Saturday, August 25, 2018

Novelists and Rosenhan


Charles Dickens:

[The police] took up several obviously wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead of trying to extract idea from the circumstances.
Great Expectations
Arthur Conan Doyle

The trouble, however, with all police prosecutions is that, having once got what they imagine to be their man, they are not very open to any line of investigation which might lead to other conclusions. Everything that will not fit into the official theory is liable to be excluded.
The Case of Oscar Slater
Related:

Criminal justice and the Rosenhan Experiment

Rosenhan revisited: The persistence of error and the impotence of facts

Rosenhan redux

Revisiting the Hanssen case

Rosenhan revisited, again

They trusted the experts


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