Because the US "justice" system is about retribution and punishment, not rehabilitation and reintegration. It doesn't matter if it's junk science. It matters that we get convictions.
Because the US "justice" system is about retribution and punishment, not rehabilitation and reintegration.
It doesn't matter if it's junk science. It matters that we get convictions.
The use of unscientific methodology in the US is pretty pervasive across many areas. Meyer-Briggs personality testing in hiring processes, the use of polygraphs in a large number of areas, the SAT...
The use of unscientific methodology in the US is pretty pervasive across many areas. Meyer-Briggs personality testing in hiring processes, the use of polygraphs in a large number of areas, the SAT and similar testing that in research not with what you know, but how well you can take exactly that test.
Those are just three examples.
But methodology of asking questions to get good and truthful answers isn't just an issue in the justice system. Journalists often also ask notoriously bad questions for actually seeking out the truth as determined by research on how to conduct accurate interrogations.
This is not only a phenomenon in the US, but I actually think these sorts of systems are more common there than in Western Europe. I'd love other views on that though.
The examples in your top paragraph are due to the fact that we like to convince ourselves that there is an easy and "correct" way to determine information about a person without actually needing...
The examples in your top paragraph are due to the fact that we like to convince ourselves that there is an easy and "correct" way to determine information about a person without actually needing to know anything about them.
It's why we convince ourselves that the world is a meritocracy. It allows us to believe that good things happen to us because we earned it. We were good at taking the test, which makes us smart, because it lets us in to certain institutions full of other "smart" people.
It allows us to boil down complex lives into simple check boxes.
Because the US "justice" system is about retribution and punishment, not rehabilitation and reintegration.
It doesn't matter if it's junk science. It matters that we get convictions.
The use of unscientific methodology in the US is pretty pervasive across many areas. Meyer-Briggs personality testing in hiring processes, the use of polygraphs in a large number of areas, the SAT and similar testing that in research not with what you know, but how well you can take exactly that test.
Those are just three examples.
But methodology of asking questions to get good and truthful answers isn't just an issue in the justice system. Journalists often also ask notoriously bad questions for actually seeking out the truth as determined by research on how to conduct accurate interrogations.
This is not only a phenomenon in the US, but I actually think these sorts of systems are more common there than in Western Europe. I'd love other views on that though.
The examples in your top paragraph are due to the fact that we like to convince ourselves that there is an easy and "correct" way to determine information about a person without actually needing to know anything about them.
It's why we convince ourselves that the world is a meritocracy. It allows us to believe that good things happen to us because we earned it. We were good at taking the test, which makes us smart, because it lets us in to certain institutions full of other "smart" people.
It allows us to boil down complex lives into simple check boxes.