Eyewitness Accounts Not That Reliable

A new psychological study shows how altering the pictures of events can change our memories of them. This is especially disturbing considering how most people's memories of events are shaped by digital media. But there's a deeper point here too, that personal memories and perceptions are not as solid or reliable as we normally consider them to be. Conspiracy theories run rampant because of the disparate "eyewitness accounts" of historical disasters, and the criminal justice system has always placed a qualifying scale on witnesses' testimony, based on how unshakeable their perceptions are. Some people just make bad witnesses, to crime or history, and we should make note of that.