Dysrationalia can explain wrongful convictions new study shows

This 2021 April Fool story has now been taken down.

Thank you all those who fell for it – even if only for a little while. And apologies to those who took it as genuine research.

But this much of it is true:

“Sometimes

Intelligent people do stupid things

Clever people make mistakes

Good people do bad things

And dysrationalia can cause a lot of trouble.”

 

 

 

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6 Responses to Dysrationalia can explain wrongful convictions new study shows

  1. John S says:

    One of my favourite sayings: One can’t overcome stupid! Many examples of this in life.

  2. owen allen says:

    Far out, I took the bait twice yesterday. But I thought I responded well.
    Today’s world nothing surprises me with apologists.
    For instance, The Police Force is too corrupt to do anything about, Senior Politician.
    OK that is an apology to me.

  3. Tom Cairns says:

    I think that the jury system will always be highly imperfect. One reason for its persistence is that the buck automatically passes to them in the case of a miscarriage. A convenient scapegoat. Unfortunately I have had the bad luck to know one or two jurists who were people I would not have chosen. One had never grown out of his boyhood fantasies, but that did not stop them making him foreman. In that trial, he persuaded the others not to convict the accused. After the dismissal the police were furious telling him the accused had committed a previous similar offence but this could not be admitted as evidence during the trial. The offender got away with probable manslaughter twice.
    Can’t help thinking that a few experienced senior magistrates would be far more preferable than the kind of jury that acquitted O. J. Simpson, or that convicted Lindy Chamberlain.
    Or Susan Neill-Fraser for that matter.

  4. SH says:

    🤔 there are certain situations where I feel an April Fool’s Day joke is NEVER warranted – this is probably one of them…

    • andrew says:

      I respectfully suggest you are dead wrong, SH. First of all, “It is easy to forget that the most important aspect of comedy, after all, its great saving grace, is its ambiguity. You can simultaneously laugh at a situation, and take it seriously.” as Stephen Fry so astutely remarked.
      Second, even though Professor Unger doesn’t exist, dysrationalia does …

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