Unreliable Witnesses
I hope that my future never depends on eyewitness testimony. Years ago I heard about this study in The Skeptical Inquirer (among many others that scientifically demonstrate just how unreliable eyewitnesses are). A recent article in the New York Times provided this link to the original video. Watching it is even more incredible than I thought it would be on reading it. Knowing what the video is, the test doesn’t work, so I won’t say anymore here. Just watch the video and try to be sure to count every successfully completed pass of a basketball between people wearing white shirts only. The experiment only works if you concentrate on successfully counting the passes by the white team.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I was so surprised by how many people on the jury I sat on were willing to accept eyewitness testimony as proof. scary!