Jury Service.

I've just got back from the district court after attending a jury selection process. And I thought I would get down how it went, what was involved and my thoughts on the whole thing and jury service in general. All this while it's still nice and fresh in my mind (for whatever that's worth).

The Selection Process

I think I'll begin by describing the selection process as it went. So it starts with a letter summoning you to attend at the district court for jury service. At this stage you are invited to attempt to provide an excuse if you feel that you cannot attend for any reason. Acceptable reasons are things like; Work, family commitments, disability ect. If you cannot supply an excuse, or if your excuse is not accepted. Then you are required to attend the selection process.
The selection process begins with all those who turned up collecting in a large room. I would estimate there were probably somewhere between 150-200 of us present at this point. Then there is a video. The video was about how jury service is important and blah blah blah. And some things we needed to know about the process.
After the video there was the house keeping. This is the evacuation procedure, these people can help your out and so on. That was followed by an explanation of the process we were about to follow for the selection. And another video explaining that process in detail. Then it went as follows.
There was a ballot drawn for each of the two trials starting that morning. The ballots were drawn one after the other. The first for court room 9. The second for court room 4. As each persons name was drawn from the wooden box, they had to acknowledge by saying yes. My name was drawn for court room 9. There were 50 names drawn for each room.
At the conclusion of the draw. Those whose names had not bee drawn were dismissed for the day with instructions to check with the court after 6 pm that evening to see if they would be needed again.
After a brief break of about ten minutes or so. The group for court room 9 was ushered out of the jury selection room and up one level into court room 9. There we were all seated in the public gallery at the back of the court room. The Judge, counsel and court personnel had already taken their seats but the accused was absent.
The court was called to session and the accused was brought in. The charge was read and the accused was asked if they were guilty or not guilty. They pleaded not guilty. The judge then explained to us that the prosecution would read the names of the witnesses to be called and that we were to indicate if we knew any of them. We were also asked to indicate if we thought we could not be impartial, now that we knew the identity of the accused, the counsel and the nature of the charge. No one excused them self.
Then the draw for the jury began. Again names were drawn out of a wooden ballot box. As each name was drawn. That person was required to go and take a seat in the jury box. At this point the counsel for each side (defense or prosecution) could challenge the selection before the person took their seat. This simply involved them saying "challenge". At which point the unwanted juror would simply turn around and return to their seat.
So the draw started. Names were read out and people took their seats. The first challenge came from the defense and it was one I expected (more on that later). The second challenge also came from the defense but was not one I expected. The third and last challenge came from the prosecution and was against my selection (again, more later).
After the selection was complete the jurors were asked to take and oath or swear an affirmation (more later) that they would do their job properly. Then they retired to choose a foreman. The judge explained that some of the jury could still drop out at this point and so we were not yet dismissed. When the jury returned. We were dismissed with instructions to check back if we would be needed tomorrow.

My Thoughts on the Selection


So the first thing I have to say is that I was actually rather impressed with the speed and efficiency of the whole thing. I really did expect it to be far more time consuming. The room was perhaps a bit too small for the number of people and it became a little stuffy despite the air conditioning. This was bearable though as we were not in there for too long a time.
Any way thats just noise.
The two points I really want to get to are the challenges to the jury selection and the oath/affirmation required by the jurors.

  The oath/affirmation.

As each juror goes to take their seat in the jury box they are offered a bible by the court attendant. This can be declined, as was explained to us in the video, by a shake of the head or a gesture of the hand. It is weird that this is stilled practiced. I cannot understand the association between the christen religion and our justice system. New Zealand is a secular state and our laws should have absolutely no connection with religion. No matter how slight.
This connection is reinforced by the oath that is administered to the jurors. It reads:

"Members of the jury: Do each of you swear by Almighty God (or solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm) that you will try the case before you to the best of your ability and give your verdict according to the evidence?"    

Almighty god? What the hell? Even if you want to argue that this exists purely as a historical artifact and has no real connection to Christianity. I still think it's complete bullocks. Of the 12 jurors that I saw take the oath today only 6 took the offered bible. And the history argument just doesn't hold water. We don't maintain links to other areas of our law that we no longer accept as right. This is holding up Christianity as something special in our society. And that is simply not a reflection of who we are as New Zealanders. How about this.

"Members of the jury: Do each of you solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm, that you will try the case before you to the best of your ability and give your verdict according to the evidence?"

What's wrong with that? The jury promises to hear the evidence and base their decision accordingly. Not just good rules for a jury but a pretty good strategy for life!

  The challenge to selection.

So as I mentioned above. The final selection for the jury involves a ballot and then these can be challenged by the counsel for either side. This is called peremptory challenge. The information video we had been shown earlier explained that counsel can challenge for any reason they like. They just say. "Challenge".  And that person doesn't sit on the jury. What is the point of this? The video suggested that it may be done to get a better balance on the jury. Balance of what I ask? Gender, Age, Socioeconomic status? From the challenges I saw today this did not seem to be the case.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that the challenge affords the counsel an opportunity to exclude jurors that they think may not look favorably on their case. And by so doing. Give themselves a better opportunity to be successful.
The reason peremptory challenge exists is so that counsel can exclude people who they believe may have a bias in some direction. And this is supposed to ensure a decision that is more fair and acceptable to all involved.
I disagree with this. First. How can you tell from someones name and appearance (the only information the counsel has) that they have any kind of bias? Correction:They also have access to your age, address and whatever your occupation is as listed on the electoral roll. But the point still stands. You can't. At best your can make a rough probabilistic guess based on your experience. But this is going to clouded by your own biases.  
Second. The challenges can be used to move the jury away from a representative cross section of society. This could be done for any number of purposes. For example. A counsel may know that a mostly female jury is more likely to convict for rape. And so they may use their challenges to exclude men. Random selection would result in a more or less even and balanced representation most of the time. 
The challenges during todays session certainly contributed to the second of these two and highlighted the first.
The first challenge was against young pacific island man. I had been sitting near him earlier in the day and heard him talking to another person. He was in second year at university and studying business. But he was dressed like he was on his way to work at a construction site. His name was called and I immediately expected a challenge form the defense (of whom I had made my own judgement). Sure enough. The second the defense lawyer looked up and saw him the challenge was made. So the defense lawyer immediately judged this lad as someone unfavorable just on appearance.
The second challenge was a middle aged man. I did't expect this one and I don't know why the defense lawyer challenged him.
The third challenge was me. My name was called and I got up to take my seat. Right before I sat down I was challenged by the prosecution and I returned to my chair. I of course have no idea why my selection was challenged. The best I can come up with is because I'm young and male (The accused was young, female and not unattractive).

The jury ended up being mostly older with 8 women and 4 men. There was one person under 30. A young woman who I would guess to be early twenties. One guy I would guess is in his mid thirties. And the rest would be 50 or over I think. O. And all of European descent (aka white). Is this an accurate representation of our society? You would have a hard time convincing me of that.   

 Jury Service and the Jury System.    

I'm not opposed to the jury system and jury service. Although I am happy that I'm sitting at home blogging and not in a court room. But I think better results can be obtained from a system where the decision on guilt or innocence is made by professionals with the correct knowledge and training.
For example. As a skeptic. I am always amazed by the fallibility of the human memory and our capacity to reason and rationalise. The fact that eyewitness accounts make up the majority of the evidence in criminal cases is scary when you know just how bad our memories are. Memory is not a camera. It is faulty and does change overtime. A person trained in, and familiar with, the problems of human memory will have a much better chance of determining truth out of often conflicting accounts.
Where trials involve complicated forensic evidence. It can devolve into a case of which expert do you believe more. What is needed in these cases is an understanding of the scientific process in order to evaluate the relevance and strength of the evidence presented.
I think that a panel of judges, trained in the intricacies of evidence and law. Have a far better chance of coming to the correct conclusions of a persons guilt or innocence.

I know that the trial by jury is of huge historical importance. And that it is considered by many to be a fundamental right of any citizen in a free democracy. You only have to look at the example of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (among many, many others) to see what happens when the justice system loses it's transparency, accountability and independence. But we can have these things and still have a system that provides for the best possible way of determining the truth.

I'm suggest that we follow the evidence. Does trial by jury give the best possible success rate for convicting the guilty and setting the innocent free?  
        

Sniffer Dogs Led Astray By Their Handlers

It's a familiar site at any international Airport. Working dogs and their handlers busy about the place sniffing this and that in a constant search for prohibited substances. But a new study by researches at the University of California at Davis has found evidence that these dogs may be influenced by their handlers. When it comes to sniffing out the goods. The behavior of the handler, conscious or otherwise, may be having an effect on the dogs detection rates.

In this study. 18 dog/handler teams were studied under test conditions. Decoy scents were planted to test the influence of these distractions on the dogs. And the handlers were told that a paper marker would show the location of a target scent. There was no target scent present in the testing. So any alert on the part of the dog/handler team was a false positive.

What they found was that there were more alerts in the test scenarios where the handler was told of the location of a target scent. And that in fact the handler reported more alerts around the location indicated by the marker. So it was clear that the handlers expectation that a scent was present had an influence on the dog.

What I find interesting is the number of alerts in total. 225. This seems like an awful lot of false positives.
Also the tests were not recorded on video. So the effect of the handlers bias, leading them to incorrectly interpret the dogs actions as an alert, cannot be fully ruled out.

I would really like to see this experiment repeated with a larger sample size, closer scrutiny of the participants and the introduction of actual target scents. It would then be interesting to see if the handlers, or dogs, could be fooled into missing the target scents and giving a false alert. For example the handler may be told of the false location of the target scent and see if the dog can identify the correct location.

Though maybe that would be a bit hard on the poor subject team. Interesting tho.

Maori Elder "Sees" the Destruction of Wellington

Maori Elder, Keri Tia Toa, has used a speech this morning at the Waitangi treaty grounds to share his vision of the destruction of Wellington by devastating earthquake.

You can listen to his tale here. 

This is bizarre to say the least. I mean consider the context. A morning prayer session during what is a reflection on the singing of New Zealand's founding document. It's a time when we as kiwis are to remember how or nation came about.

And then we have an old crank stand up and declare that our capital will be destroyed. That our seat of government will be thrown down and that there will be soldiers and bodies in the streets. 

Amazing. 

Here are the possibilities as I see them: 

1) Keri Tia Toa is just a whack job. I mean it's entirely possible that he is simply loosing his marbles and decided to tell a fantastical story for what ever end he had in mind. 

2) He had a weird experience some time ago. A bad dream or something. And his obsessing over it combined with what ever influence his particular spirituality or belief system has had. Has twisted his memory of this experience into the strange "vision" that he now reports.  

3) He is just plain making shit up. This seems the most unlikely to my mind. Tho people have been known to do stranger things. 

As predictions go this is a rather lame one. I mean yes it is spectacular and would have enormous consequences for Wellington and the country as a whole. But it's so vague and rather a given.

This is what we skeptics refer to as the low hanging fruit. It's a prediction that is very likely to come true. There will be a large earthquake in Wellington some time in the future. That is a certainty. By not giving a specific date he leaves the possibility open that no matter when it happens it can still count as a successful prediction. Keri Tia Toa does say that it will be in the month of June. This is surprising because it cuts down his chances of being right to 1 in 12. Although if it's close to June or even in the middle of the year some time it will probably be considered a hit by some.     

I don't think I'll even bother why the idea of predicting the future is complete and total rubbish. suffice to say that in the entire history of our species there has never been any convincing evidence that humans are able to predict future events without using some form of inductive reasoning or theoretical  structure. No person has ever demonstrated the ability to have an accurate "vision" of events to come.   

I find this whole thing rather embarrassing really. A supposedly respected individual given a forum of national importance and he uses it to put forward an absurd vision of death and destruction. I mean come on. 

What do you think?        

Is This Brain Washing?

Here is "note able" creationist and general all around jackass Ken Ham indoctrinating a room full of kids.

  

This has a very cult like feel to it don't you think. The brain washing of young children in this way I find absolutely appalling and abhorrent. Filling their young minds with nonsense and denying them the chance to discover the truth is a form of abuse. 

I have real issue with the indoctrination of the young by religions of all stripes. But it seems all the more repugnant when it takes the form of anti-science, anti-reason, nonsense. These children will grow up and enter society with a warped and inaccurate knowledge of how the world works. This will surely hurt their prospects for higher learning and hold back their understanding of just how truly amazing things really are. 

Note to Mr Ham: I notice you're using a microphone. And a Projector. And you're in a Building. Probably in a modern city. No doubt you're wearing manufactured clothing. And you probably arrived at your brainwashing event in a car, train or bus. 

All of these things would not be possible without the science that you are so eager to deny (Science in general, not specifically evolution of course). Science works! The evidence is all around us in our lives. Evolution is a fact. The earth is older then 6000 years. Much Much older! Your holy book is an interesting piece of historical literature. It is not literal truth. 

O and also. 

You suck.

The above is not an argument in favor of my position. Merely something I felt like saying. Full and complete demolitions of the ridiculous Creationist/Intelligent Design ideas have been done to death by many, many people much smarter and more well informed than I. They can be found all over the interweb.

I really, really, really hate the indoctrination of the young and impressionable by the idiotic and the  foolish. Teach children to think critically and to reason for themselves. Then let them loose with the evidence and see what conclusions they reach. 

I suspect that if this were done right. Many more people in our society would have a more accurate and informed view of the world.    

      

Andrew Wakefield, Shill, Fraud and Just Plain Wrong

So that which we have known or suspected for a while now has finally been laid out in exquisite and mind blowing detail with 3 articles in the British Medical Journal. The articles by Brian deer completely expose Wakefield as a ruthless conman that perpetrated a conscious, and incredibly harmful, fraud on the world in order to enrich himself. 

Article one tells the story of Wakefield's study. Not only was this study woefully undersized for it's purpose. Containing just 12 subjects. Not only was it a breach of the ethical and legal responsibilities one has when conducting such research. As it now turns out it was also complete and utter bullshit. Crap. Worthless. Wakefield falsified the data and just plain lied in order to get the result he wanted. But why?

Money! Article two tells about how Wakefield planned to make tens of millions of dollars from the ideas supported in his fraudulent study. 

Money making scheme number one. Wakefield was paid a substantial amount of money (more than 435,000 pounds in fact) from lawyers representing some anti vaccine groups. These were trying to sue vaccine manufactures for allegedly giving their children Autism. 

Money making scheme number two. Wakefield had a patent pending on a single dose measles vaccine. Since his study alleged that it was the triple dose Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine that was the cause of the problems. He stood to make millions from the licencing and use of his single dose vaccine. 

Money making scheme number three. Wakefield created a kit that was designed to detect the symptoms of the new syndrome he had invented. Sales of this product were expected to net Wakefield another few tens of millions. 

Article three is the final installment and tells of the fallout from all these revelations coming to light. The accusations. The denials. And the complete down fall of Wakefield in respected medical circles.  

There should be no doubt. This man shares a great amount of responsibility for the creation of the modern anti-vaccination movement. There is real blood on his hands. Children have suffered and died because of his selfish fraud.

The terrible (or delicious) irony in all this is that Dr Andrew Wakefield, the trumpeted hero and darling of the anti-vaccination movement, is the very thing they purport to despise. Whenever a Doctor, scientist or skeptic speaks out in defense of vaccines. The anti-vaxers accuse them of being on the pay roll of "big pharma". They accuse us of profiteering. Of defending the status quo because it is making us all rich. While the reality is that we are just following the science and trying to improve the health of children and the community. Wakefield was doing exactly what they accuse us of! He took money to falsify the science in order to make himself rich. He put the lives of children at risk for his own benefit. He accepted money in the form of travel, accommodation and speakers fees form pharmaceutical companies. Wakefield was a lying, cheating big pharma shill! Amazing.

The response from the anti-vax community has been typical rationalizing and conspiracy mongering. They allege that Brian Deer is a "big pharma" assassin. Brought in to discredit Wakefield and the science behind the vaccine autism link. Brian Deer is an award winning investigative journalist that, among other things, was  heavily involved in exposing the vioxx scandal. In the pocket of "big pharma"? Please. Try something else for a change a. As for the science behind the vaccine Autism link. There isn't any. None at all. All the science we have says there is no link between vaccination and autism. A great summary of the evidence can be found on Science Based Medicine here.       

Wakefield still stands by his study and the findings. I think he does so now because his mind has become so distorted over time that he could never bring himself to accept and admit the truth. Perhaps he has even managed to convince himself that his fraud is true. We know that he knew of his fraud at the time because he was offered the chance to repeat his study in a controlled and sanctioned environment with 150 children. He did not take this offer up because he knew that he would not be able to falsify such a large and heavily scrutinized study. As it would surely have been. And that such a study would indeed prove all his ideas and earlier findings to be wrong.

We must always be on the lookout for more Wakefields. The good thing about science is that it is self correcting. Bad science and fraud are always weeded out in the fullness of time. The bad news is that the effects of these things can linger on long after the science has thrown them out. And people can be, and are, adversely affected. In the worst cases, such as this one, children can die.  

  

Does not follow Rodger

One of the mindless foot soldiers of CAM has put forward another attempt to justify his dangerous quackery by attacking "BIG PHARMA" (oooooooo). I'm talking about the Rodger. The jackass who promotes MMS in NZ. We remember MMS right. From here and here.

Well I got an email (I'm on his mailing list, Yay!) from Rodger attacking "big pharma" for apparently suppressing the miraculous benefits of vitamin C mega dosing. It's a short email. So here it is.    

Dear MMS customers,

The lengths that Big Pharma will go to:

Remember the recent stir caused when intravenous vitamin C cured a man from the King Country here in NZ.

Such cures (by an unpatientable natural product), are not good for Big Pharma business. Best that Big Pharma pull a     few strings and just have intravenous vitamin C outlawed....

http://www.naturalnews.com/030936_vitamin_C_FDA.html

Kind regards,

Roger

I'm not going to go to lengths explaining why this is stupid. Or expand on why natural news is possibly the single biggest repository of crap on the whole of the interweb. Though do check it out if you like. It's funny stuff. 

I'm just going to talk about why the "Big Phrama" bad so buy Rodger's stuff, argument is moronic.


This one is a favorite of the CAM crowd. They point to the Pharmaceutical industry and say look at how much money they are making. They must be evil and all their products must be equally evil. But our products and methods aren't making us rich. Therefore our stuff must work.


The problem with this line of reasoning is that it says absolutely nothing about the products and methods the CAM practitioners and promoters are pushing. An equivalent argument could go like this. 


Look at all those big breakfast cereal companies making lots of money from selling their cereal. The cereal must be bad for you. What about this mold I found under the floor. It's all natural, unprocessed and I paid nothing for it. It must be way better for us than the commercial cereals. 


A bit of an over exaggeration perhaps, but not by much. This is an argument style where you attempt to make your own side stronger by promoting a negative attribute of the other side. It says nothing about the actual strength of your position and does not address any of the actual issues that may be under debate.


Roger claims that "Big Pharma" is ruthlessly suppressing anything that they are unable to profit from. Even when it is a proven cure for a known ailment. Therefore, the unstated premise, you should consume the bleach he is selling. 


Sorry. But I din't buy it.                 

1st of 2011

For my first entry of 2011 I'm gonna do something a little different. Here are some awesome pictures I took while flying in the Tararua Ranges yesterday morning.

Sweet yeah?

So what's going on here?
Well the tops of the clouds you can see on the other side of the ridge are at about 4,000 feet. The clouded in side is to the east and the clear side is west. Whats happening is the moist air forming the clouds is blowing ever so slowly over the ridges and falling down the sides. Once that happens it disappears. Why?
Well it all has to do with cloud formation. Very briefly. Clouds are formed when the air becomes saturated with water vapor. This means that the air cannot hold any more water in it than it has already. The level at which the air saturates is dependent on the moisture content and is given as a temperature. This saturation temperature is known as the dew point. The warmer the air the more water it can hold. So if air is at the same temperature as it's dew point cools down, it will no longer be able to hold the water vapor it contains.
And thats when clouds form.    

So back to the question. Why do the clouds disappear when they flow over the ridge? The reason is two fold. 1st) the air containing the clouds is colder than the surrounding air. It's colder because the clouds reflect the suns energy and also because saturated air has a higher specific heat capacity than dry air (This means that it takes more energy to heat it up by the same amount). Because the clouds are colder they are more dense than the surrounding air and so they sink.
2nd) As they sink they warm up. This happens because the sinking air increases in pressure and when the pressure of a gas increases, it's temperature also increases. As they warm up, the temperature of the air pases it's due point and the clouds evaporate.

Neat yes?