Great read! I used to start my middle and high school lessons with optical illusions, sound ones (those songs played backwards with "matching" lyrics, and more. In short, on day 1 the argument was your senses and your intuitions can easily lead you astray. Science, while totally imperfect, and in many ways reflecting social concerns, mores, prejudices, is at least a systematic attempt to discipline our senses -- to try and avoid misconstruing reality and to try avoid believing in illusions. It was a student favorite.
Then we would march on with science class... with occasional tangents on how we do think we know...
Makes me remember of a super interesting true crime doc I watched years ago on Netflix about the weight of eye witnessing in a murder investigation and how some (unintentionally) wrong eyewitness testimony led to wrongful convictions (and a terrible life behind the bars). One case in particular stroke me of a rape victim. After the assault, the woman was strong enough to look at her assailant when he left the room and precisely notice his heigh when he passed the door frame. Based on this (and on other elements) a man was arrested and convicted. Claiming his innocence for years, but the victim was adamant (notably because the man matched the heigh she remembered).
Decades later, the right assailant (much taller) is found thanks to DNA and the poor man who was sent to jail released free. In this documentary we follow the journey of the victim who explains that she was 100% sure of her memories and the shock when she realised that all these years she was wrong (notably about the heigh of the assailant) and that, unwillingly, she contributes to send an innocent in jail. She later became friend with the innocent man and if I remember correctly, they decided to "tour" together to talk about their story.
The documentary also features memory experts and scientists explaining that memory is not like a movie carved in stone we can play, pause, fast forward etc. indefinitely.
It's more a moving piece of fabric with holes we fill up according to the time and circumstances. A fascinating topic.
(If I find the title of the documentary, I’ll let you know. No bad joke here, but I can’t remember it right now 😊).
Great read! I used to start my middle and high school lessons with optical illusions, sound ones (those songs played backwards with "matching" lyrics, and more. In short, on day 1 the argument was your senses and your intuitions can easily lead you astray. Science, while totally imperfect, and in many ways reflecting social concerns, mores, prejudices, is at least a systematic attempt to discipline our senses -- to try and avoid misconstruing reality and to try avoid believing in illusions. It was a student favorite.
Then we would march on with science class... with occasional tangents on how we do think we know...
Marvellous. Thanks Jason.
Not at all. Thank you!
Great article thank you !
Makes me remember of a super interesting true crime doc I watched years ago on Netflix about the weight of eye witnessing in a murder investigation and how some (unintentionally) wrong eyewitness testimony led to wrongful convictions (and a terrible life behind the bars). One case in particular stroke me of a rape victim. After the assault, the woman was strong enough to look at her assailant when he left the room and precisely notice his heigh when he passed the door frame. Based on this (and on other elements) a man was arrested and convicted. Claiming his innocence for years, but the victim was adamant (notably because the man matched the heigh she remembered).
Decades later, the right assailant (much taller) is found thanks to DNA and the poor man who was sent to jail released free. In this documentary we follow the journey of the victim who explains that she was 100% sure of her memories and the shock when she realised that all these years she was wrong (notably about the heigh of the assailant) and that, unwillingly, she contributes to send an innocent in jail. She later became friend with the innocent man and if I remember correctly, they decided to "tour" together to talk about their story.
The documentary also features memory experts and scientists explaining that memory is not like a movie carved in stone we can play, pause, fast forward etc. indefinitely.
It's more a moving piece of fabric with holes we fill up according to the time and circumstances. A fascinating topic.
(If I find the title of the documentary, I’ll let you know. No bad joke here, but I can’t remember it right now 😊).