Fair Witness

A Human Profession dating from the late 21st Century A Fair Witness is an individual trained to observe events and report exactly what he or she sees and hears, making no extrapolations or assumptions. An eidetic memory is a prerequisite for the job, although this can be attainable with suitable training.
Fair Witnesses are prohibited from drawing conclusions about what they observe. Asked to describe the color of a house in the distance. they may state, "It's white on this side"; they would not assume knowledge of the color of the other sides of the house without being able to see them. Furthermore, after observing another side of the house they would not then assume that any previously seen side was still the same color as last reported, even if only minutes before.
A Fair Witness is a highly reputable source of information. By custom, a Fair Witness acting professionally, generally wearing distinctive white robes, is never addressed directly, and is never acknowledged by anyone present.
The Profession is analogous to the Ane Truthteller or the Vulcan Glantausu or "Observer" A certified Fair Witness is accepted in Earth, Vulcan, and Federation courts as a verifiable observer of fact. 
The profession has spread to most developed Human worlds and is now practiced on Kentari worlds as well. The training for a Fair Witness is brutal as two third of those that seek to become one and pass the initial evaluation fail to achieve certification. In spite of the failure rate there are still plenty of applicants. A certified Fair Witness is considered a highly valuable contributor and can pretty much write their own ticket. 
The Idea of the Fair Witness was established by Physiologist Anton Gardu as an outgrowth to his studies on the Ane lack of change blindness so famously present in Humans. He speculated that it could be trained out of Humans, and the Fair Witness was a result of that investigation. He quit the practice of medicine in 2034 to create the Fair Witness and spent the rest of his life teaching the resulting discipline. The Fair Witness was accepted in 2101 as an impartial and factual witness to events in Earth Alliance courts.
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