Where Science, Life, and Law Meet.
I. Introduction – Uncertainty and Probabilistic Thinking
The other day I had to take the dog to the groomer, but I wanted to walk him first as a courtesy to him and the groomer. He’s getting up there in years – ~12-13, we’re not certain because he’s a rescue. We also have three cats, all of whom are strictly of the indoor variety. Anyway, the dog and I left via the garage and, as we were coming back, I noticed to my horror that two of our three cats were “out” – meaning, I must not have closed the door from the house to the garage all the way and the wind had opened it – giving the cats a free exit via the garage door. I let go of the dog’s leash to prevent the two cats I could see from escaping, but now I faced an information dilemma: where was the third cat?? Had he already gotten out? He is unquestionably the youngest, fastest, and most likely to bolt. The other two had been suspiciously eyeing the open garage door’s invitation to freedom when I walked back up, so I couldn’t be sure where Cat #3 was. My quandary: what to do when faced with (1) two attempting-to-escape cats, (2) an old, deaf dog wandering off because I had dropped his leash to get the first two cats back in, (3) uncertain information about whether third cat was outside already or not, and (4) just a few minutes to get the dog into my truck and drive him over to his grooming appointment? I’ll come back to what I did later, but I want to emphasize that the actions I took were a direct result of something we do all the time but don’t consciously think about: we engage in plausible reasoning.
By plausible reasoning, I am referring to the concept articulated by the late, great Hungarian-American mathematician and teacher George Polya (1887-1985) and its application in Anglo-American law – and by logical extension, our everyday lives. E.T. Jaynes, in his posthumously published magnum opus, “Probability Theory: The Logic of Science” refers to this process of plausible reasoning as “the optimal processing of incomplete information.”
By ‘inference’ we mean simply: deductive reasoning whenever enough information is at hand to permit it; inductive or plausible reasoning when – as is almost invariably the case in real problems – the necessary information is not available. But if a problem can be solved by deductive reasoning, probability theory is not needed for it; thus, our topic is the optimal processing of incomplete information.
E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science, p. xix, fn 1
This kind of reasoning is at the heart of Artificial Intelligence, of getting better image resolution from old radio-telescope data, and computers reading patient’s CT scans with better accuracy than doctors with decades of experience. I’m going to try to show you how you naturally think on a daily basis and, in so doing, make visible and (hopefully) understandable, a process that is largely hidden from us, indeed even obscured and caused to malfunction by the current state of formal education. (I’ll show how that happened and continues to happen, as well).
The purpose of this and the following pieces in this series is to put into writing what began as an outline for a legal course on plausible reasoning. By the end of this series, I hope to demonstrate conclusively to a sufficiently curious lay person (a) the myriad flaws in the current Supreme Court framework for the admission of scientific evidence; (b) offer an alternate, more coherent definition for science, while explaining and defending its intellectual pedigree; finally, and most importantly, (c) I hope to shine light upon something that is baked into the DNA of our legal systems, forgotten knowledge that is at the heart of how we make judgments about the world and each other in day-to-day life, and in courts across the country.
I will by the end of this series explain what the mythological “reasonable person” standard in the law really means, what purposes the various “burdens of proof” in the civil and criminal system serve, and why the rules of evidence include some of the particular rules that they do. Although this course is biased toward lawyers or legal professionals, it will cover a wide range of disciplines including: too little mathematics for a mathematician, but too much for lawyers, and the same for statistics, philosophy, and especially the academic philosophy of science. I’ll also cover evidence, civil and criminal procedure, and some relevant intellectual history in all of the above fields. All will be essential for understanding some very real modern problems plaguing not just the social sciences, but even the most rigorous of the sciences, including physics and medicine – and the law as a consequence.
II. Ideas Have Consequences
There has been a multi-century long intellectual battle in the philosophy of science that culminated in a kind of psychotic break after Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” was published and then its predictions validated by the eclipse of 1919.1 We’ll discuss this intellectual history and the works of a number of distinguished scientists, philosophers, physicists, mathematicians and worthies. Not all of them were known to each other, but for my purposes the pantheon that matters is all of an intellectual pedigree in their philosophy of science: they share fundamental presumptions about how our Universe works and how we can make discoveries about it with any sense of confidence at all. Some critical definitions, more than mere convention – like the difference between what it means to “know” or to “believe” a thing – are themselves tied to important philosophical starting points. Get these wrong and you’re doomed for a lifetime of confident ignorance.
This phrase, “The Most Important Thing Taught Nowhere”™ is a quote from my dear friend and mentor, Greg Glassman, founder of CrossFit, Inc. I note unabashedly that most of what follows in these pieces is based upon hundreds of discussions we’ve had on this subject, readings he recommended, and a series of lectures he gave for the Broken Science Initiative (www.bsi.org), as well as my own experiences with science as a helicopter post-maintenance functional check pilot, a trial lawyer, spook, and human being circa late-20th and early-21st century.
Plausible reasoning encompasses inductive reasoning, distinct from its better known, more seductive younger sibling, deductive reasoning. We will spend considerable time with these two forms of reasoning, but only qualitatively, for the most part – although as noted above, there will be some math. My aim is to provide a deeper understanding of the gray area where qualitative and quantitative reasoning meet.
I have no doubt that Greg would agree that much of our joint interest in the subject owes credit to his father, “the Old Man,” Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD, a two-time chief scientist at Hughes Aircraft beginning in the 1960s and head of Internal Research and Development for some of that same period.2 Yes, as some readers may know and others not, Greg (and his sister Kathy) were raised under the tutelage of an old-school rocket scientist. CrossFit’s entire intellectual corpus is in fact a result of the rigorous application of Newtonian mechanics to the human body. As it turns out, a stunning level of fitness results from attempting to optimize power output across a broad range of modalities. When I was GC of CrossFit, Inc., I was fortunate enough to have worked on several cases and projects with Dr. Glassman in his role as Chief Science Officer.3
III. Life is One Long String of Conditional Probabilities; We all have to Deal With It.
So now let me finish up where I started: back in my garage with the dog wandering away dragging his leash, me chasing two cats, and wondering how I will explain to my wife that I’ve (possibly) lost our third cat. I managed to herd the two skittish cats, corral our deaf dog into my truck, and find missing Cat #3, but the way I did it was a direct result of my plausible reasoning about the situation: prioritizing my activities by urgency and most “bang for the buck” per unit of time spent. i.e. Deal with the most urgent issue first (get the two cats back inside) while the dog wanders off – yelling at him no help here because he’s deaf as a post, but he’s not too fast. The moments I spend going to get the dog give me a chance to do a quick “search” – I look at the curtilage of our home for any sign of the cat while I call his name – he at least can hear and is marginally responsive. After I get the dog into my truck, rather than look outside more, it dawns on me that I might be able to more quickly determine if the cat is in the house than out of it and use the little time I have more profitably by either confirming or disconfirming his presence in the house. I bolt inside and do two things: first, I start calling Cat #3 while I go into the pantry and grab a can of the cat food – the sound of it opening almost always brings Cat #3 running – so I pop the lid off the tin, then wait expectantly a few seconds. Nothing. Shit.
Next, I grab Cat #3’s favorite toy, one of those telescoping sticks with a little bell and a feather on the end, and I start shaking it as I walk through the house – a few seconds later as I’m headed down the hallway toward the stairs – out of my wife’s office comes Cat #3 to attack: Yahtzee!! I’ve eliminated the need to even search outside – and with four minutes left to get the dog to the groomer. Conditional probability and plausible reasoning in action!
Next time we’ll get started in earnest… You’ve been warned.
- For more, Brittanica gives a short sketch of the events. ↩︎
- Dr. Glassman wrote a book about his experiences with the California public education system’s Science Framework for teaching high school science, “Evolution in Science.” His experience and critique lay out a philosophy of science that informs much of what is written here, with any errors and shortcomings entirely my own. “Doc Rocket” was certainly not confused about science. ↩︎
- Our conversations revealed a strange synchronicity: he and I had also in our prior lives worked together on a SideARM missile test shoot in 29 Palms in August 1994. Dr. Glassman had also been a Navy helicopter pilot before getting his PhD at UCLA and going to work for Hughes in radar. The SideARM – Anti-Radiation Missile – had been one of Doc Rocket’s projects for Hughes. ↩︎
Interesting and thought provoking essay. The closest thing to probabilistic thinking I regularly engage in is searching for state-listed Rare and Endangered Plants and their associates. From long experience I have found that if one starts to run into uncommon (but not protected) species typically found with a rarity, keep your eyes open and you may find what you are seeking.
O Great Saruman,
I would submit that you engage in probabilistic thinking – what Polya calls “plausible reasoning” – every day, all of the time, but most of it you don’t think of in those terms. There are very few truly “universal” truths – most truths are, at best, “local” truths, contingent on a bunch of stuff that isn’t stated, but very much running in the background. The rest is mostly contingent propositions subject to revision.
I’m sure you’re right, but most of the time when I (or anyone) engages in it you don’t really think about it, thanks to prior experience. You just DO it. I used the botany example because it involves conscious choices that lead to heightened awareness. As in, that’s a rose pink! That’s a fringed gentian! Where’s the Mead’s sedge (a PA listed plant)? It should be here!
This is an example of Tobler’s First Law of Geography.
I met his oldest kid, Toblerone.
I’ll see myself out.
No one told me there’d be math.
There’ll be (some) math.
The Glibertariat knows that the only thing that matters is being number First.
Well-played.
Meh, before CrossFit there was Herbetisme:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_H%C3%A9bert#3_main_components_for_training
“Be strong to be useful”
I like swimming in the spring. There’s no chlorine to make my eyes hurt. I plan on swimming as much as possible.
Sherlock Holmes said that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, however unlikely, must be the truth.
Unless there was a possibility you haven’t thought of.
QUIET, YOU!
My wife complained that the toaster oven was making a noise (and it was). She said it had been doing it for several days. I went to the oven, took a metal dish off the top and the noise stopped. She asked me how I knew that was the cause of the vibration?
Do the easy stuff first. Now she thinks I’m a genius and I’m not going to disillusion her.
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Sherlock Homes was so dumb he had to wear a hat that was impossible to put on backwards.
Woah, this is high-brow. Me think and read good.
“..too little mathematics for a mathematician, but too much for lawyers..and the same for statistics, philosophy, and especially the academic philosophy of science. ” Ah! That ‘splains it. I am neither of those things. My Venn diagram of skills overlap with those in that they are also circles.
Will delve further. This piece is a great contrast to my funsy midday one. Your pets are remarkably cute.
More gator fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixeBMqlbOIU
I suspect the gator had been stuffed with food prior to the video shoot. No bleeping way I would have gotten that close to that beast (especially in the water), even if I had just watched it down a whole deer.
The string is sucking right now. Burned my hand on Sunday, took the dog for the vet for inflammation, and went back today for meds because unrelatedly, doggo appears to have developed kennel cough overnight. She got the good cough syrup tonight.
*took dog to vet yesterday
Treat yourself and have some of that cough syrup.
I’ll go with the made in Kentucky syrup
I am really looking forward to this series, Ozzy.
Lord know the Bruins give us nothing to look forward to… *grumble*
This series will assuredly be an interesting dive for me. My 11yo nephew has taken to math, and his abilities surpass mine, certainly with regard to ease of mental calculation.
Keep ’em comin’ and this reader will likely be able to better demonstrate his lack of mathematical knowledge as he follows along. I’m numerate in the way that many high schoolers are deemed ‘literate.’ (I’m not quite *that* bad, but not too far off. Freshman year at IU, I barely passed finite math and managed to get an 81 in 300-level statistics. Much studying and prep was required, but I *liked* that math because I could see it’s everyday applications.
Bright middle schoolers could certainly best my numerical abilities. Well. I can do *many* things they can’t. So there. *kicks pebble*
Youngest nephew just naturally takes to it. I’m envious in my own way, but damn good on him. It just ‘suits’ him. He likes it like I like words.
Cool.
As much as I like snarking at the Brutals and being not serious at all, this gives me the tingles.
Thanks, Ozy.
RIP Val Kilmer. 😩
Damn, 65. Too soon.
I didn’t realize “Top Secret” was his debut. That started a hell of a run. Boo to the NYT obituary writer for not mentioning ‘Real Genius’.
Damn. I loved Top Secret as a kid. And pretty much all of his movies.
RIP.
Saw Top Secret in the theater in Charlotte with my family, aunt, uncle, and cousins. I was 16. I didn’t quite know what to make of him because he was HAWT, but kinda, I dunno, plastic. Like a Ken doll.
Soooooooooo much better in Real Genius.
I haven’t noticed him much but I did just see Real Genius again so that would be the most noticeable for me… RIP
That’s unfortunate. I loved his Doc Holiday portrayal.
And whatever his character’s name was in Heat.
That’s definitely an ‘icon of MY generation’ losses. Hits a bit harder. So many roles I enjoyed.
I loved what Top Gun: Maverick did as a send-off/tribute. It didn’t try to pretend he wasn’t ill but found a way to include him and make the character still important in the story.
I’m usually indifferent to celebrities’ deaths beyond a sad “Aw,” but yes, this one hits hard.
☹️
https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-peanut-butter-and-jelly-day-april-2
For all you people still eating children foods.
🙄🥜🍞🍇
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB7R0ZY9w94
🎶🎶
https://nypost.com/2025/04/01/us-news/susan-crawford-elected-to-wisconsin-supreme-court-keeping-bench-in-liberal-hands/
I’m very disappointed with Wisconsin.
Read the room, Elon. And stay out.
RIP Val Kilmer. Morning all, we are 9 weeks post-op for the wife’s trapeziectomy. She is frustrated at the limitations and I am exhausted (driving Miss Daisy, tearing down the old pool and prepping the site for the replacement).
I have also set up the analog hifi system until I can build a tube preamp and a tube power amp. Setting up an amp, speakers, and WiiM Ultra network streamer for porch/pool/grilling.
Good morning, DTF and Sean! DTF, I hope your wife continues to recover from her surgery and comes out of it much improved. Hang in there, both of you!
It is killing her to not be in the clean room. Of course, getting her hand in a glove and using the pipette are required, hence her (and my 😜) frustration…
Why are you leaving her in a dirty room? She just had surgery!
😜
TIL what a trapeziectomy is.
My left thumb could use that.
As a rule of thumb any procedure described as an -ectomy is the removal of something from the body.
eg “The guillotine proforms rapid cranioectomies”
The hard part is finding out what got cut.
Morning, Glibs.
Good morning, U! How are you today?
Trying to figure out how I slept through my alarm and woke up at 6:10. I barely made it to my cube at an time that was not officially late, but left me with no buffer. (The later I get out the door, the more traffic there is, so the commute can go from 15/20 minutes all the way up to ‘Ugh’)
It’s not that hard to figure out. You slept too little for a long time and now it’s finally catching up with you.
Except that’s not true, Ted.
suh’ fam
whats goody
Good morning, homey! Two shoes are goody.
Goooooooooooooooooooooood Moooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrnnnning GT, Donny, Sean and UCS,
So far the Blizzard of ’25 has been happily absent. Still though, the forecasters haven’t given up, their reputation is on the line. Like a preacher in Las Vegas….
…and Tres…A good Morning to you…..
…a guy so old, he went into an antique store and they wouldn’t let him leave!
To be fair, it was about the shoplifting.
Are you bringing it back to the joke from yesterday ?
(the joke that fell flat)
Why I hate to visit friends in the care center. Don’t want any confusion with the attendants.
This is what we get for voting all those climate non-believers into office – A winter without a Blizzard!
Acquisition and unionization hasn’t helped.
Dammit, Ozy, I was busy last night and missed this. And it’s too early in the morning for me to think this hard. I’ll have to come back to it.