Lamarck vs. Darwin?

Moved here, http://ascienceguy.blogspot.com/2009/02/lamarck-vs-darwin.html

Motive and Crime

Popular American superstition is that in the trial of the accused, “motive” matters for consideration.

I want to point-out that “motive” DOES NOT MATTER in criminal investigations: I want to make this point because the popular idea that “motive” is ever taken into consideration is seriously interfering with proper trials: judges have been dealing with juries’ brainwashing, explaining repeatedly, such as the following scenario:

Jury: “what’s the motive?”
Judge:”It does not matter”.
Jury: “But don’t we need that?”
Judge: “You cannot consider motive, it does not matter”.
Jury: “Okay, so do you think he could have had a motive?”
judge: “I’LL REPEAT, YOU CANNOT TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION, ELSE THE TRIAL IS INVALID, MOTIVE DOES NOT MATTER”.

The problem with “motive” is that anyone can make anything up, and easily; conversely a nonmotives could also be concocted. “The accused killed a man”, might say the [overzealous] prosecutor; “what’s the motive”, asks the jury; “anger”, says the prosecutor. “No”, protests the defendent, “why would I put myself at risk to lose my life or freedom?”, “good point”, says the jury… that’s all speculative.

The necessity of “motive” is a fairy-tale concocted by Hollywood. Even more fundamental, however, to the irrelevance of motive is that in this country we do not penalize thought, such as motive: it’s legal (in this country, thank God) to be motivated to do anything, but if acted upon, then one faces the consequences. (There can be gray areas, however: for example, conspiracy vs. theorizing; but such fineties apply in cases of conspiracy against the nation.)

This is the reason the outgoing president promised to veto any presented “hate crimes” laws, because they are unconstitutional: this is the trouble in locations where they are present: already they are being used to censure thought and make criminals out of those with opinions are contrary to certain ideologies and interpretations of things considered. This is quite easy to do: “such and such protested or call this or that bad, they were inciting hate”, and the prosecution is underway. Fundamental, however, to our freedom, and preventing usurptation of the power to censure and criminalize others at whim, is the preservation to think: whether of virtue, or philosophy, like or dislike (even extreme dislike, which is the meaning of “hate”).

Furthermore, in ideal, we do not accept circumstantial evidence, which is nonevidence: we want hard, confirmable, details. It is easy to speculate a motive (as aforementioned), but frankly, speculation is illegitimate in trial: legally it should never be considered evidence, though sadly, it often becomes considered these days. This is especially egregious where a man’s life, whether his breath or his freedom is, or both are, on the line.

At trial the only fact of the matter under consideration is, “did s/he do it”; properly executed trials do not try to infer or probabilistically ascertain to likelihood of whether so and so committed the act. To do so would mean only that a good rhetorician is required to make or break a case, rather than careful, consitently logical, evaluators of evidence. Sadly I think the latter is rare, and the former obscurantist more common, in successfully won cases: perhaps due to juries’ illogic more than, perhaps, the opponent team.

Bumbling with Words

Moved here, http://ascienceguy.blogspot.com/2008/12/bumbling-with-words_12.html