Social Intelligence

Social ant intelligence -- or the social whole -- sometimes is, or becomes, more intelligent than its parts:

Robot Ants Could Make Us More Efficient

Posted by Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato in Weird & Wild on March 29, 2013

With their tiny wires and circuits, robotic ants won’t be taking over the world anytime soon.

But what these artificial insects lack in processing power, they make up for in efficiency: Robotic ants can automatically choose the shortest route from their food sources back to their nests, just like real ants, a new study says. This gives valuable insight into how people should plan transportation and communication systems.

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Wild Tapestry in Cape Onion, Newfoundland

This is evidence of ... ? &&& The dynamic evidence page

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Our Future: A Sky Dark with Drones?

Mathhew Wald, Domestic Drones on Patrol, NYTimes (March 17, 2013). &&& The dynamic evidence page

Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

John Sexton and NYU

Although I personally very much dislike the "superstar" system that President Sexton apparently has run at NYU - faculty superstars, so-called, get paid a lot more than "ordinary" faculty members - I find it hard to sympathize with the NYU arts & science faculty's vote of no confidence in him. Sexton has done an awful lot to make NYU one of the world's leading universities.

Your opinion?
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Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

A Proposal to Imitate the Medical Model of Education

The dean of Boston College Law School has proposed that law schools imitate at least part of the medical "model" of education. See Vincent D. Rougeau, Law schools should consider med-school model—a dean’s view  Legal Rebels (blog) (March 13, 2013).

This is not a new idea. But it is an interesting one. But ... but ... the idea will only work if law teachers adopt a more "scientific" attitude toward "theory" -- which means in part that they must come to think of "legal theory" as consisting in important part of hypotheses that may be shown  to be true or false by "empirical observation," by observation, that is, of how legal theories play out in the real world. (This sort of empirical "verification" is not an exact analogue to empirical testing of scientific hypotheses, but it moves in that direction.) The Legal Realists were onto something.
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Federal Judge Rules Surveillance Provisions Unconstitutional

Federal Judge Rules Surveillance Provisions Unconstitutional, NYTimes (Reuters Story, March 15, 2013):

A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional national security provisions that permit federal investigators to access customer information from some companies without court approval.

The provisions "suffer from significant constitutional infirmities," and violate the First Amendment and separation of powers, Judge Susan Illston of the District Court for the Northern District of California wrote in an order on Thursday.

The judge's decision stems from a "National Security Letter" that the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued to an unnamed telecommunications company, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[etc.]

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Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

Some Readings on Theories of Evidence and Inference

This old list of useful readings needs to be updated and supplemented:

 

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  Cardozo Law School

[2005] Seminar: Theories of Evidence
Professor Peter Tillers

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Literature & Links about Evidence and Inference

INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

James Franklin, THE SCIENCE OF CONJECTURE: EVIDENCE AND PROBABILITY BEFORE PASCAL (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)

Lorraine Daston, CLASSICAL PROBABILITY IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT (Princeton, 1988)

William L. Twining, THEORIES OF EVIDENCE: BENTHAM AND WIGMORE (1985)
George Fisher, The Jury's Rise as Lie Detector, 107 Yale L. J. 575 (1997)
Peter Murhpy, EVIDENCE, PROOF, AND FACTS: A BOOK OF SOURCES (Oxford, 2003)

INSTITUTIONAL SETTING

Mirjan R. Damaška, EVIDENCE LAW ADRIFT (Yale U. Press, 1997)

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC

James D. McCawley, EVERYTHING THAT LINGUISTS HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT LOGIC* *but were ashamed to ask (2nd ed., 1993)

INFERENCE, IF-THEN LOGIC & THE LOGIC OF UNCERTAINTY

J.S. Covington, Jr., THE STRUCTURE OF LEGAL ARGUMENT AND PROOF (1993)
Brian Skyrms, CHOICE & CHANCE: AN INTRODUCTION TO INDUCTIVE LOGIC (4th ed., 2000)
Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. & Choh Man Teng, UNCERTAIN INFERENCE (2001)
Richard Lowry, THE ARCHITECTURE OF CHANCE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC OF PROBABILITY (Oxford, 1989)

INFERENCE, INTUITION & COMMON SENSE

Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172 (1997) (assessment of evidence involves more than "linear reasoning")
Judge Jack B. Weinstein in United States v. Shonubi, 895 F.Supp. 460 (E.D.N.Y. 1995) (lengthy and interesting opinion includes discussion of role of judicial judgment and discretion in assessment of evidence) (caveat emptor: P. Tillers served as a court-appointed expert witness in this case)
Ronald J.Allen, Common Sense, Rationality, and the Legal Process, in Marilyn MacCrimmon & Peter Tillers, eds., The Dynamics of Judicial Proof: Computation, Logic, and Common Sense (Physica- & Springer-Verlag, 2002)
Marilyn MacCrimmon, What Is "Common" about Common Sense? Cautionary Tales for Travelers Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries, in Marilyn MacCrimmon & Peter Tillers, eds., The Dynamics of Judicial Proof: Computation, Logic, and Common Sense (Physica- & Springer-Verlag, 2002)
The Cycorp Project (formalized common sense becomes profitable -- and practicable?)
Andrew E. Taslitz, Abuse Excuses and the Logic and Politics of Expert Relevance, 49 Hastings L.J. 1039 (1998) (emphasis on holism)
Michael S. Pardo, Comment: Juridical Proof, Evidence, and Pragmatic Meaning: Toward Evidentiary Holism, 95 Nw. U.L. Rev. 399 (2000)

INFERENCE, LANGUAGE & FUZZY THINKING

VAGUENESS IN LANGUAGE & LEGAL LANGUAGE (conceptual vagueness)

Lon L. Fuller, THE MORALITY OF LAW (Yale, 1st ed., 1969, 2nd ed., 1977)Edward Levi, An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (1962)

FUZZY & ROUGH SETS

Susan Haack, DEVIANT LOGIC, FUZZY LOGIC: BEYOND THE FORMALISM (1974 & 1996)

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY, COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, MODERN BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY & COGNATE PERSPECTIVES ON REAL-WORLD INFERENCE

Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin & Daniel Kahneman, eds., HEURISTICS AND BIASES: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INTUITIVE JUDGMENT (Cambridge U. Press, 2002)

Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, CHOICES, VALUES, AND FRAMES (2000)

INFERENCE & PERCEPTION

Alva Noë & Evan Thompson, VISION AND MIND: SELECTED READINGS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION (MIT Press, 2002)

Irvin Rock, THE LOGIC OF PERCEPTION (MIT Press, 1983)VISUAL PERCEPTION: http://kybele.psych.cornell.edu/~edelman/Course/perception/perception.html
Richard L. Gregory, Knowledge in Perception and Illusion
Tillers, Blog, Monday, June 02, 2003 Reason and Intuition in the Assessment of Evidence in Litigation
Hermann von Helmholtz, 1866/1962 Treatise on Physiological Optics volume 2, translated by J P L Southall (New York: Dover) pp 264--301 [originally published as Handbuch der physiologischen Optik (1866, Leipzig: Voss)]
Claire F. Michaels and Claudio Carello, DIRECT PERCEPTION (1981)
Patrick McDonald on Helmholtz

PROBABILITY THEORY & INFERENCE

Alan Hájek, Interpretations of Probability, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2003 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
THOMAS BAYES' ESSAY!
Laurence Tribe, Trial by Mathematics: Precision and Ritual in the Trial Process, 84 Harvard Law Review 1329 (1971)
Richard Lempert, Modeling Relevance, 75 Michigan Law Review 1021 (1977)
Richard Lempert, The New Evidence Scholarship: Analyzing the Process of Proof, 66 Boston University Law Review (1986 )
Thomas D. Lyon & Jonathan J. Koehler, The Relevance Ratio: Evaluating the Probative Value of Expert Testimony in Child Sexual Abuse Cases, 82 Cornell Law Review 43 (1996)
Bernard Robertson & G.A. Vignaux, INTERPRETING EVIDENCE (Wiley, 1995)
Peter Tillers & Eric Green, eds., PROBABILITY AND INFERENCE IN THE LAW OF EVIDENCE; THE USES AND LIMITS OF BAYESIANISM (1988)

STATISTICAL INFERENCE

Richard Lowry, THE ARCHITECTURE OF CHANCE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC OF PROBABILITY (Oxford, 1989) (focus on probability in statistics)
Koehler on Background Statistics in the Courtroom
Charles O. Shonubi's Saga
State v. Claflin, 38 Wash. App. 847, 852; 690 P. 2d 1186 (Wash. App. 1984) (testimony that 43 percent of child molestations were committed by "father-figures," in a case where defendant was a father-figure, was "extremely prejudicial and should not have been admitted")
State v. Steward, 34 Wash. App. 221, 223-4; 660 P. 2d 278, 280 (1983) (testimony that the perpetrator in 8 out of 16 child abuse cases in which serious injuries "were inflicted by either live in or babysitting boy friends," in a case where defendant was a babysitting boyfriend, was "certainly highly prejudicial").
Daniel Shaviro, Statistical Probability Evidence and the Appearance of Justice, 103 Harvard Law Review 530 (1989)

BACONIAN INFERENCE

John Maynard Keynes, A TREATISE ON PROBABILITY (Macmillan and Co., 1921)
L.J. Cohen, THE PROBABLE AND THE PROVABLE (1977)

INFERENCE & DISCOVERY

KARL R. POPPER, THE LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY
Karl Popper, CONJECTURES AND REFUTATIONS: THE GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE (Basic Books, 1962)
Arthur Koestler, THE ACT OF CREATION (Reissue edition, 1990)
Charles S. Peirce: books & online extracts
Umberto Eco & Thomas Sebeok, eds., THE SIGN OF THREE: DUPIN, HOLMES, PEIRCE (Indiana U. Press, 1983, 1988)
John Josephson & Susan Josephson, ABDUCTIVE INFERENCE: COMPUTATION, PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY (Cambridge U. Press, 1994) (download the elegant discussion of abduction in Chapter 1 of this book by clicking on this link)
Lorenzo Magnani, ABDUCTION, REASON, AND SCIENCE: PROCESSES OF DISCOVERY AND EXPLANATION (2001)
D. Binder & P. Bergman, FACT INVESTIGATION: FROM HYPOTHESIS TO PROOF (1984)
P. Tillers & D. Schum, A Theory of Preliminary Fact Investigation, 24 University of California at Davis Law Revview 931 (1991)

COMPLEX (multistage) INFERENCE

P. Tillers, Webs of Things in the Mind: A New Science of Evidence, (review essay), 87 Michigan Law Review 1225 (1989)
D. Schum, EVIDENTIAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROBABILISTIC REASONING (Wylie, 1994)
Joseph Kadane & David Schum, A PROBABILISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE SACCO AND VANZETTI EVIDENCE (Wiley, 1996)
Terence Anderson & William Twining, ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE (Little, Brown & Co., 1991 or 2d ed., Northwestern U. Press, 1998)
A MODERN WIGMOREAN CHART
INTRODUCTION TO GRAPHS

which are very important for an understanding of some important theories of evidence and inference

INFERENCE & ARGUMENTATION THEORY

Chaïm Perelman, THE NEW RHETORIC: A TREATISE ON ARGUMENTATION (trans., John Wilkinson, University of Notre Dame Press, December 1969)
Stephen Toulmin, THE USES OF ARGUMENT (1958; 1st paperback ed., 1964)
John L. Pollock, COGNITIVE CARPENTRY (1995)
DOUGLAS WALTON, LEGAL ARGUMENTATION AND EVIDENCE (2002)
Paul A. Kirschner, Simon J. Buckingham Shum & Chad S. Carr, eds., VISUALIZING ARGUMENTATION: SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR COLLABORATIVE AND EDUCATIONAL SENSE-MAKING (2003)
Reason!Able software (trial version), available at http://www.goreason.com/

VALUES & INFERENCE

Robert P. Burns, A THEORY OF THE TRIAL (1999)
David T. Wasserman, The Morality of Statistical Proof and the Risk of Mistaken Liability, 13 Cardozo Law Review 935 (1991) (base rates are immoral because they offend a defendant's right to be treated as an individual)
Alvin I. Goldman, KNOWLEDGE IN A SOCIAL WORLD (1999)

INFERENCE, PREFERENCE & CHOICE

Richard Jeffrey, THE LOGIC OF DECISION (University of Chicago Press; 1966; 2nd ed., 1983)
Richard A. Posner, An Economic Approach to the Law of Evidence, 51 Stanford Law Review 1477 (1999) & draft version, Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 66

INFERENCE IN AND ABOUT SPACE & TIME

Peter Øhrstrøm & Per F. V. Hasle, TEMPORAL LOGIC: FROM ANCIENT IDEAS TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (Kluwer, 1995)
A link to Temporal Logic
Dov M. Gabbay, C. J. Hogger & J. A. Robinson, eds., EPISTEMIC AND TEMPORAL REASONING (Clarendon-Oxford, 1995) (Vol. 4 of HANDBOOK OF LOGIC IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND LOGIC PROGRAMMING)

INFERENCE AND CAUSALITY

Wesley C. Salmon, Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World (Princeton, 1984)
Judea Pearl, CAUSALITY (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Glenn Shafer, THE ART OF CAUSAL CONJECTURE (MIT Press, 1996)

INFERENCE IN TIME: DYNAMIC INFERENCE

Jim Blythe, Decision-theoretic Planning (Feb. 11, 1999)
John L. Pollock, Evaluative Cognition
David Schum, Probability and the Processes of Discovery, Proof, and Choice, 66 Boston University Law Review 825 (1986)
Marilyn MacCrimmon & Peter Tillers, eds., The Dynamics of Judicial Proof: Computation, Logic, and Common Sense(Physica- & Springer-Verlag, 2002)
Peter Tillers, The Explosive Dynamic Complexity of Evidentiary Processes
Peter Tillers, The Fabrication of Facts in Investigation and Ajudication

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On Probability and Uncertainty in Law

Konstanz 2003 International Summer School Lecture Notes

Readings (Extracts) from Charles Saunders Peirce:Of Inference, Deduction, Induction,
and Abduction (Retroduction)

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Some of the above material rearranged and mixed with some additional material:

Terence Anderson & William Twining, ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE (Little, Brown & Co., 1991 or 2d ed., Northwestern U. Press, 1998)

D. Binder & P. Bergman, FACT INVESTIGATION: FROM HYPOTHESIS TO PROOF (1984)

Robert Burns, A THEORY OF THE TRIAL (1999)

Robert P. Burns, A THEORY OF THE TRIAL (1999)

L.J. Cohen, THE PROBABLE AND THE PROVABLE (1977)

J.S. Covington, Jr., THE STRUCTURE OF LEGAL ARGUMENT AND PROOF (1993)

Mirjan R. Damaška, EVIDENCE LAW ADRIFT (Yale, 1997)

Lorraine Daston, CLASSICAL PROBABILITY IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT (Princeton, 1988)

Keith Devlin, LOGIC AND INFORMATION (1991 & various reprints)

Umberto Eco & Thomas Sebeok, eds., THE SIGN OF THREE: DUPIN, HOLMES, PEIRCE, (Indiana U. Press, 1983, 1988)

James Franklin, THE SCIENCE OF CONJECTURE: EVIDENCE AND PROBABILITY BEFORE PASCAL (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)

Lon L. Fuller, THE MORALITY OF LAW (1st ed., 1969; or 2nd ed., 1977)

Dov M. Gabbay, C. J. Hogger & J. A. Robinson, eds., EPISTEMIC AND TEMPORAL REASONING (Clarendon-Oxford, 1995) (Vol. 4 of HANDBOOK OF LOGIC IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND LOGIC PROGRAMMING)

Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin & Daniel Kahneman, eds., HEURISTICS AND BIASES: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INTUITIVE JUDGMENT (Cambridge U. Press, 2002)

Alvin I. Goldman, EPISTEMOLOGY AND COGNITION (Harvard, 1986)

Alvin I. Goldman, KNOWLEDGE IN A SOCIAL WORLD (1999)

Susan Haack, DEVIANT LOGIC, FUZZY LOGIC: Beyond the Formalism (1974 & 1996)

Susan Haack, EVIDENCE AND INQUIRY: TOWARD RECONSTRUCTION IN EPISTEMOLOGY (Blackwell, 1993)

Reid Hastie, Steven Penrod & Nancy Pennington, INSIDE THE JURY (1983)

Hermann von Helmholtz, 1866/1962 TREATISE ON PHYSIOLOGICAL OPTICS volume 2 (1866/1962, trans., by J P L Southall; New York: Dover) (see esp. pp. 264-301; originally published as HANDBUCH DER PHYSIOLOGISCHEN OPTIK (1866, Leipzig: Voss)]

Richard Jeffrey, THE LOGIC OF DECISION (University of Chicago Press; 1966 & 2nd ed., 1983)

John Josephson & Susan Josephson, ABDUCTIVE INFERENCE: COMPUTATION, PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY (Cambridge U. Press, 1994) (download the elegant discussion of abduction in Chapter 1 of this book by clicking on this link)

Joseph Kadane & David Schum, A PROBABILISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE SACCO AND VANZETTI EVIDENCE (1996)

Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, CHOICES, VALUES, AND FRAMES (Cambridge U. Press, 2000)

John Maynard Keynes, A TREATISE ON PROBABILITY (Macmillan and Co., 1921)

Paul A. Kirschner, Simon J. Buckingham Shum & Chad S. Carr, eds., VISUALIZING ARGUMENTATION: SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR COLLABORATIVE AND EDUCATIONAL SENSE-MAKING (2003)

Arthur Koestler, THE ACT OF CREATION (Reissue edition, 1990)

Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. & Choh Man Teng, UNCERTAIN INFERENCE (2001)

Edward Levi, AN INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL REASONING (Chicago, 1962)

Richard Lowry, THE ARCHITECTURE OF CHANCE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC OF PROBABILITY (Oxford, 1989)

Lorenzo Magnani, ABDUCTION, REASON, AND SCIENCE: PROCESSES OF DISCOVERY AND EXPLANATION (2001)

James D. McCawley, EVERYTHING THAT LINGUISTS HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT LOGIC* *but were ashamed to ask (2nd ed., 1993)

Peter Murphy, EVIDENCE, PROOF, AND FACTS: A BOOK OF SOURCES (Oxford, 2003)

Alva Noë & Evan Thompson, VISION AND MIND: SELECTED READINGS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION (MIT Press, 2002)

Peter Øhrstrøm & Per F. V. Hasle, TEMPORAL LOGIC: FROM ANCIENT IDEAS TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995)

Andrew Palmer, PROOF AND THE PREPARATION OF TRIALS (Thomson, 2003)

Judea Pearl, CAUSALITY (Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Chaïm Perelman, THE NEW RHETORIC: A TREATISE ON ARGUMENTATION (trans., John Wilkinson, University of Notre Dame Press, December 1969)

John L. Pollock, COGNITIVE CARPENTRY (1995)

John L. Pollock, NOMIC PROBABILITY AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF INDUCTION (Oxford, 1990)

John L. Pollock & Joseph Cruz, CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE (Rowman & Littlefield, 2d ed., 2002)

Karl R. Popper, CONJECTURES AND REFUTATIONS: THE GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE (Basic Books, 1962)

Karl R. Popper , THE LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY (any edition, including Routledge, 5th ed., March 29, 2002)

Karl R. Popper, CONJECTURES AND REFUTATIONS: THE GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE (Basic Books, 1962)

Henry Prakken, Chris Reed & Douglas Walton, Argumentation Schemes and Generalisation in Reasoning about Evidence" [url needed]

Bernard Robertson & G.A. Vignaux, INTERPRETING EVIDENCE (Wiley, 1995)

Irvin Rock, THE LOGIC OF PERCEPTION (MIT Press, 1983)

David Schum, EVIDENCE AND INFERENCE FOR THE INTELLIGENCE ANALYST (2 vols., University Press of America, 1987)

David Schum, EVIDENTIAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROBABILISTIC REASONING (Wylie, 1994)

D. Schum & P. Tillers, Marshalling Evidence in Adversary Litigation, 13 Cardozo Law Review 657 (1991)

Glenn Shafer, THE ART OF CAUSAL CONJECTURE (MIT Press, 1996)

Brian Skyrms, CHOICE & CHANCE: AN INTRODUCTION TO INDUCTIVE LOGIC (4th ed., 2000)

Peter Tillers, Mapping Inferential Domains, 66 Boston University Law Review 883 (1986)

Peter Tillers & Eric Green, eds., PROBABILITY AND INFERENCE IN THE LAW OF EVIDENCE: THE USES AND LIMITS OF BAYESIANISM (1988)

Peter Tillers & David Schum, Charting New Territory in Judicial Proof: Beyond Wigmore, 9 Cardozo Law Review 907 (1988)

Peter Tillers & David Schum, A Theory of Preliminary Fact Investigation, 24 University of California at Davis Law Review 931 (1991)

Stephen Toulmin, THE USES OF ARGUMENT (1958; 1st paperback ed., 1964)

William Twining, RETHINKING EVIDENCE: EXPLORATORY ESSAYS (Blackwell, Oxford, 1990)

William Twining & Iain Hampsher-Monk, eds., EVIDENCE AND INFERENCE IN HISTORY AND LAW (Northwestern U. Press, 2003)

Douglas N. Walton, LEGAL ARGUMENTATION AND EVIDENCE (2002)

David T. Wasserman, The Morality of Statistical Proof and the Risk of Mistaken Liability, 13 Cardozo Law Review 935 (1991)

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(Even) Harvard University May Read Your (Its Staff's) E-Mail

RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA, Harvard Searched E-Mails for Source of Media Leaks NYTimes (March 9, 2013).

You had better watch out...
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Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

Sociological Jurisprudence, Logical Jurisprudence, and Factual Proof

In years past I have not been much interested in sociological jurisprudence. It seemed to me that talk about social forces, social interests, social preferences, etc., as a basis for legal interpretation (or lawmaking) lacks theoretical rigor. But I now find that I am somewhat attracted to the idea of some kind of sociological jurisprudence when I ponder the "logic(s)" of factual inference and proof in legal settings.
That's in part because I think (contrary to some or much rational choice theory?) it does make sense -- and it is necessary -- to think and talk about the "purposes," "functions," "interests," "preferences," etc. of societies and parts of societies (including systems of legal proof) and that it is not enough to conceive of the "interests" and "preferences" etc. of social groups as being nothing more than an aggregation of the interests, preferences, etc., of the individual members of such social groups.
I also think a connection must be made between logic(s) in the abstract and the logic(s) that is (are) in actual use in societies and their parts: we need to look in part to how lawyers, judges, jurors, etc. actually reason and deliberate about matters such as evidence and facts. But, if possible, an attempt to link logic with actual legal practice, or conventional legal practice, should be done in a way that tends to preserve (so to speak) the logical character(s) of the method(s) of reasoning and deliberation that is (are) customarily used in investigation and proof in trials and other such legal settings. Is this possible? I propose to find out. (More accurately said, Joannes Pilapil and I will try to find out.) Hint: I suspect it is possible.

 
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Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

Low-Copy Number DNA

This paper on DNA -- particularly low-copy number DNA -- is, I think, extraordinarily important.
Full title of paper: 

Forensic DNA Statistics: Still Controversial in Some Cases

by

William C. Thompson, Laurence D. Mueller & Dan E. Crane

 

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The dynamic evidence page

Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

Rand Paul

Senator Rand Paul is more intelligent than many people seem to think. Even though he has no formal legal training, his analysis, during his filibuster, of Due Process and the Fifth Amendment right to life was excellent. Oh, and by the way, his discussion of the danger of the notion of a temporally and geographically unlimited "war on terror" was pretty good too.

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Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

Robots as Jurors?

Some questions verge on being stupid. See, e.g., Jacob Gershman, Could Robots Replace Jurors? ABA Law Blog (March 6, 2013).
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The dynamic evidence page

Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

Lotfi Zadeh

USA SCIENCE & ENGINEERING FESTIVAL – ROLE MODELS IN SCIENCE & ENGINEERING ACHIEVEMENT

Lofti Asker Zadeh

Lotfi Asker Zadeh -- Computer Scientist and Mathematician

The Father of the scientific concept,"Fuzzy Logic", as well as "Fuzzy Sets" and "Fuzzy Systems"

You've likely heard of the term "Fuzzy Logic", or "Fuzzy Mathematics". But despite what their names may imply, there is nothing inexact about these scientific concepts were formulated, says Lotfi Asker Zadeh, the famous UC Berkeley University mathematician and computer scientist who coined the names of these theories and spent a career advancing their applications.

Known as "The Father of Fuzzy Logic",Lotfi was born in 1921 in Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan to an Iranian father (a journalist) and a Russian mother (a pediatrician). In 1931, when Zadeh was ten years old, he moved with his family to Tehran, Iran where he was enrolled in Alborz College (an American-run Presbyterian school), where he was educated for the next eight years. In 1942, he graduated from the University of Tehran with a degree in electrical engineering and emigrated to the U.S. the following year, enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Why He's Important: While a professor and scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, he published his seminal work on "Fuzzy Sets" in 1965 in which he detailed the mathematics of what he called the Fuzzy Set Theory. In 1973, he formally proposed his theory of "Fuzzy Logic", which, based on precise formulas, began allowing scientists, mathematicians and others to make accurate, realistic research data decisions when working in environments of incomplete information, uncertainty and imprecision. Fuzzy Logic does this by allowing for approximate values and inferences as well as for incomplete or ambiguous data (fuzzy data) -- instead of relying solely on crisp data (binary yes/no choices).

Other Achievements: Fuzzy Logic and his Fuzzy Set theory in general have been applied to numerous fields – from computer technology and control theory to artificial intelligence. Lotfi is also credited, along with John Ragazzini in 1952 with pioneering the development of the z-transform method in discrete time signal processing and analysis. These methods are now standard in digital signal processing, digital control, and other discrete-time systems used in industry and research. His latest work includes computing with words and perceptions.

Education: Lotfi received his Master's degree in electrical engineering from MIT in 1946, and his Ph.D in the same discipline from Columbia University where he taught for 10 years before joining UC Berkeley in 1959.

In His Own Words: Commenting how he came up with the name "Fuzzy Logic," he says: "I decided on the word 'fuzzy' because I felt it most accurately described what was going on in the theory. I could have chosen another term that would have been more 'respectable'. For instance, I had thought about using the word 'soft', but that really didn't describe accurately what I had in mind. Nor did 'unsharp', 'blurred', or 'elastic'. In the end, I couldn't think of anything more accurate so I settled on "'fuzzy'".

At age 92, Dr. Zadeh still remains active in his field. He serves as an editor of the International Journal of Computational Cognition, and his website at UC Berkeley lists him as Professor in the Graduate School of Computer Science. In addition, his Facebook page reports that he still goes to his office at UC Berkeley everyday whenever he is not out of town at national or international professional conferences.

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Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

Juror Questions for Witness

David Lohr, Jodi Arias Jurors Have 'Probably 100 Questions' For Defendant Huff Post (March 5, 2013):

Jurors in Jodi Arias' murder trial have submitted about 100 questions they want put to the accused killer on their behalf, the judge said Tuesday.

"I just received some additional questions from the jurors," Judge Sherry Stephens said in court as the questioning of Arias by her defense lawyers and the prosecutor finished. "It looks like we have probably a hundred questions."

Arizona is one of three states that allow jurors to pose questions to witnesses after prosecution and defense lawyers have finished their questioning.

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The dynamic evidence page

Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

A Marvelous-Sounding Stanford Program in Law and Technology

The following fellowship at Stanford sounds like a marvelous opportunity for someone (and I wish I were young enough to take advantage of it):
CodeX - The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics (http://codex.stanford.edu) is accepting applications for a Resident Fellowship for the 2013-14 academic year.  CodeX is a cross-disciplinary research center jointly operated by Stanford Law School and the Stanford School of Engineering. The center's mission is to explore the application of technology toward improving the quality, efficiency, and accessibility of the legal system.  Codex research fellows will have the opportunity to spend one to two years at Stanford Law School collaborating with scholars in computer science and other relevant disciplines. Fellows will work on the center's existing projects, and will have the opportunity to explore related research on their own and commence new projects. Fellows will work with cutting-edge technologies emerging from Stanford's engineering departments, and will be expected to bring a legally oriented perspective toward integrating these technologies into the law. Fellows will also be involved in bringing in leading thinkers in the field to speak at the law school on these topic areas and will work with law and computer science students to engage them in the center's activities.

Qualifications:

Because the primary focus of the center is employing technology within the law, applicants should also have experience in the legal, computer science or engineering related fields. We welcome applicants with practical/professional technical experience in these fields as well as those with formal legal, computer science or engineering undergraduate or graduate training. Applicants should be capable of learning and be comfortable with the technological aspects of the center's projects.

How to Apply:

All qualified and interested applicants must apply via the Stanford jobs website: http://jobs.stanford.edu/ search for this specific posting by entering job number: 51463 in the keyword search field. Applicants should submit:
.       a resume
.       a brief letter (no more than 2 pages) describing the applicant's interest in issues applying technology to the law, the applicant's background, and the research that they propose to conduct
.       a list of references
Review of applications will begin immediately, and all applications must be received by March 31, 2013.  For more information about the Stanford Codex Center please visit the website at http://codex.stanford.edu, or contact CodeX Executive Director Roland Vogl at rvogl@law.stanford.edu.

************************************
Dr. Roland Vogl, Esq.
Executive Director and Lecturer in Law
Stanford Program in Law, Science & Technology
CodeX - The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics
Transatlantic Technology Law Forum

rvogl@law.stanford.edu

Stanford Law School
Crown Quadrangle
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610
Tel: (650) 723-8532
Fax: (650) 725-2190

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Epistemology and Cognitive Science

Epistemology has become cognitive science. And that's a good thing (in the main).
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Goodbye to Academia

I enjoy watching, on C-Span, the authors who say they had to leave academia to do the thinking and writing they want to do. (Of course, the authors who appear on C-Span are those who managed to make a go of it: we are witnessing a kind of victor's history.)
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Sexual Misbehavior by Catholic Clergy Members

Although I have raised a number of questions a number of times -- see, e.g., this blog post and this one -- about the evidence used in some or much American civil litigation (and in some criminal cases) for alleged abuse by Catholic priests of minors, it is of course true that some Catholic clergymen have engaged in improper and sometimes illegal and sometimes criminal sexual misconduct. See, e.g., Accused Scottish Cardinal Admits Sexual Failings, NYTimes (March 3, 2013). (But I do not know whether Cardinal Keith O'Brien has been accused of improper sexual behavior toward minors or whether he has only been accused of acting improperly toward adults.)

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Book: Circumstantial Evidence and Corruption

This book looks interesting: Edward Hoseah, Corruption in Tanzania: The Case for Circumstantial Evidence (Cambria Press, 2008) (why didn't I notice this book earlier?). The Amazon blurb:

This book examines circumstantial evidence in the context of its utility in investigation and prosecution of corruption cases in Tanzania. Circumstantial evidence has not been given the due prominence it deserves under traditional common law. In this book, the author expounds and articulates the efficacy of circumstantial evidence in the dispensation of corruption cases in courts of law. The emerging approach of circumstantial evidence is intended to cure the current weaknesses of investigation and prosecution of corruption cases--a daunting task for all law enforcements and courts who regard direct evidence paradigm as more reliable than circumstantial evidence. The book provides a strong case for circumstantial evidence approaches to improve the effectiveness and contribution of the legal system in the fight against corruption.

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What Is Truth?

Konstantin Kakaes, Can We Teach Computers What “Truth” Means?It’s harder than it sounds., Slate (Feb. 26, 2012):

I’d like to begin with two different ideas of truth. The first appears to be the simplest: “It is true that 1+1=2.” The second is from the beginning of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Now, these sound like quite different ideas about truth. But the process of trying to teach computers to understand truths like these—difficult for both notions—is revealing the ways in which they are similar.

The term artificial intelligence was coined in 1955 by a computer scientist named John McCarthy. Early on, McCarthy enunciated his key aim as the systematization of common sense knowledge. In 1959, he wrote: “[A] program has common sense if it automatically deduces for itself a sufficiently wide class of immediate consequences of anything it is told and what it already knows.” This has proven very difficult, primarily because it is difficult to encode, in a systematic fashion, what it means to say something is true.

[etc.]
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