[Avodah] establishing mamzerut

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, November 26, 2006 9:59 am, R Arie Folger wrote:
:> So besach hakol we're in reality talking about only two different sorts of
:> evidence:
:> 1- A match between the agunah's husband and the niftar (#1, above); and
:> 2- a paternity match between the husband and the child (#3).
:> I presume that #3 is far lower in accuracy... And, we need a lower
:> confidence level lehatir, ie a lower error rate on a false match, potential
:> mamzeirim anyway.

:> So, why would accepting the evidence for agunos necessitate accepting DNA
:> testing for mamzeirim?

: First of all, yasher koach for introducing Bayesian statistics in laymen's
: terms.

Actually, the comments I made would work for any logic system that uses
continous values from certainly false to certainly true. I am not actually
sure halakhah uses Bayesian statistics. Mi'ut bemaqom safeiq lo amrinan.
However, a mi'ut above a .5 certainly level would be a majority.

This could be explained by invoking granularity. Perhaps halakhah is quantized
Baysian. Meaning, it works statistically, but rounding to one of 5 values --
vadai asur, mi'ut, safeiq, rov, vadai heter. In which case, mi'ut bemaqom
safeiq becomes a rounding issue.

Alternatively, it could be taken to imply that doubt is not resolved
statistically. I'll do everyone a favor of not returning to "ta'am and taste"
theories, and possible justification for that theory on psychological grounds.
Unless someone actually asks.

...
: Of course, that speaker's argument my not be about the accuracy of DNA testing
: in each of the above cases, but about the likelihood of DNA testing being
: used in certain kinds of cases. Biological mamzerim are probably more common
: than 'agunot that can only be freed through the acceptance of DNA testing.
: Hence, said speaker worries more about the more common potential problem.

That is discussing bedi'eved, should we accept it as evidence once we're told
of test results. OTOH, we have a choice -- why do they need to ever have the
child tested? The meis who may be an agunah's husband ought to be tested, the
possible mamzeir and the mother's husband ought not. Thus, wouldn't the number
of agunos freed well outweigh the number of mamzeirim identified?

: At any rate, I wouldn't be surprised if solid paternity testing based on DNA
: is, while much less reliable than a match against the person's own tissue,
: still sufficiently accurate to be hard to ignore in a case of alledged
: mamzerut.

To return to one of my earlier points: I thought that in the case of
mamzeirus, we do ignore the "hard to ignore" until we're forced to pay
attention to them.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
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