Loving your child's mind: What is evidence?

All right, good morning Alana, how are you doing?

I'm good, how are you?

I'm well. I sent it to your email, so now you have your own email account?

Yes.

Very cool.

Yeah, I do.

And that must be your little brother Logan peeking in from time to time.

Yeah.

Hey Logan, I'll have to check it out at some point. Hello. Hey, hey, that's, that's Alana's little brother Sankara. Um, cool. So, um, I'm still orienting myself. So your hand is over your face, Sankara. Is that deliberate or is that accidental?

I'm hot.

You're hot? Okay. Do you feel up to having a conversation?

Yeah.

Okay, terrific, terrific. So for some reason—

Yeah.

What's that, Sankara? Oh, what I was going to say is for some reason today I was thinking about evidence, so I thought I'd check in to see what is evidence? What is— first of all, what is it? What is evidence? What does the word evidence mean?

Maybe something that you find, like a clue, something that you find out before you find like the answer or something like that.

Okay, a clue, something like that. Sankara, what do you think evidence is?

Evidence is like a, um—

We can't see your face, by the way.

My cologne is It's a clue. Oh, sorry.

What is that? You were—

It's like a clue or something like that.

So you both said it's a clue. It sounds like maybe you've both read, say, like detective novels or detective stories. Is that right?

Yeah, a few mystery stories.

Mystery stories. So evidence is like a clue. Um, how about, have either of you ever heard of scientific evidence?

I have, I just don't know what it is.

How about you, Sankara? Have you ever heard of scientific evidence? No. Okay, so evidence isn't a mystery. Um, well, let's see. So a clue— so is evidence the same as a clue, or is evidence different from a clue in mystery stories?

It's different.

Okay, how is it different, Sankara?

Um, because I don't know, I just think it's different.

Okay, okay. Do you have any ideas, Alana? Do you think it's different, similar, exactly the same? Close to the same but slightly different? What's your thought?

Maybe it would be the same, maybe like a tiny whiny bit different. I don't really know what that piece of different is, but I think it's the same because evidence and clues, they're both things that you find before the mystery. Like evidence, like a footstep, and like a footstep on the ground is kind of the same as a clue, like a footstep on the ground.

Okay, um, I'm thinking of different uses of the word evidence. A different one, have either of you ever seen, uh, like court, like a jury court, or where a judge is judging something and, uh, or a criminal is being prosecuted? It sounds like you have, Alana. What have you seen?

No, I haven't.

No, you haven't?

I haven't, but I think I know what you're talking about.

How about you, Sankara? Have you ever seen like a a court, a courtroom drama where the jury or the lawyers are going back and forth and arguing about the evidence?

Yeah, I've seen movies sometimes, except I never really liked them. They go on and on, boring stuff and everything.

Okay, fair enough. I can see why it would be boring for somebody your age. That said, given that they're boring, do you have any idea what are the— when lawyers are presenting evidence in a courtroom, what does evidence mean in that context?

Um, maybe evidence that a person did something, that did something to the other person, like maybe security camera footage or something like that.

And is that evidence the same as a clue, or is it different from a clue there?

Um, I don't know.

It might be a little old. Um, what I'm thinking is it might be same because evidence and clues are both something that you find or that helps you find the answer.

Sankara, do you think that evidence in a courtroom is the same as a clue or different?

Um, I think it's like, it's similar because, um, when you find evidence, it's kind of like you feel like you're getting one step closer to finding what happened or how something happened.

Okay, so Evidence is finding one step closer to finding what something happened. Now, some— one of you said, I forget which one, that in a courtroom they're trying to prove that, say, the person did it. So one person maybe is accused of committing a crime, and they're trying to prove that that person did it. So is that the same? So suppose— let's get an example. Suppose at your school Somebody took somebody else's lunch or a candy bar out of somebody else's lunch. And suppose, or somebody accused somebody of taking a candy bar out of somebody's lunch. And suppose you, maybe one of you is lawyer for the defendant and one of you is a lawyer for the, you know, the accuser. So how do you, how do you argue? How is there, how do we argue if somebody took a candy bar out of somebody's lunch or not? Would there be any evidence related to that?

There could, maybe if you search the accused or the, the, the person who was accused bags, maybe if they hid it somewhere in there, you could search for it. And if you don't find anything, maybe that could be evidence that he or she didn't do it.

Okay, so the accusation is that the accused stole a candy bar, and you search their bags and you find either that the candy bar is in the bag, or maybe the wrapper if they've already eaten it, or there is no candy bar, no wrapper in the bag. And what you're saying, Ilana, is if we find the candy bar, then that's evidence the guilty— the person was guilty. If we don't find either the candy bar or the wrapper, then that's evidence the accused was innocent. Is that correct? Would you agree with all of that, Sankara?

Yeah.

Is searching somebody's bag for a candy bar, is that the same as searching for clues?

Um, it maybe could be because, well, you're searching for something that gives you a clue or just Or just like gives you evidence that someone did something. And a clue is something that helps you find, or you try to find it to help you get to the answer. So, and those two things are similar, so maybe it could be the same.

What do you think, Sankara? Do you think searching for, searching the backpack for a candy bar, is that the same as searching for a clue or is that different?

I think it's the same because when you search in somebody's backpack, then you, then you search, you could be searching for fingerprints or something and that acts as a clue or evidence. Okay. That the person did it.

Okay. Fingerprints are a whole other thing. How, How do you know about fingerprints, Sankara?

Um, um, I, I can't.

Well, it's interesting that you do. Do you know about fingerprints, Alana?

Like how we find them, or just how do I know about them?

How they're used as evidence in, uh, court cases, um, and detective stories. Do you know about that?

Yeah, I, I think I know a little. So if— well, everyone has fingerprints on their fingers and everyone touches things that they want to steal or just have. So maybe if you found whatever things, you could search for the— you could search for fingerprints and then match them, and then match them to somebody, or just match them to the one who's being accused.

And the one piece that you didn't mention, but I think you assumed, is that everybody's fingerprints are different. So Sankara's fingerprints are different from Alana's, and they're different from Michael's. So everybody has different fingerprints. So if there's a scene of a crime, we can go back and look and and see, just like you said, Alana, whose fingerprints are on there. And that way, that could be evidence that the person whose fingerprints are on there committed the crime. There's another expression. I'm just thinking of different ways we've heard these words. Has anyone ever heard you— have you guys ever heard someone say, "Get a clue," or, "Why don't you get a clue"? You ever heard the word clue used like that?

No.

How about you, Sankara?

No.

Okay, maybe that's something that is no longer— it's sort of slang. Do you know what slang is?

Um, no, but is it a different, maybe just way of speaking English or something?

Yeah, slang is kind of casual language, and every generation has its slang. Slang. So, you know, back when I was your age, we had certain kind of words that were not part of standard English, so it was a different form of English, but it's just sort of, uh, casual silly things. I bet probably you guys have heard words that I probably haven't heard that just kids your age use sometimes. Um, but "get a clue" used to be sort of like, "Don't you understand what's going on? Get a clue." Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, I'm going to kind of give you my sense of the difference between clue and evidence because it's interesting to me they're similar, but I do think they're different. Going back to the beginning of the call when I think Sankara, you were saying maybe you thought they were different. They're very close though, and I think all the examples we talked about are evidence that they're very close. But I think of a clue as something when you're discovering a mystery. So in the process of figuring out a mystery, you're getting clues, and each piece of evidence that you discover— so a clue is also a piece of evidence, Ilana, just like you said, the footprint. But I think of evidence more after the fact in the courtroom, where you say, how do I know that Ilana's innocent? Well, I know Ilana's innocent because there is no evidence she did that. So I think of clue, the same piece of stuff like a fingerprint or a footprint or the candy wrapper, I think of it as a clue when you're in the process of discovering the mystery, and it's more evidence when you're trying to prove the mystery or prove what happened afterwards. Does that make sense?

It does.

Yeah. So I could imagine a detective story, for instance, where all the way through there are clues, and those clues are going to become evidence of what actually happened. But it's, it's more evidence to prove it at the end, whereas on the way it's sort of like discovery, and that's the clue form. Does that make sense as to why the two ideas are very close but just slightly different?

And that, and like, that could change things?

Yeah, I mean, evidence— well, tell me what you mean by that could change things.

Like you said, like, there could be evidence and like they're both the same but there's a slight difference. Could that make a big difference in like the evidence, like if a person is guilty or not?

Um, so good question. I guess the other piece of this, and maybe I don't know if this is an answer to your question, but I'm gonna— I'm doing my best, is that I think that so a clue, if we want to know what happened, we're looking for clues, and some of the clues may be valid clues and some of those clues may be not valid clues. I bet you've probably read a detective story where there's a clue but it turns out to be a false clue, that it's actually not going— that sometimes they in detective stories they make you think that person A did it but it's actually person B that did it. Have you guys read detective stories like that?

Yeah, I have, like, um, Nancy Drew. Sometimes there's— I've read a few books and sometimes there's twists like that in there.

Exactly, and so that's why sometimes clues can be misleading. Because we don't actually know for sure. So a clue is kind of like a hint, but I would say evidence is more at the very end of the book when you know for sure that person is the one who did it, and that's why evidence is more used in courts, because at the end of the day you need evidence to prove somebody did it. So a clue is sort of like a hint, maybe it's this way, maybe it's that way, before you're sure, but at the end when you're pretty sure and you're trying to prove it that's when you kind of stack up the evidence and say, look, the candy bar wrapper is in the backpack. Look, they've got chocolate smeared all over their face. Look, they were seen running away from the backpack holding a candy bar in their hand. You know what I mean? That's at some point all of the evidence becomes overwhelming. Not always, but at least in some cases, you know, the clue is like maybe this, maybe that, maybe this, maybe that, and then the evidence is look, look, look, look, now we prove it. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So I don't know if I answered your question, Alana, but you were asking, um, I forget what you asked, but did I answer your question sort of? That it can change things. I think you're asking if it can change things. Yeah, that's the sense in which it can change things, is I see evidence accumulating to a proof sometimes, or something pretty close to a proof. How about you, Sankara? Is all this making sense?

Pardon?

Is all of this making sense to you? The— our discussion of clues versus evidence?

Yeah.

Okay. Well, at some point we'll get into scientific evidence. Scientific evidence is a whole— it's related, but I think it's a really interesting and important different thing. But we've already gone kind of long, so I want to thank you for your time, and until next week, have a wonderful fun week, you guys, okay?

Okay, bye!

Bye-bye!