This is an excellent example of what I was talking about earlier. We have FBI field agents, men and women who are so overly patriotic that it clouds their rational judgement, men and women who are not trained to think rationally about data and who probably have only a high school understanding of statistics (if that), who are given access to massive amounts of data. They take this data and they match it against a theory that they've already developed, and they assume they have "cracked the case." They act in a constant state of paranoia, fueled by fear and powered by tools that act on data in ways that they can't possibly understand. And so they fill in some (likely poorly designed) form in some FBI web app, and some names get spit out. Then they look at whoever matches their "profile" which was likely developed using, again, a high school level of psychology. It's ridiculous and frightening.
>We have FBI field agents, men and women who are so overly patriotic that it clouds their rational judgement
It's not patriotism, maybe it is nationalism or more probably plain idiocy. When some innocent guy gets framed up (even when there were only good intentions by the framer-upper), it usually means that the real perpetrator goes free. It is completely irrational to support a system that gets it so wrong so often.
> We have FBI field agents, men and women who are so overly patriotic that it clouds their rational judgement, men and women who are not trained to think rationally about data and who probably have only a high school understanding of statistics (if that), who are given access to massive amounts of data.
Really though?
> The FBI’s Portland field office, however, used that fingerprint match to begin digging into Mayfield’s background. Certain details of the attorney’s life convinced the agents that they had their man. Mayfield had converted to Islam after meeting his wife, an Egyptian. He had represented one of the Portland Seven, a group of men who tried to travel to Afghanistan to fight for al Qaeda and the Taliban against U.S. and coalition forces in a child custody case. He also worshipped at the same mosque as the militants.
I can't help but think I would have fallen for the same conclusion.
> I can't help but think I would have fallen for the same conclusion.
That's because confirmation bias is a human and common thing. Scientists have various tools to avoid fooling themselves like FBI did and like you and many of us would do.
