Liars and Occam's razor

Brett Kavanaugh is a liar.  I thought I might spend a post addressing how I catch liars, which I do on a regular basis.  I am a political science professor.  Both parts of that job entail catching liars-- the politics part, and the professor part.  I catch a lot of liars.  A lot of 'em.

There is a field of study about what people do when they lie, and how an outside observer can determine when a speaker is lying based on body language, speech patterns and so forth.  I am marginally familiar with this stuff, but mostly just enough to think that it has the whiff of bunk to it.  There may be underlying statistical patterns, but any individual's likelihood of separating signal from noise in a real-life context using the underlying patterns is not something in which I have a great deal of confidence.

So, how should you catch liars?  Any time you are faced with a claim that may or may not be a lie (which is... a lot of the time), give it a nice, close shave with a well-stropped razor, hand-made by my good buddy, Occam.  I call him, "Will."  We're on a first-name basis.  I don't pay much attention to body language, or any of the other stuff that some psychologists say can be used to detect lies.  I prefer to look at verifiable facts, gather as many as possible, and shave 'em on up.  Short version:  if the premise that someone is telling the truth strains credulity because it requires too many absurd assumptions, you've got a liar on your hands.  I don't care what their body language says.  I don't care what turns of phrase they use.  And I don't care if someone angrily protests his innocence.  That could just be an entitled douchebag who is used to getting away with everything, pissed off because he doesn't think he should ever have to suffer the consequences of his actions.  Laws are for the little people, or something.

So let's give "Brett" a shave.  Dry.

Consider "Brett's" most indisputable lie from Thursday.  I mentioned this the other day, but it bears repeating because it demonstrates, pretty indisputably, that "Brett" is a liar.  "Brett" kept insisting that four letters "refuted" Ford's account.  False.  Four letters stated that the other people Ford stated were at the party couldn't remember the party, but for anyone other than Ford, Judge and Kavanaugh, there would be no reason for them to remember it, and Judge and Kavanaugh have every reason to lie.  Failure to confirm and refutation are different.  Legally.  A non-lawyer, or even just a stupid person could fail to see the difference.  "Brett" is legally trained, and highly intelligent.  It is not plausible that he fails to see the difference.  Therefore, he knew that what he was saying was false.  It was false, known to be false, and intended to deceive.  Those are the three characteristics of a lie.  "Brett" lied.  Keyser's lawyer has clarified that she was not "refuting" Ford's account, contradicting "Brett" directly.  "Brett" was lying.  Period.

Lie brazenly, when I can see the disproof* by reading Keyser's statement, and don't expect trust when it's all about your word.  Tell me 2+2=5, and don't ask me to trust you with a hard math problem.  This matters because the "he-said-she-said" dynamic to which the GOP wants to reduce everything relies on treating "Brett" as someone whose word we can trust, and if he is a brazen liar, reducing everything to a "he-said-she-said" dynamic means that ole' Billy Ock' is going to tell me to side with Christine Blasey Ford.  Don't lie to me, brazenly and stupidly, and then tell me to trust you.  I actually have a functioning brain in my head, and I encourage others to fire up their synapses too!

Now, let's move on to the real slicing tasks for Bill's blade-o-truth.  How about that "Renate alumnius" line from "Brett's" yearbook?  He claims it wasn't sexual.  What is the Occam's razor interpretation?  The choice of words, "alumnius," suggests ritual completion and graduation.  Rite of passage.  That kind of thing.  That is directly attached to a girl's name.  Combine that with the poem, and the Occam's razor interpretation is that it was a sexual boast.  Could it have been otherwise?  Could it have been just a weird choice of words?  It would be a weird choice of words, combined with the poem, and… it just doesn't pass the smell test.  You're going out on a limb there.  It's too much weird stuff.  Weird choice of words, combined with the poem, and for it to not be a sexual boast, you have to accept multiple weird things.  Occam's razor says it was a sexual boast.  And remember that "Brett" is a proven liar.  The simplest explanation is that it means what you think it means, and that the proven liar was lying during his Thursday testimony.  Anger doesn't mean innocence.  It could also mean douchebag who thinks he is entitled to get away with everything.  Facts, not displays.  What is the simplest explanation for the facts?  The simplest explanation is that "Brett" is lying.  We know he's a liar anyway.

Devil's triangle.  This gets ugly.  According to Ford, there were three people in that room.  Ford, Judge and Kavanaugh.  The Occam's razor interpretation of that phrase matches up in some ugly ways with Ford's allegation.  Kavanaugh says, no, it was a drinking game.  The problem is that he also says that he wasn't really a binge drinker who drank to the point of passing out or memory loss.  So, "devil's triangle" was actually a drinking game, rather than what we think, and despite being the type of person who was so into this drinking game, which we've never heard of because it was unique to him and his high school drinking buddies, that he wanted to memorialize it in his high school year book, he just wasn't the type to ever drink so much that he blacked out or passed out.  How many weird assumptions go into that?  What does Billy Ockham say?  Ford was telling the truth.  Note the simplicity and elegance of the explanation.  "Brett" and his drinking buddy, Mark Judge, were sexual predators, and squaring the circle that "Brett" was trying to construct just doesn't work.  And even if "devil's triangle" were a drinking game (subjunctive, for you grammar nerds), anyone like that would definitely be the type to drink to the blacking-out point, in which case he lied about that, and maybe honestly didn't remember trying to rape Ford.  Too many contradictions.  My boy, Ockham says "Brett" is a liar, and no matter which way we turn, he looks really guilty.  Again, I don't care about body language, or distancing terminology or any of that hooey.  I just need a well-stropped implement and an array of facts.

So, what have we learned?  "Brett" is indisputably a liar.  The fact that he is a liar means that anything dependent on his word is deeply problematic, and when evaluating any statement in the context of the facts, I usually prefer the simplest explanation.  I factor in the observation that "Brett" is a known liar, but what I don't do is try to parse body language, word choice, or any of the other stuff that some of the psych studies claim is statistically associated with lying.  I have a deep-seated skepticism at this point of the entire discipline of psychology, given the replication crisis, and that field of research strikes me as deeply problematic anyway.  Instead, I simply advise people to look at facts, and use Occam's razor.  It serves me well.  The students I catch cheating and other liars I catch?  Not so much, but I rather enjoy catching them...

Screw Gillette.  Occam.  The best a man can get.


*Yeah, some of you have had me rant at you about misuse of the word, "proof," but disproofs are different, and I'm fine using the term here.

And, here's some bonus music for today.  Eric McFadden, "Catch a Liar," from Delicate Thing.  Not bluegrass, but I just had to use it today.

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