Comment about Episode #1 of ExxonMobil Masterpiece's "The Jury"

I looked forward to this show, thinking, aha!, here, finally is a show that will tell us how jurors really talk and and deliberate about evidence; those people in the U.K., I thought, -- those sophisticated people in the U.K., unlike the buffoons in the good old U.S. of A., will get it right, I thought.

Ach weh! Disappointment!

Judging by episode #1: the show was produced by waugh-wannabees who, along the way, throw in some progressive social commentary & plot development, presumably to soften the impact of their acid view of human nature -- and, I imagine, to assure funding from non-profits to produce the series.

Perhaps worse yet, along the way, the producers of the show (probably unwittingly) manage to reproduce almost every imaginable class, cultural, and racial stereotype. In mitigation: the stereotypes in the show are those that, presumably, U.K. progressives hold, but, for all that, the stereotypes in the show are stereotypes.

So you see: I too can be a waugh-wannabee!

An Evidence Conference

See http://tillers.net/inferencebelief.html

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PROGRAM
for
Conference:
Inference, Culture, and Ordinary Thinking in Dispute Resolution
Cardozo School of Law
New York City
April 27-29, 2003

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Sunday, April 27

9:00 - 11:00 a.m.

Invitation & Introduction

Peter Tillers:
Welcome & Introduction

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Moderator: Samuel R. Gross

William Twining:
Keynote address

Eileen Scallen: Comment

Charles Nesson:
Jury transparency in a digital age

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Coffee & tea break: 11:00 - 11:15 a.m.
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11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.

Culture, Risk & Responsibility

Moderator: Aviva Anne Orenstein

Phoebe C. Ellsworth:
Cultural variations in the concepts of agency and control

Samuel R. Gross & Anna-Rose Mathieson:
A cross-cultural discussion of the concept of error

Aviva Anne Orenstein: Comment

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Lunch break: 12:45 - 1:45 p.m.
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1:45 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.

Stories, Narrative, and Culture in Dispute Resolution

Moderator: Mirjan Damaška

L.H. Larue:
Solomon's judgment

Jerome Bruner & Oscar G. Chase:
The role of narrative in dispute resolution: a cultural-legal analysis

Richard Lempert: Comment

Florrie Darwin:
Culture and inference in negotiation

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Coffee & tea break: 3:45 - 4:00 p.m.
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4:00 - 5:30 p.m.

Culture and Patterns of Judicial Proof

Moderator: Oscar Chase

Mirjan Damaška:
On factors that influence fact-finding in the legal process

Burkhard Schafer:
Proof from a comparative perspective

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Dinner: 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
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7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

Informal event: Roundtable discussion of evidence marshaling software. Participants: Henry Prakken, David Schum, William Twining, Burkhard Schafer & John Zeleznikow.

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Monday, April 28

8:30 - 10:00 a.m.

Culture and Patterns of Judicial Proof (continued)

Moderator: Mike Redmayne

John Jackson:
The effect of legal culture and proof on decisions to prosecute

Richard D. Friedman:
The interplay between culture, structure of decision-making, and inference

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Coffee & tea break: 10:00 - 10:15 a.m.
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10:15 a.m. - 1:15 p.m.

Law, Culture, Uncertainty, and Epistemology

Moderator: John Jackson

Scott Brewer:
Skepticism, naturalism, and cultures of inference

Alvin Goldman:
Epistemology and the law

Susan Haack:
Advocacy and inquiry, finality and fallibilism

Mike Redmayne:
Objective probability and evidence

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Lunch break: 1:15 - 2:15 p.m.
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2:15 - 5:00 p.m.

Prejudice, Presuppositions, and Common Sense

Moderator: Branden Fitelson

Douglas Lenat:
[On formalizing, or "computerizing," commonsense reasoning]

Henry Prakken: Comment

David Schum: Comment

Burkhard Schafer:
Prejudice, presupposition, theory: why drawing inferences from prejudices isn't such a bad thing after all

Andrew Palmer: Comment

Charles Yablon:
A theory of presumptions

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Dinner break: 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
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7:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Special videoconference event:

James Franklin:
Hidden priors and Bayesian heuristics

Branden Fitelson: Comment

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Tuesday, April 29

9:00 - 10:30 a.m.

Formal Models of Methods of Reaching Conclusions about Matters of Fact

Moderator: Robert Mislevy

Henry Prakken:
Analysing reasoning about evidence with formal models of argumentation

Ronald R. Yager:
Modeling human perceptions using participatory learning and fuzzy logic

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Coffee & tea break: 10:30 - 10:45 a.m.
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10:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Inference, Science, and Social Science

Moderator: Roger Park

Edward Stein:
The admissibility of expert testimony about cognitive science research on eyewitness identification

Roger Park: Comment

David L. Faigman:
Making moral judgments through behavioral science: the "substantial lack of volitional control" requirement in civil commitments

Robert J. Mislevy:
Educational assessments as evidentiary arguments: what has changed, and what hasn't

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Lunch break: 1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
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2:00 - 2:45 p.m.

Objectivity and Credibility

Moderator: Edward Stein

Audrey Macklin:
Truth and consequences: determining credibility across difference

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Coffee & tea break: 2:45 - 3:00 p.m.
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3:00 - 4:30 p.m.

Inference, Induction, and Automation: Context and Distributed Investigation

Moderator: Henry Prakken

John Zeleznikow:
The Split-Up project: induction, context and knowledge discovery in law

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Go to Conference Home Page

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