Re: My Take
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You claim this is only "moderately precise" and should be replaced by a Number. I definitely do not agree with you on that point.
PairTheBoard
[/ QUOTE ]
Where does David advocate changing the system other than for assigning a number probability for this hypothetical question?
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure what you're talking about. The majority jury system question was a side issue raised by chezlaw, not David. David insists we translate the court's definintion of reasonable doubt into a Number representing a psuedo-probability for chance of innoncence. I object to this.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't see anything in there that requires me to put the question in terms of "chance" or some kind of psuedo-probability model.
[/ QUOTE ]
The hypothetical question does. How does "reasonable doubt" not equate to say "reasonable 'chance' of innocence"?
Why do you avoid answering the hypothetical question?
[/ QUOTE ]
The question I'm talking about is, "What consitutes Reasonable Doubt"? The court has given us a definition of what constitutes reasonable doubt that does not involve any psuedo-probability or "chance" terms. They are Human terms. You ask how is it they don't "equate" to "chance of innocence"? The burden is on you to show how they do. Sklansky can't do that because it is not a mathematical assertion that they do "equate". It is a philisophical assumption. I suggest you read jason1990's posts on the "Shoe Size" thread if you want to understand this better. You can also read the Wikipedia entry for Baysian Probability.
You have not clarified anything by converting reasonable doubt to terms of probability. The kind of probability that would be refering to is not mathematical but philosophical, and if you look at the philosophical definition of it it refers you right back to what you think reasonable doubt means. The danger in doing this is that it opens the door to the proclamation of a mathematical probability model which we have no way of knowing actually fits reality. From this model Sklansky will try to force conclusions on us that contradict our best judgement for how reality is really working and if we disagree he will claim we just don't accept the math. Sklansky is not really a math expert though. Real math experts can point out the flaw in this approach.
The flaw comes in setting up the probability model. It's doubtful whether that is even feasible. It's nearly certain that Sklansky is not going to give us one that fits reality.
Without the probability model the "Number" he asks us to provide is just a subjective philosophical concept whose meaning is basically what we already have without it.
PairTheBoard
|