Magical Realists Magical Reality

Discussion in 'The Cesspool' started by Magical Realist, Mar 30, 2015.

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  1. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the disingenuous attempt to reject eyewitness accounts of things you don't personally believe in. If eyewitness accounts are REALLY so unreliable, then we'd never know any news about anything. We'd never learn about events that people describe in their own lives. We'd never be able to write history books based on eyewitness accounts of that time. Everything about the past suddenly becomes questionable. Hell, does a scientist even remember correctly his own eyewitness account of his experiment? Maybe he's falsely remembering it? Making up details that never really happened? That's the sort of bullshit world your absurd claim would reduce us to. In fact eyewitness accounts are far more reliable than inferred accounts. People remember things they saw happen much more often than they misremember them. And that's why eyewitnesses are so crucial in accident police reports, criminal charges, and the prosecution of crimes before a jury. Because everybody knows eyewitness accounts are reliable, genuine, and credible, unless there is some reason to doubt them like does the witness have a motive to lie, were they drunk, etc.

    Ooo..another scary cryptic threat by a moderator. So what happens now when I ignore the mod troll who weekly makes up new excuses to ban me, to lock and cesspool my every on-topic thread, and has just wrongly merged like 10 of my threads under an insulting title? Will I be banned for it? On what basis?
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2015
    Magical Realist, Jun 11, 2015
    #281

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  3. Daecon

    Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    We wouldn't need to rely on eyewitnesses, photos or videos if someone actually went out there and caught a real bigfoot, or even dug up the body of a dead bigfoot.

    Why has nobody done that, if bigfoot is supposedly a real creature?
     
    Daecon, Jun 11, 2015
    #282

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  5. AlexG

    AlexG Like nailing Jello to a tree Valued Senior Member

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    You've just been shown studies showing how UNRELIABLE eyewitness testimony is, and you choose to totally ignore them. No wonder your threads are exiled
     
    AlexG, Jun 11, 2015
    #283

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  7. Kittamaru

    Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Attempted red-herring, faulty generalization, appeal to ridicule, an thought-terminating cliche' all in one...

    The simple fact remains, no matter how much you may dislike it... a persons memory is NOT reliable.
     
    Kittamaru, Jun 11, 2015
    #284
  8. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know. How do I know those scientists that conducted those studies are even remembering them correctly? Maybe their own memories are unreliable, making up details of things they only wanted to happen. Hell, maybe I'm not even me anymore. Maybe I didn't really have chicken for lunch today. Maybe I didn't really see a man fall off his bike last week. Memory is just so fuck'n fragile afterall. lol!
     
    Magical Realist, Jun 11, 2015
    #285
  9. AlexG

    AlexG Like nailing Jello to a tree Valued Senior Member

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    So you'll disregard all studies because they don't support you. Typical of you.
     
    AlexG, Jun 11, 2015
    #286
  10. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I believe in my own memory and the memory of others. And especially do I believe people's eyewitness accounts of things that can hardly be mistaken for something else. Like 9 foot tall hairy bipeds. And mile-across triangular ufos. And transparent figures walking thru walls. The more astonishing the experience, the more accurate the memory tends to be.
     
    Magical Realist, Jun 11, 2015
    #287
  11. Kittamaru

    Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    And here we observe the Magicus Realisticus, unable to form any coherent counter argument, instead relies on trolling and logical fallacy to try and dismiss facts that he doesn't like.
     
    Kittamaru, Jun 11, 2015
    #288
  12. Daecon

    Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Citation needed.
     
    Daecon, Jun 11, 2015
    #289
  13. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    "Emotional events are often remembered with greater accuracy and vividness (though these two characteristics do not always go together) than events lacking an emotional component (Reisberg & Hertel, 2005). This enhanced memory for emotional events has been attributed to interactions between the amygdala and other neural areas such as the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (PFC) (Cahill & McGaugh, 1996)."====http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2265099/
     
    Magical Realist, Jun 11, 2015
    #290
  14. Kittamaru

    Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Wow, citing a study from 1996... you do realize the studies you've been shown are much more recent, right? Or do you feel our understanding of a subject is unable to increase and evolve as we study it...?

    Regardless - yes, powerful emotional events can result in stronger memories - that doesn't make a person less susceptible to suggestion or false memories... he'll, your first quote even says that vivid detail does not necessarily mean greater accuracy
     
    Kittamaru, Jun 11, 2015
    #291
  15. Daecon

    Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Emotional =/= astonishing.
     
    Daecon, Jun 11, 2015
    #292
  16. AlexG

    AlexG Like nailing Jello to a tree Valued Senior Member

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    So what it comes down to is that you will believe what you want to believe regardless of what science says. Which means there's no discussion, we accept what you tell us or you ignore us.
     
    AlexG, Jun 11, 2015
    #293
  17. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    No..I said I believe in my memory and other people's memory. Just like all normal people do. I don't biasedly eliminate those eyewitness accounts that don't support my particular worldview like you people do. I don't quote studies to prove to myself that everyone who witnesses something extraordinary is just remembering it wrong. I accept eyewitness accounts for what they are--evidence. Just as all police do and courts of law do and all historians do and all journalists do. And just as you do on a daily basis, even though you ridiculously deny it here in order to disregard eyewitness evidence for ufos and the paranormal.
     
    Magical Realist, Jun 11, 2015
    #294
  18. Daecon

    Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    When it comes to bigfoot, eyewitness evidence just isn't good enough!
     
    Daecon, Jun 11, 2015
    #295
  19. AlexG

    AlexG Like nailing Jello to a tree Valued Senior Member

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    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and someone saying 'I saw something' is not extraordinary evidence.

    You however, will believe any claim, no matter how outrageous.
     
    AlexG, Jun 11, 2015
    #296
  20. Bells

    Bells Staff Member

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    History books are often corroborated by artifacts, papers and writings detailing the event, sometimes even images by artists who used to work on battle scenes, for example.

    Few history books teach history based solely on eyewitness accounts. When they are, they are deemed to be historical accounts of what someone saw or witnessed.

    What you deemed to be bullshit or my absurd claim were actually studies involving over 20,000 people.

    The studies focus on just how people distort what they saw, without even realising it and yes, memory retrieval is a dangerous topic.

    It isn't a matter of 'misremembering', it is a matter of the brain altering the memory and how that alteration can occur and happen at any time, with no effort on behalf of the person who is remembering it. Motive to lie has nothing to do with it. Motive to imprint a false memory in others can have a lot to do with it. A mere suggestion can be enough. Had you read the studies I linked, you would have seen that and you would have seen that your comments at present are pretty much irrelevant and nonsensical.

    Eyewitnesses are used in accident reports and it is why they will get the accounts as soon as possible. However even with those, people's perspective, their own history and what they experienced prior to, during and after the accident can result in different recollections. The same applies with shootings, for example. You can have 20 people and all 20 people will see something differently. We did see this in the shooting in Ferguson, where the many eyewitnesses all saw at least one thing differently.

    Read those studies. You might learn something. It's never too late.

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    Nah dude. See, if I wanted to threaten you with a ban, I'd tell you that if you kept going as you were, you would be banned.

    Mine was a warning that if you keep ignoring a moderator and they are giving you warnings about your behaviour in their posts, then when the hammer does fall, you cannot claim you didn't know it was coming. Also, it is also rude to act like a petulant child and put your proverbial fingers in your ears while having a pout. This is essentially what you are doing now.

    As I said, you do this at your peril.

    There is a lot of lack of pity for people who ignore all obvious evidence, and keep denying reality. Which is what you are doing currently. You were presented with studies, involving over 20,000 people. That's a pretty big study.

    Why?

    What makes you think any of it is actually accurate?

    Have you ever heard of Kirk Bloodsworth?

    Five people testified as eyewitnesses, to Kirk Bloodsworth's involvement and having perpetrated a rape and murder of a young girl. He was found guilty based on the eyewitness testimony of those 5 people. He was sentenced to the death penalty. After 9 years, he was released, exonerated by DNA evidence. This is sadly, not rare. And Kirk was not alone in being wrongly convicted for crimes they did not commit based on eyewitness accounts.

    Since the 1990s, when DNA testing was first introduced, Innocence Project researchers have reported that 73 percent of the 239 convictions overturned through DNA testing were based on eyewitness testimony. One third of these overturned cases rested on the testimony of two or more mistaken eyewitnesses.​

    Jurors are often like you, they also "believe people's eyewitness accounts of things that can hardly be mistaken for something else". And the consequences can sometimes be deadly.

    Which is why the unreliability of eyewitness accounts is a major problem for the criminal justice system.

    You do realise that "astonishing" is not the same as an emotional or traumatic memory that someone has suppressed, like in some cases of PTSD, right? Which is what the article you linked was discussing.

    Did you read the whole article? Or did you just read the first paragraph and leave it there?

    Tell that to Kirk Bloodsworth and other people wrongly found guilty and convicted, some killed by the death penalty before the advent of DNA testing.


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    "Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts." Scientific American Global RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2015. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/?page=1>.
     
    Bells, Jun 11, 2015
    #297
  21. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I've read bullshit like this before. There was this show that proclaimed the unreliability of eyewitnesses with a demonstration of how a man can be replaced with a woman, a plant with a chair, and so on, as long as you are focused on watching something. That proves nothing more than that distraction keeps you from noticing background details. Had nothing to do with
    proving eyewitness accounts were faulty. Wow..distraction makes you overlook details. So what..lol! Your study also assumes the role of misinformation in remembering an event. That proves nothing. Ofcourse people doubt themselves if they are lied to about what actually happened. It only means they can be deceived. So what? Says nothing about eyewitness accounts.

    Actually I'll ignore whoever I choose to ignore. That's been part of sciforums policy since it was formed. I don't know what bullshit rule you all decided in your mutual ass-kissing session in the backroom, but it has nothing to do with James R's thread about having my threads all merged under an insulting title. I'll wait for James R's PM on this. I have no respect or trust for any of you trolling mods anymore. Hell you're one of the biggest flamers in this forum. And you wonder why people don't respond to you. Are you gonna ban them now too? Oh wait. You already have. Witness the dead ass state of this forum.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2015
    Magical Realist, Jun 11, 2015
    #298
  22. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Eyewitness evidence is eyewitness evidence. We rely on it everyday. Our whole society runs on it. We don't make exceptions about it just because we don't want certain things to exist. That would be intellectually dishonest.
     
    Magical Realist, Jun 11, 2015
    #299
  23. Daecon

    Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Then why don't you just leave and go to some crackpot pseudoscience forum instead?
     
    Daecon, Jun 11, 2015
    #300
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