Statistical Fallacies I: The Prosecutor's Fallacy
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Uploader Comments (CousinoMacul)
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All Comments (25)
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awesome! thanks for explaining prosecutors fallacy in a brevity way! i was lost in my class and your video helped me write my essay for prosecutors fallacy and it's conditional probability!!! thanks again!
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"The fallacy (if I remember correctly) was named well before DNA testing."
Was first coined, 20 years ago when DNA was fairly new and some lawyers still tried to pretend it didnt work.
Just trying to think of other examples, maybe claiming someone was soley guilty because they drive the same type of car. Theres usually more than one piece of evidence tho.
Can think of quite a few cases where people have been found guilty only because the victims DNA was found in their car etc.
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Great reasoning, Javier... though the total population of the country can't be the number to use in the probability fraction, since some could be easily discounted... babies, travellers abroad, nursing home inhabitants or hospitalized citizens. etc... regardless... it was a great video and fine food for thought.
8-)
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Thanks for these vids, Javier. I am aware of these fallacies as you have revealed them so far, but I was not aware of their names. I didn't know they had specific titles, I just thought of them as bad math. =) Keep it up, please!
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Half of my final year dissertation was on statistics, but this is much cooler!
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Mmm statistics. Flashing back to basic statistics courses here XD Great video!
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Hmmm a DNA test of 1 in 10,000 is not very good. That may have been 20years ago with bad sample. These days its always in the billions.
So there might be one other persons who DNA matches in the whole world. Then any other link seals the deal.
So the fallacy doesnt apply any more.
TheBigGameHunter1 3 years ago
I believe that I admitted that my examples were oversimplifications to make a point. However, there are plenty of other tests or situations where the number of permutations is significantly smaller than the population size.
The fallacy (if I remember correctly) was named well before DNA testing. DNA was just the example I chose to use.
The fallacy can crop up anywhere (disease testing, interpretation of data, etc.), so I would say that it still does apply.
CousinoMacul 3 years ago
sorry mate, just joking, its 3am here in the uk... I am up writting up a report, on hemispheric asymmetries in implicit memory... yeap... I am more of a geek...
emouch1 4 years ago
:-) I miss those days ... or maybe not so much. lol
CousinoMacul 4 years ago
what you described is the defendants fallacy, not the prosecutors....
emouch1 4 years ago
No. I specifically said that there was <b>no</b> other evidence except the DNA. That makes the <i>prosecutor's</i> argument fallacious. If there had been other evidence (like say pointing to the husband or boyfriend), then the <i>defendant</i> would be wrong to make that argument. Read the wiki page I linked to in the video description; it discusses <i>both</i> of those fallacies.
CousinoMacul 4 years ago