I chose to listen to Professor Goodman’s interview with Ned Hall because in a way, the concept of truth is critical to my topic, which is predicting jury verdicts (which the image I chose from A Few Good Men is a joking nod too — ultimately, our judicial process is about finding the truth — regardless of whether we can handle it.) In the interview, Ned Hall discussed induction, the concept of relying solely on data to derive conclusions rather than entering with any sort of preexisting theory, as one would in deduction. He comments that in his view, “there is no such thing” as “mere extrapolation,” but in a way, that is exactly what we ask jurors to do in the courtroom. We tell them to abandon all preconceptions and avoid speculation, relying only on the evidence before them to render a verdict — that is, extrapolating from the data presented in court to make an inference about innocence or guilt. One wonders, though, whether all jurors truly abide by these instructions, or if they instead enter with theories they’re seeking to support or disprove regardless of what the judge says. As I’ve learned in my research for this project, juries are effective, but not flawless — Spencer (2007) estimates that 25% of guilty verdicts are mistaken and 14% of acquittals are mistaken, based in part on independent judicial assessments of the evidence presented. This is no small thing — if in fact a full quarter of those incarcerated are innocent, that is a glaring indictment on the criminal justice system. In my view, then, we should seek to better train jurors in induction, despite Ned Hall’s insistence that one cannot merely extrapolate, so that they can more diligently and accurately come to the correct verdicts.