I’m more trying to make sure people don’t come by and get the wrong idea about eyewitness testimony or courts in history.
I don’t think anyone’s claiming that eyewitness testimony is reliable, or that historical courts weren’t bad. But it’s important not to exaggerate how bad institutions were in the past - it makes it all too easy to dismiss the failures of those same present-day institutions by comparing them to how they bad they used to be.
Yeah but we still get it wrong with only eyewitness testimony. That cannot be enough anymore.
It hasn’t ever been enough, though, that’s the point. The premise of their intial claim is inherently flawed. Outside of shit like how the US court system treated/treats black people and other show trials like that, there has always been a requirement for a preponderance of evidence. It’s one of the cornerstones of common law, and the reason “hearsay” is a legal term of art.
You’re not wrong, eyewitness testimony is awful, but we’ve always known that to some extent. It’s why there’s all those other types of evidence we also have to use.