Search

Using a flexible software system, this book teaches evidential and inferential issues used in drawing conclusions from masses of evidence.

A Probabilistic Analysis of the Sacco and Vanzetti Evidence is aBayesian analysis of the trial and post-trial evidence in the Saccoand Vanzetti case, based on subjectively determined probabilitiesand assumed relationships among evidential events. It applies theideas of charting evidence and probabilistic assessment to thiscase, which is perhaps the ranking cause celebre in all of Americanlegal history. Modern computation methods applied to inferencenetworks are used to show how the inferential force of evidence ina complicated case can be graded. The authors employ probabilisticassessment to obtain opinions about how influential each group ofevidential items is in reaching a conclusion about the defendants'innocence or guilt. A Probabilistic Analysis of the Sacco and Vanzetti Evidence holdsparticular interest for statisticians and probabilists in academiaand legal consulting, as well as for the legal community,historians, and behavioral scientists. It combines structural andprobabilistic ideas in the analysis of masses of evidence fromevery recognized logical species of evidence. Twenty-eight chartsshow the chains of reasoning in defense of the relevance ofevidentiary matters and a listing of trial witnesses who providedthe evidence. References include nearly 300 items drawn from thefields of probability theory, history, law, artificialintelligence, psychology, literature, and other areas.

Donated.

Examines the life of David, in an attempt to reconcile the contradictory actions of the biblical king.

Conducted from 1984 to 1996, these interviews first appeared in the books Chronicles of Dissent, Keeping the Rabble in Line, and Class Warfare, all published by the independent publisher Common Courage Press in Monroe, Maine. This omnibus collection includes a new introduction by David Barsamian, looking back on conversations and engagement with Chomsky’s ideas that now spans decades, as well as a classic essay by Alexander Cockburn on Chomsky that served as the introduction to one of the original volumes.

David and Goliath, the call of Samuel, the witch of Endor, David and Bathsheba — such biblical stories are well known. But the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, where they are recorded, are among the most difficult books in the Bible. The Hebrew text is widely considered corrupt and sometimes even unintelligible. The social and religious customs are strange and seem to diverge from the tradition of Moses. In this first part of an ambitious two-volume commentary on the books of Samuel, David Toshio Tsumura sheds considerable light on the background of 1 Samuel, looking carefully at the Philistine and Canaanite cultures, as he untangles the difficult Hebrew text.