A hypothetical made real.

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Ian
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Re: A hypothetical made real.

Post by Ian » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:38 pm

Cormac wrote:Of course, you don't know the person is a terrorist, as the police cannot be certain that the fellow in custody was the kidnapper.

Can't make an omelette without breaking them eggs though, eh Seth?
Sometimes you can have no doubt whatsoever of a person's guilt, but due process would take far longer to establish it. In those very rare ticking-time-bomb circumstances (and only then), you just have to trust the enforcement side of the law rather than wait for the judicial side. This can be a tricky business of course, and certainly not legal, but it would at least be practical.

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laklak
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Re: A hypothetical made real.

Post by laklak » Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:25 pm

2 words - Dutch Oven. Particularly after a meal of pulled pork.
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Blind groper
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Re: A hypothetical made real.

Post by Blind groper » Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:30 pm

To Seth

Re torture.

The thing is that we know. We know because, shocking though this may be, researchers have thoroughly investigated the effects of torture on extracting information. I know this because there was an article on the subject in Scientific American a long way back (not exactly sure which episode, but 10 to 20 years ago). It stuck firmly in my memory because the subject material was so abhorrent.

Torture does not extract the truth. It extracts lies. A person being tortured will say anything to stop the pain, and if lies are better, what he says will be lies. For example : an innocent man accused of murder will confess to any damn thing to stop the pain. A guilty person will tell the torturer anything at all.

The conclusion of the Scientific American article was that torture is about the least effective method of gaining the truth of anything invented by humans.

On thing torture is extremely good at, is getting innocent people to confess to crimes they never committed. Sadly, there are huge numbers of people who refuse to believe research results on the lack of effectiveness of turture. it is a bit like arguing to a Christian that God does not exist. They will not be rational enough to believe it. In the same way, believers in torture will not believe it is worthless, no matter how much evidence you supply.
http://www.livescience.com/4651-torture ... rking.html
Last edited by Blind groper on Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
For every human action, there is a rationalisation and a reason. Only sometimes do they coincide.

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Cormac
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Re: A hypothetical made real.

Post by Cormac » Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:33 pm

Ian wrote:
Cormac wrote:Of course, you don't know the person is a terrorist, as the police cannot be certain that the fellow in custody was the kidnapper.

Can't make an omelette without breaking them eggs though, eh Seth?
Sometimes you can have no doubt whatsoever of a person's guilt, but due process would take far longer to establish it. In those very rare ticking-time-bomb circumstances (and only then), you just have to trust the enforcement side of the law rather than wait for the judicial side. This can be a tricky business of course, and certainly not legal, but it would at least be practical.

There is an infamous case in Ireland involving the murder of two women.

A fellow, Dean Lyons, was arrested. He confessed, and provided information that "only the murderer could have known".

He was arrested and held on remand for 9 months pending trial.

Later, a man named Mark Nash, arrested for a separate crime, while being interviewed by police not investigating that murder, confessed that he had murdered two women in their sleep. This was a fact unknown to the public. He later withdrew his confession.

A review of the investigation into Dean Lyons was held, and these facts emerged

Dean Lyons had learning difficulties.
He had an IQ of 70
He was highly suggestible and was described as a "Walter Mitty" character. His initial confession contradicted the facts discovered during the forensic investigation. It later "improved".
The police were found to have used "leading questions" which led to Lyons giving "facts not known to the public".

Confessions are not always reliable.
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Blind groper
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Re: A hypothetical made real.

Post by Blind groper » Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:21 pm

I did a quick google search under the phrase "how reliable is torture" and came up with plenty of stuff saying how bloody unreliable it is. Here is one from The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-l ... 0/nov/04/2

However, I can predict that all those irrational people who believe torture is a logical way to attack crises will deny all that data and continue, in their totally irrational way, to believe in torture.
For every human action, there is a rationalisation and a reason. Only sometimes do they coincide.

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