Great example of confirmation bias in the news right now with the arrest in the Jon Bene Ramesey murder. The police initially became suspicious of the Father when he found the body. The initial police report is full of “telling” details, like how the Father got more and more nervous the longer it took to find her, that he seemed to be unable to stand the tension as the police were unable to turn up any sign of his daughter. That he finally struck off on his own and seemed to go directly to where the body was. And then he deliberately messes up the crime scene in bringing his daughter’s body up stairs and pretending to try and revive her.
Of course all of these details are also consistent with a Father not knowing where his daughter is. The longer it takes to find her the more worried he gets. He gets an idea of where she might be. He goes straight there because it is his house, not a particularly large house, and he knows that all the other places have been checked. He messes up the crime scene because he is inexperienced at finding his daughter murdered and doesn’t really know how to investigate a murder—something which might equally be said of the Denver police.
As is often the case the theory that gets first refusal on the facts happens to flatter the vanity of the theorizer (confirm their identity, as we are supposed to say in academia) or otherwise somehow serve his interests. The reason that the daughter was not found by the police while the Father went straight to her had nothing to do with the incompetence of the police if the Father is the murderer.
This is why it is important to have a lot of theories that one can bring to bare on a question ready and deployable before hand.
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