The proof : uses of evidence in law, politics, and everything else
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Bibliographic Information
The proof : uses of evidence in law, politics, and everything else
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2022
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Content Type: text (rdacontent), Media Type: unmediated (rdamedia), Carrier Type: volume (rdacarrier)
Includes index
Summary: "A noticeable shift in focus has occurred in public discourse from What is our best course of action? to What are the true facts of the situation? At the center of these debates are questions on the proper use of evidence, Legal scholar Schauer offers clarity based on how legal systems grapple with these questions-and by drawing insights from psychology, philosophy, economics, history, and decision theory"-- Provided by publisher
Contents of Works
- As a matter of fact
- Zebras, horses, and the nature of inference
- The burden of proof
- How to tell the truth with statistics
- Testimony, and not only in court
- Testing testimony
- Of lies and liars
- Can we believe our eyes and ears?
- Of experts and expertise
- The science of crime
- Chicken sexing, art authentication, and the vast and expanding domain of expertise
- Can leopards change their spots? Questions of character and the relevance of the past to the present
- Seeing what we want to see: the problem of motivated reasoning
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In a world awash in "fake news," where public figures make unfounded assertions as a matter of course, a preeminent legal theorist ranges across the courtroom, the scientific laboratory, and the insights of philosophers to explore the nature of evidence and show how it is credibly established.
In the age of fake news, trust and truth are hard to come by. Blatantly and shamelessly, public figures deceive us by abusing what sounds like evidence. Preeminent legal theorist Frederick Schauer proposes correctives, drawing on centuries of inquiry into the nature of evidence.
Evidence is the basis of how we know what we think we know, but evidence is no simple thing. Evidence that counts in, say, the policymaking context is different from evidence that stands up in court. Law, science, historical scholarship, public and private decisionmaking-all rely on different standards of evidence. Exploring diverse terrain including vaccine and food safety, election-fraud claims, the January 2021 events at the US Capitol, the reliability of experts and eyewitnesses, climate science, art authentication, and even astrology, The Proof develops fresh insights into the challenge of reaching the truth.
Schauer combines perspectives from law, statistics, psychology, and the philosophy of science to evaluate how evidence should function in and out of court. He argues that evidence comes in degrees. Weak evidence is still some evidence. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but prolonged, fruitless efforts to substantiate a claim can go some distance in proving a negative. And evidence insufficient to lock someone up for a crime may be good enough to keep them out of jail. This book explains how to reason more effectively in everyday life, shows why people often reason poorly, and takes evidence as a pervasive problem, not just a matter of legal rules.
by "Nielsen BookData"