.  I hold to the majority view that knowledge is a very common thing, that there are many beliefs that are both true and enjoy a positive epistemic status sufficient for knowledge.  On the other hand, you seem to think that knowledge is in fact very rare. This is an unusual and uncommon view. You seem to think that knowledge is true belief that is justified by science. The best that prescientific societies could hope for was simply true belief.  Memory itself is a real fact and could in principle (if we had much-improved brain scanning technology) be admitted as evidence.  This wouldn't really be of much use. It would simply show that the defendant wasn't lying. There is no cognitive difference between a genuine memory and a false memory.  Don't you think there are cases when one should reject the evidence, simply on the basis of what you believe, not on the grounds of stronger evidence?  After all, there are cases of people being sent to prison for murder, who were in fact innocent, and not becuase the court failed in it's weighing up of the evidence. In those cases do you think that the defendent was being irrational to continue protesting innocence?