#on witness accounts

[ from a longer blog entry ]

" ... human memory recall functions, susceptible to even subtle manipulations both immediately after as well as months following stressful, traumatic incidents, can't and shouldn't be relied upon to provide us with any facts concerning said incidents. Certainly, witness accounts carry importance in terms of handing investigators clues and hints - we all require a starting point, obviously, though some more than others - to start off that network of hypotheses which should, eventually, lead to the truth. However, why not simply deploy the use of one's eyes and ears, of hard knowledge and keen attention? There's simply no use for uncertainty in the work of forensics. Rather, let the witness accounts prove what we already know, what we've realised through the science of deduction. The rest, of course, is in the details. "