Re:Web Activity Used in Court to Portray State of Mind
by rayiner on Saturday July 05, 2014 @10:17PM
(#7993616)
Confirmation bias is defined as (OED): "The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories."
The adversarial justice system is expressly designed to avoid confirmation bias. That's the whole point of the "adversarial" part. While the prosecution might be prone to selectively interpreting the facts to confirm its own beliefs, the defense counsel is tasked with poking holes in that interpretation. That's why defense counsel has the independent opportunity to present evidence, and to cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses to poke holes in their story.
This idea is so bad that it has a specific term: confirmation bias.
If you have enough facts, you can cherry-pick them to suit almost any coherent, consistent narrative. Web browsing especially delivers enormous amounts of content from which to cherry-pick to suit a narrative.
IMO storytelling, and wholesale embracement of confirmation bias, is probably the biggest weakness of adversarial justice. I think it turns justice into a game of who's the better storyteller.