Anonymous user
Strawman Has a Point: Difference between revisions
→Live-Action TV
Line 242:
* Any time anyone doubts the legitimacy of offender profiling in ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', particularly when it's the only evidence for an arrest ([[Third-Act Stupidity]] ensures the unsub always greets the arresting officers with enough evidence for a conviction; things rarely go well when they don't). Profiling IRL has never been proved to be effective and tests show "experts" have no more success with it than laymen.
** In the episode Tabula Rosa there is an especially egregious example where Hotchner is testifying at a criminal trial. When the defense lawyer claims that all the FBI's profilers are doing is simply [http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Cold_Reading cold reading], Hotchner responds by cold reading the defense lawyer. This of course defeats this lawyer despite actually proving his point. Even though Hotchner was correct in his predictions, this doesn't prove anything of value. If that was a real defense lawyer that had been inteligent, he should have called a fake psychic to do the exact same thing as a rebuttal witness. Of course at the end of the episode, as always, they end up proving themselves correct with other evidence.
*** Of course, if 'cold reading' can consistently produce accurate results, then it... can consistently produce accurate results, which is the only thing an expert witness' testimony ''needs'' to do. The reason what carnival psychics do is wrong is because they are making a false claim about ''how'' they do it, while the FBI agents obviously aren't.
* ''[[Lois and Clark]]'': When [[Magnificent Bastard|Tempus]] mind-controls the entire city into turning against Supes, a lot of what happens seems like [[Reality Ensues]]. For example, he catches a couple of bank robbers and drops them off at the feet of an unassuming cop, who turns around and lets them go, insisting that it's Superman's word against their's that they were robbing a bank (although at the very least the cop would have held them on suspicion until they sorted the whole matter out). Later, a bunch of bureaucrats demand to see his license to fly as well as asking questions involving taxes. Technically, Superman pays taxes as Clark Kent, but the public at large isn't supposed to know he has a [[Secret Identity]], making it more a question of why some non-mind controlled [[Jerkass]] bureaucrat hasn't at least asked this question of the IRS.
* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'':
| |||