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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

Suppose somebody's alibi is "I was driving between these two cities at the time, and then I spent the night working."

But their car-odometer didn't change, and their home-electricity usage dropped to zero that day.

Both of those observations are surely "evidence". Similarly, a digital signal still carries information, even though the zeroes are an "absence" of voltage.

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Thats a lot different from "you weren't talking to someone, so you must have been doing X" Whereas in real life X could = anything.

The logic isn't even close:

Odometers increment on driven cars. The odometer did not increment. The car was driven. Unsatisfied.

People having sex are together. People who are together don't text each other. During a certain hour a person didn't text 68 contacts. At this certain hour, this certain person had sex with 68 people. Satisfiable.

It's more like: these two numbers are in constant contact all other hours of the day. At this hour midday, when others, including one of the relevant parties, say those two numbers are together, there is no correspondence. Later, the correspondence picks up as before.

You seem to be aware, at least on a subconscious level, of the larger point - as you've demonstrated by including additional evidence. The larger point being that the absence of phone records can, at best, disconfirm. There are far too many alternative explanations for it to be used alone or as confirmation.

Remember, in court we're not talking about logical proof (eliminating every alternative but the desired conclusion), but statistical proof (eliminating alternative conclusions with 51% or 95% certainty). Given an assumed or established statistical model of the probability of related events (e.g. knowing that a secretary at a business makes a log entry 99.9% of the time when she sends out a mailing), a non-happening (say the absence of a log entry) can easily establish a conclusion to the desired level of certainty.

Darn, I already replied to this point moments ago. There is a difference in the application of this logic in the court room where it can be challenged, and the juror room where it cannot - right?

I see your point of high probability they might have been together. But I don't see evidence for "sexual misconduct" during the time they were together. They could have just talked.

Anyway, the whole charge is disgusting. Leave them alone dammit.

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