Re: whitehouse web incident, viva la web revolution
Jonathon,
Statistical proof is only accepted in academia. Depending upon your POV, this may or may not be a good thing, when one is facing civil, or criminal charges.
Finding proof for either civil or criminal charges is a slightly different matter.
IANAL, but your statements are misleading. Statistics are often used in both criminal and civil cases. Look at the DNA evidence in the OJ trial (OK, maybe a bad example), or the evidence that breast implants don't cause various ailments (probably another bad example :-). Both of these examples are based on statistics. IMO, part of the problem with juries (and public discourse in general) today is that anecdotal evidence is often accepted, when that evidence is clearly not statistically significant. The examples I cited previously illustrate this - the four horsemen are a similar example for public policymaking. Clay --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clay Olbon II | Clay.Olbon@dynetics.com Systems Engineer | ph: (810) 589-9930 fax 9934 Dynetics, Inc., Ste 302 | http://www.msen.com/~olbon/olbon.html 550 Stephenson Hwy | PGP262 public key: on web page Troy, MI 48083-1109 | pgp print: B97397AD50233C77523FD058BD1BB7C0 TANSTAAFL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 7 Jun 1996, Clay Olbon II wrote:
Jonathon,
Statistical proof is only accepted in academia. Depending upon your POV, this may or may not be a good thing, when one is facing civil, or criminal charges.
Finding proof for either civil or criminal charges is a slightly different matter.
IANAL,
And so you thought you would engage in legal commentary, of course. :)
but your statements are misleading. Statistics are often used in both criminal and civil cases. Look at the DNA evidence in the OJ trial (OK, maybe a bad example), or the evidence that breast implants don't cause various ailments (probably another bad example :-). Both of these examples are based on statistics. IMO, part of the problem with juries (and public discourse in general) today is that anecdotal evidence is often accepted, when that evidence is clearly not statistically significant. The examples I cited previously illustrate this - the four horsemen are a similar example for public policymaking.
Statistical evidence is fairly strictly regulated actually in a judicial context. e.g., People v. Collins, 438 P.2d 33 (1968) (prohibiting mathamatical odds and statistical evidence from use in identification and requireing strict foundation to be laid before any probability evidence will be admitted); Cole v. Cole, 328 S.E.2.d 446 (1985) (discussing the nature of probability in relation to the scope of the evidence presented); Frye v. U.S., 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir 1923) (estlablishing the rule that scientific evidence must be treated with a different standard even when presented by certified experts. specifically that it must be 'generally accepted in the scientific community); See Generally, L.J. Cohen, The Probably and the Provable (1977).
Clay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clay Olbon II | Clay.Olbon@dynetics.com Systems Engineer | ph: (810) 589-9930 fax 9934 Dynetics, Inc., Ste 302 | http://www.msen.com/~olbon/olbon.html 550 Stephenson Hwy | PGP262 public key: on web page Troy, MI 48083-1109 | pgp print: B97397AD50233C77523FD058BD1BB7C0 TANSTAAFL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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