Can Jurors Recognize Missing Control Groups,Confounds, and Experimenter Bias in Psychological Science?

This study examined the ability of jury-eligible community members (N = 248) to detect internal validity threats in psychological science presented during a trial. Participants read a case summary in which an expert testified about a study that varied in internal validity (valid, missing control group, confound, and experimenter bias) and ecological validity (high, low). Ratings of expert evidence quality and expert credibility were higher for the valid versus missing control group versions only. Internal validity did not influence verdict or ratings of plaintiff credibility and no differences emerged as a function of ecological validity. Expert evidence quality, expert credibility, and plaintiff credibility were positively correlated with verdict. Implications for the scientific reasoning literature and for trials containing psychological science are discussed.     

Arguing a fortiori

Courts and lawyers often argue a fortiori . Sometimes they actually use the Latin phrase to indicate that their conclusions do not just follow, but ‘follow a fortiori ’ from certain premises. These are taken to be inferences of a distinct and important kind. But how exactly are they distinct, and why are they important? Despite their popularity, a fortiori arguments are not well understood and have not drawn much attention from legal theorists. This paper pursues two goals. The first is to bring out the form of a fortiori arguments, articulating those assumptions that, though typically left unstated, are necessary elements of arguments of this kind. The second goal is to say something about the point of such arguments, and to characterise the sort of context in which an arguer will have reason to deploy an a fortiori rather than an inference of a different type.     

论法律原则在司法审判中的适用--兼从法律推理的逻辑形式角度

在司法审判过程中 ,明文规定在法律文本中的法律原则在个案审判中具有可诉性。第一 ,法律文本中的法律原则规定对整个法律体系具有的统帅作用也应该体现在个案审判时对具体规则适用的检验上。第二 ,法律原则能更好体现法律的精神从而弥补具体条款的不足。第三 ,明文规定在法律文本中的法律原则不是法律文本中多余的内容 ,仅规定在条文上而不适用在案件中无异于使法律原则的规定成为虚设。第四 ,在个案中 ,法律原则具体化为特定的法律规范后 ,具有明确的内容 ,操作性问题并不成为其适用的阻碍     

论笔迹鉴定差异点的评断

书写习惯的自身同一是包含了差异的同一,而不同人书写习惯的差异则是包含了共性的非本质差异,因而在通过未知与已知笔迹比较检验来实现书写习惯的同一认定时必须科学评断差异的性质,否则同一认定鉴定意见缺乏科学可靠性。在对笔迹鉴定意见的质证中,对差异点的认识和性质的判断成为争议的焦点,而且成为评价鉴定活动是否严谨和科学,以及鉴定意见是否可以采信的主要依据之一。而今面对证据科学对笔迹鉴定意见的挑战,除严格笔迹鉴定的条件外,必须从理论上完善对笔迹鉴定差异点的评断方法,明确评断的规则,从而保证鉴定意见的科学可靠性。     

新型模糊综合评价法在油库安全评价中的应用

油库是储存油料的基地,油料因易燃、易爆、易挥发等特点具有危险性。客观、正确的评价油库安全的首要任务是精确地确定影响油库安全的各个因素（如员工、设备、环境和管理）的权重。本文中探讨了模糊综合评价法的重要性并提出了一种权重矩阵计算新方法。该模糊综合评价法的实例研究结果表明：员工的身体状况和业务素质是影响油库安全的主要因素,因此,油库管理必须以人为本,同时加强员工业务技能培训,从而确保油库安全。该评价方法更容易操作,使评价结果更客观准确。     

Unpacking public justification

ABSTRACT

This brief response to Greenfeld’s caveat submits that public justification is not omnipresent, but can extend, and has extended, beyond the modern, liberal West. Subscribing to a thin, rather than thick, conceptualization of public justification, we chart the contested contours of public justification, and urge scholars of this emergent field to clarify their own take before advancing pertinent theories and case studies. We briefly expound the nature and historical roots of both ‘justification’ and ‘the public’, suggesting that their amalgam into public justification transcends the modern, liberal West.     

The Motivated Processing of Political Arguments

We report the results of an experiment designed to replicate and extend recent findings on motivated political reasoning. In particular, we are interested in disconfirmation biases—the tendency to counter-argue or discount information with which one disagrees—in the processing of political arguments on policy issues. Our experiment examines 8 issues, including some of local relevance and some of national relevance, and manipulates the presentation format of the policy arguments. We find strong support for our basic disconfirmation hypothesis: people seem unable to ignore their prior beliefs when processing arguments or evidence. We also find that this bias is moderated by political sophistication and strength of prior attitude. We do not find, however, that argument type matters, suggesting that motivated biases are quite robust to changes in argument format. Finally, we find strong support for the polarization of attitudes as a consequence of biased processing.

Informational Cues,Partisan-Motivated Reasoning,and the Manipulation of Conspiracy Beliefs

In this article, we examine the relationship between partisan-motivated reasoning and uncertainty-inducing official information cues with respect to conspiracy beliefs. We find that while partisanship matters when it comes to conspiracy beliefs, the uncertainty-inducing and countervailing nature of official cues can further inflame conspiracy beliefs when it is not in the political interest of individuals to subscribe to a given conspiracy theory. Contrary to expectations, we find that cueing Democratic self-identifiers with different types of official responses to conspiracy theories that implicate Republicans has no effect. However, such informational cues do significantly increase conspiracy beliefs among Republicans, even when a Republican is implicated in the conspiracy theory. Although partisan-motivated reasoning has a baseline effect on conspiracy beliefs, the extent to which these beliefs can further be manipulated appears asymmetric across party lines. Simply put, Republicans appear to be more susceptible to conspiratorial cues than Democrats.     

类比推理及其在刑侦中的运用

类比推理是一种从特殊到特殊的推理,其结论虽是或然的,但类比对象的广泛性及本身强烈的探索功能使得它在刑侦破案中经常采用,特别在侦查实验中更具重大的使用价值。     

刑事个案犯罪信息研判中的直言变形推理

刑事个案犯罪信息研判是指侦查人员在刑事个案侦查中,对某一刑事个案的现有犯罪信息进行分析研究,得出关于犯罪信息的新判断的思维过程,它以推理为主要信息处理方式。直言变形推理是刑事个案犯罪信息研判中一种较简单的推理,它包括直言换质推理、直言换位推理以及二者的综合运用。三者具有各自的优点和缺点,因此,在刑事个案犯罪信息研判中运用直言变形推理时需要遵守一些合理性原则。