case, my impression is that that's not true. It's not a given; there's some evidence, apparently, that more than one person was involved. If that's incorrect, please let me know.

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