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  | Archive through September 23, 2003 | Alan Sharp | 25 | 1 | 9-23-03 6:00 am |
| Archive through December 16, 2003 | Glenn L Andersson | 25 | 1 | 12-16-03 9:34 pm |
| Archive through January 05, 2004 | Alan Sharp | 25 | 1 | 1-05-04 7:21 am |
| Archive through January 20, 2004 | Ally | 25 | 1 | 1-20-04 7:10 pm |
| Archive through February 24, 2004 | Neil K. MacMillan | 25 | 1 | 2-24-04 4:36 pm |
| Archive through February 28, 2004 | Mark Starr | 25 | 1 | 2-28-04 4:21 pm |
| Archive through March 02, 2004 | Dan Norder | 25 | 1 | 3-02-04 3:59 am |
| Archive through March 05, 2004 | Sarah Long | 25 | 1 | 3-05-04 9:23 am |
| Archive through March 11, 2004 | Peter J. Tabord | 25 | 1 | 3-11-04 5:27 am |
| Archive through April 04, 2004 | Paul Jackson | 25 | 1 | 4-04-04 3:28 pm |
| Archive through April 21, 2004 | Glenn L Andersson | 25 | 1 | 4-21-04 11:09 am |
| Archive through September 01, 2005 | Bradski | 50 | 1 | 9-01-05 10:31 am |
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 Closed: New threads not accepted on this page |
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Jeff Leahy
Inspector
Username: Jeffl
Post Number: 223
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 4:15 pm: | 
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Hi Bradski
Then you have to answer some simple questions.
How many Ripper victims were there?
How reliable are the witness statements?
Why did Jack stop after Mary Kelly?
I understand that Prof Bower has made some interesting comments on the paper used and owned by Sickert.
But he was NOT the Ripper. Who ever the Ripper was he stopped after Mary Kelly (if That she were) for reason unknown.
Ripper: A Man of discuise? or man not properly seen?
Yours Jeff |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 872
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 11:44 pm: |
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Hi Bradski,
The statement "the man who killed Sride was identified as the same man who killed Eddows, by Lawende" is extremely misleading, as we don't know what man killed Stride and nobody identified the person seen with Eddowes as the same person Lawende saw.
There is absolutely no evidence that Jack the Ripper used disguises. If alleged witnesses reported seeing people who looked different from each other it is much more likely that they simply didn't see the real killer than that the killer wore a disguise.
And as far as the Openshaw letter goes, there is no reasonable evidence to conclude that Sickert wrote it and no good reason to think that the killer wrote it either.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
 Profile  Email  Dissertations  Website
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R.J. Palmer
Chief Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 706
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 10:09 am: |
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Ripperology is a strange thing. Misguided as they might well be, it does seem as though the crackpots are the only ones who are genuinely attempting to solve the case. The 'serious' or scholarly theorists are expending their energies in the debunking craze. One is a disease, the other is amputation. |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 875
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 10:08 pm: |
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Hi RJ,
Before anyone can hope to solve the case they must first know what the actual facts of the case are. Getting rid of the cancer infecting the patient isn't amputation. And from what I have seen of the crackpots, they are far more interested in declaring themselves to be correct than in actually trying to solve the case. There's a huge difference.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
|
Uriah Hexam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 11:24 pm: |
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I have no degrees of any kind, no one has ever accused me of being reasonable, and I have not had an original thought since 1975: am I still allowed to doubt Patricia Cornwell's premise?
As to God's role in all this...I am certified schizo-affective/bipolar and I hear God all the time (and Benny Hill) and he has said nothing to me about Walter Sickert, Patricia Cornwell, or the role of Thomas the Apostle in historical criminal investigations. (He does, however, take a keen interest in 70s pop music and the ridiculous movement of professional sports franchises between major cities.)
Another thought, and I do not mean to indict anyone. Occasionally it seems to me that there are people who spend more time "rooting" for a suspect than trying to understand that part of the truth that may be left to us. I find this curious, as if there are people who think this thing is a badge of honour. "My guy is Jack!" "No, my guy is." Again, I point the bloody knife at no one, but I wonder if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon? Personally, I am clueless as to the Ripper's identity, and shall probably remain so, in spite of my best efforts and yours.
I would love to chat more but the orderly is coming my way with a large butterfly net and hypodermic. |
David Radka
Police Constable
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 8
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 - 4:33 pm: |
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"Before anyone can hope to solve the case they must first know what the actual facts of the case are."
In a pig's eye. Before anyone can hope to know what the actual facts of the case are, they must first solve the case.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 880
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 - 4:54 pm: |
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Hi David,
Congratulations! Even with the long list of nonsense you have posted here over the years, that reaches new heights of sheer absurdity. But at least your statement does a pretty good job of explaining how you are able to come up with theories that don't fit with any of the actual facts of the case.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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Gordon Bennett
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 - 6:31 pm: |
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Well, I should say that you both have a point.
So David is talking about first finding a suspect and then sifting out what the actual facts are, there being so much spurious material and so much missing material. Not a bad idea.
I've come to the conclusion that the trial we have over each suspect and each witness is a farce sometimes. For me I have real difficulty in not taking each witness at more or less face value (within certain limits of idiocy and possible dishonesty). I agree that to question 'facts' is right given the distance in time and the missing documents but to pick a suspect out merely because he was there throws a real spanner in the works (it's just have likely to have been someone who wasn't identified as being there (in fact, more likely)). Witnesses should stay in there homes.
Yours incoherently, from Wells somewhere near Tunbridge.
It's like Jimi Hendrix once said 'Facts, facts, facts. Everyone goes on about us using facts. Do we use facts? Yes, we do.' |
Jennifer Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2933
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 2:23 pm: |
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In a pig's eye?
I've not heard that one before!!
"You know I'm not gonna diss you on the Internet
Cause my momma taught me better than that."
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Simon Owen
Inspector
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 256
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 3:03 pm: |
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Its a good expression though , isn't it !
Nice to see Mr Radka has registered too , I don't really agree with his theories but he certainly is prepared to look at the case in an original way and to question things.
I haven't really been around at the Casebook for the past two-three years , but I feel Ripperology hasn't made much progress at all since 2003 ; if the case is to be solved then maybe it IS going to be by wild theories and speculations or ' thinking outside the box ' in some way ( barring a signed Ripper confession turning up on ebay that is... ) : I think trying to establish the ' facts ' first maybe be an investigative dead end. |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 882
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 3:39 pm: |
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Hi Simon,
Yes, I can see where some people would find it more convenient to make up their own facts as they go along instead of trying to be based in reality. Reality has a way of being rather inconvenient to people who have preconceived conclusions, especially ones they've staked their reputations on.
Thinking outside the box is a good thing... as long as you go back and have a reality check on those ideas later. Yes, this "box" full of shared assumptions about the case can be and probably is full of a number of mistaken notions. But then a lot of people become emotionally attached to their own ideas and refuse to do reality checks. Heck, some of them wouldn't even acknowledge reality if it smacked them in the face.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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David Radka
Police Constable
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 10
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 9:20 pm: |
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A propensity to represent oneself as the spokesperson of reality is a sign of intellectual immaturity.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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Baron von Zipper
Police Constable
Username: Baron
Post Number: 2
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 9:36 pm: |
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Hey all,
I was wondering if anyone out there has a complete list of anyone that could have visited Whitechapel in 1888. Since we can't seem to get rid of Sickert, the Royal Conspiracy, and Maybrick. I thought we could add a few more suspects.
Cheers,
Mike |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 936
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 9:58 pm: |
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Baron Von Zipper....
Please check out the Stephenson threads. He was there for certain for 4 1/2 months...
Yo R.J. !!
"the crackpots are the only ones who are genuinely attempting to solve the case. The 'serious' or scholarly theorists are expending their energies in the debunking craze.."
I can't go to sleep now not knowing which category I fit in !! I'd like to help solve the sumbitch,but at the same time I'd love to participate in exonerating the guy I think could have done it..
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Donald Souden
Chief Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 739
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 10:17 pm: |
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Howard,
I can't go to sleep now not knowing which category I fit in !!
Some questions are better left unanswered.
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Baron von Zipper
Police Constable
Username: Baron
Post Number: 3
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 09, 2005 - 1:50 pm: |
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Howard,
I was being sarcastic. Notice that I said, "anyone".
Can't blame a guy for trying. The sarcastics are the ones that should be blamed for everything.
Mike |
Baron von Zipper
Police Constable
Username: Baron
Post Number: 4
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 09, 2005 - 1:56 pm: |
|
Uriah Hexum,
You are allowed to belive whatever you want. I agree with you about the possessiveness some folks have with their pet theories regardless of what the truth or truths seem to be. In fact, I will agree with most anything you say so long as you don't hurt me.
Yours,
Mike |
c.d.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, September 09, 2005 - 5:05 pm: |
|
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
R.J. Palmer
Chief Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 708
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, September 12, 2005 - 4:02 pm: |
|
Howard--Let me rephrase it. I don't see Patricia Cornwell as being a "crank" in the tradition of, say, Stephen Knight, even though Sickert is very much part of that tradition. I see her as a natural result and extension of the pop-Psychology, F.B.I. Behavioral Science Unit, "sexual serial killer", profiling culture. She breaths it with every breath. She is a true believer in the ideology and regardless of how they may feel about her errors she talks the same lingo that 75% of the folks on these boards talk. Thus, I am rather bemused by her critics, because they seemingly wish to bash her 'facts,' while they, themselves still embrace the ideology. And as far as I am concerned, the ideology is a false one.
But my original point was that the 'cranks' seem to be genuinely wishing to solve the case. I don't get that feeling with the new breed of skeptic. The objective recitation of the "facts" is insufficient to solve the case. I see a certain breed of skeptic who wraps the case evidence in a cloak of vagaries and doubt, only to better cultivate the fine art of sneaking their psychological ideologies in through the kitchen. RP |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 956
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Monday, September 12, 2005 - 5:28 pm: |
|
R.J....
Thanks for the clarification. I agree with you that Ms. Cornwell depends heavily on the modern apparatus of crime-solving and in my opinion, too much. So much so,that the dramatic over-the-top portrait/picture destructions obscured whatever findings,albeit they may be minor [ possibly a letter or two written by Sickert..]she has found. IMHO,that sexual serial killer concept,as much as I admit it may have been possible,doesn't wash with me....its "something else" that I can't figure out for myself yet...
The fistula-on-penis,as opposed to the backside [ Roger...everyone is making a buck with that fistula...look at my site profile..wait until it fully loads ]..the need to prove he was not in Dieppe or anywhere else...and the other little items are entirely different stories. They aren't part of the modern apparatus of which you refer to..
You may well be right,R.J. People with ideas from out of left field may be the solution...who knows?
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Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 891
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 3:41 am: |
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Hi RJ,
Cornwell is not at all part of the behavioral science / sexual serial killer / profiling background. She just uses terms she took from those fields for whatever crackpot explanation she comes up with to justify her character assasination of someone she decided was guilty before she did any research. The pretending to be an authority in profiling and so forth is just a marketing ploy, much like how the people trying to sell wonder drugs and related pseudoscience lift terms they don't understand from the fields of biology and physics.
Toss in the chronic need for media coverage and she's basically a Dr. Tumblety for the modern age who chose to sell bogus answers to mysteries instead of worthless cures to ailments. It's rather a shame that there are suckers out there who buy into it, but it doesn't mean that she speaks for the field in general in any way, shape or form.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
|
R.J. Palmer
Chief Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 709
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 12:25 pm: |
|
"It doesn't mean that she speaks for the field in general in any way, shape or form."
No, of course not. And, of course, Oppenheimer wouldn't lay claim to Hiroshima, either.
Cornwell sucked deeply at the Ressler/Douglas well for years,--even before she had heard of Sickert. But it's embarrassing, isn't it, when someone actually has the nerve to take the ideology seriously? All those strictly descriptivie truisms that Ressler & Douglas like to toss in--like "injecting himself" into the investigation, physical defects, (John Douglas has a special thrill for those who stutter), a taste for pornography, young white male 25-35, etc.?
Cornwell worked directly with an FBI SBU-trained profiler while she worked on her book. The man was interviewed at length for her little informercial on ABC, and if he didn't approve, he certainly didn't show it. But I can see the urge in certain quarters to scramble to distance themselves. What have the Gods wrought?
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Jeremiah Boogle
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, September 12, 2005 - 8:03 pm: |
|
If 75% of people talk rubbish and the other 25% spend all their time telling them it's rubbish only so that they can sneak their own rubbish ideas in while the others are busy defending themselves, then we'll all be taken by surprise when the case is solved - not least of all the solver. |
CB
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 1:59 am: |
|
Hi all,
There are people who have put forth theories that they know can not be true. They study the case, and they come up with an original idea. They lay it out as if it were fact, but they know it can not be true. The people that I would call cranks, have all the ripper knowledge, and still they throw out a bogus theory.
I think Cornwell thinks Walter Sickert was Jack the ripper, so I would not call her a crank. I feel she started out trying to prove Sickert was the ripper. She should have studied the case and then chose the best Suspect. Cornwell chose to use the ABC prove me wrong aproach. A. Walter Sicker could of had a sexuall disfunction that made him impotent. Prove me wrong. B. Walter Sickert could have had secret studios in WC, and could have been in the area at the time of the murders. Prove me wrong. C. Sickert could have written ripper letters. Prove me wrong. It is hard to put forward any suspect with out speculating a little. However, her whole case seems to be built on speculation. She has proven to my satisfaction that Sickert wrote ripper letters, but conecting Sickert to ripper letters does not connect him to ripper murders.
There is nothing wrong with ideas from out of left field as long as they put in the form of a question. Could Walter Sickert have had a sexuall disfunction that made him impotent? Yes, now go prove he did. Could Walter Sickert have had secret studioes through out the eastend? Yes, now go prove he did. The Casebook is fun reading because of the fresh ideas, and the debates that follow.
I respect Patricia Cornwell. She is bright, and talented. I dont mind that she wrote a book about Jack the ripper. I dont mind that she chose Walter Sickert as her suspect. However, it is up to her to prove her case, or make a reasonable argument. It not up to her detracters to prove her wrong.
Your friend, Brad |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 895
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 3:58 pm: |
|
Hi RJ,
Yes, the person on her payroll who was also employed at the institute mostly funded by Cornwell's donations didn't directly contradict her in a TV interview. You probably shouldn't read too much into that other than a desire to stay employed.
If you find an expert in the field of criminal forensics who endorses her views without being on her payroll, let us all know. And when you have a significant percentage of them, then you can claim she represents the field.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
|
Monty
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Monty
Post Number: 1874
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2005 - 11:34 am: |
|
Tape clicks on...
Guys,
Well I for one cannot wait.....(ow) for Patricia Cornwells (slap..oof) new edition.
(muffled sounds) say it SAY IT (slap!)
*Tearfully* she really does put forward...
....(silence)
Say it you mutherf...
....she really does put forward a convincing argueme....
.....HELP, IM BEING HELD CAPTIVE BY PATSYBOPPERS !!!! THEYVE TIED ME UP AND FORCE READ ME CHAPTERS FROM BLOW FLY. THEY WONT STOP TILL WE ACCEPT THAT SHE IS THE SUPREME BEING. SHE IS GOD AND SICKERT IS..BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.....BANG....
tape clicks off
My prediction? 3-0 to us. 5-0 if the weather holds out. - Glenn McGrath
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David Radka
Sergeant
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 13
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2005 - 3:53 pm: |
|
1. “Cornwell is not at all part of the behavioral science / sexual serial killer / profiling background. She just uses terms she took from those fields for whatever crackpot explanation she comes up with to justify her character assasination of someone she decided was guilty before she did any research.”
>>Cornwell presents an order of ideas concerning Sickert’s candidacy as JtR. How can it be said that it matters at all in what order she herself first thought it? If she presents a series of arguments (If A, then B; If B, then C) why should she be blamed if she had thought of C before A in the chronological sense? The idea that Cornwell “decided Sickert was guilty before she did any research” is no criticism of her research, or her theory. It is a non sequitor conflating two things, (1) when she personally decided Sickert might be the Ripper and (2) the order of her logical argument that he was the Ripper. Perhaps she initially did fancy him guilty simply because John Greaves recommended him to her. But specifically how does this impact her logic that Sickert was guilty? It is by the argument she offers that we may refute her; otherwise, we would be assassinating HER character.
2. “The pretending to be an authority in profiling and so forth is just a marketing ploy, much like how the people trying to sell wonder drugs and related pseudoscience lift terms they don't understand from the fields of biology and physics.”
>>Cornwell does not fail because she dishonestly pretends to be a profiler. She fails in part because profiling itself is inadequate to catch the murderer. JtR has been professionally profiled, as David Cohen, Aaron Kosminski and others as well as Walter Sickert, and they couldn’t all have been JtR. Cornwell does not plume herself as being something she is not in terms of profiling. To say that she does is to exaggerate one’s criticism of her, lending it a false emphasis by dishonestly ascribing dishonesty to her.
3. “Toss in the chronic need for media coverage and she's basically a Dr. Tumblety for the modern age who chose to sell bogus answers to mysteries instead of worthless cures to ailments.”
>>This comment may be made of Cornwell’s logic, but not of her. In other words, she may herself be aware that her logical argument against Sickert fails to pin the blame for the Whitechapel murders on him, or she may know of some empirical information about him she doesn’t disclose that would exonerate him. But that is a far cry from saying she is a quack-something. The notion of Cornwell’s quackery unfairly attempts to hit at her too close to home; it falsely attempts to prove she’s wrong by alleging she is personally a fake-something. Tumblety was a real quack and fake; it is unfair to compare Cornwell to him in this respect.
4. “It's rather a shame that there are suckers out there who buy into it, but it doesn't mean that she speaks for the field in general in any way, shape or form.
>>This is a conflation of “suckers”—people who accept fraudulent claims, with people who take Cornwell seriously. By using this term, people who accept Cornwell’s arguments are identified with people who are duped by frauds. Thus by this language Cornwell is illicitly equated to perpetrators of frauds.
Mr. Norder is ever the master of the non sequitor, which amounts to an unproven, impertinent and inappropriate association of one concept to another that ostensibly appears unanswerable or irrefutable. He frequently attempts to lend to it the status of an objective archetype. He is especially good at aggressively mounted defenses of his non sequitors, delivered in harsh terms, making them seem to have sprung from near-axiomatic convictions.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 979
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2005 - 5:14 pm: |
|
Dear Dave...
Don't be offended,okay ?
Two or three years ago, you said that Cornwell's lesbianism influenced her methodology in arriving at the conclusions she had made at the time....
...do you still agree with those sentiments?
Thank you.
(Message edited by howard on September 15, 2005) |
Baron von Zipper
Sergeant
Username: Baron
Post Number: 45
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2005 - 6:35 pm: |
|
Dave,
I think Dan was a little harsh in his assessment of Cornwell. The comparison to Tumblety was unfair with respect to Cornwell's never having murdered anyone (that we know of). Cornwell is a novelist, and with that talent comes the ability to project the suspension of disbelief on the average reader. She tells a fine tale that you want to believe because she is so earnest about it. She is the grandfather who tells you those tales of his youth, embellishing as much as is necessary to make the stories good in their telling.
Aside from selling snake oil to bald men, and using false advertising to garner more money from her unwary audience, oh and setting real ripperology back a few years, what harm has she really done?
Dan's criticism was far too harsh. Cornwell is no murderer.
Cheers
Mike the Mauler
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Judith A. Stock
Sergeant
Username: Needler
Post Number: 48
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 16, 2005 - 12:29 am: |
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Baron.....PLEASE say you don't think Cornwell is a talented novelist! Her first few were pretty good reads, but when her heroine became the target of every serial killer in the country, relentlessly pursued and harassed, she began to fall into the trap of the heaving-bosom-book authors: change the names, but use the same plot over and over. I KNEW I was being gypped when she spent AGES on the description of a motel on an interstate highway as if that description did anything at all to further her story; it didn't..she was padding, and that's when I gave up on her ability to create a new and interesting plot. She then turned her deadlights on the Ripper, and proved me wrong by a mile or more......she DID get creative again...with the truth!
And no, I'm not published, but that doesn't mean I cannot recognise tripe when I read it.
Now I'm off to read a GOOD book.........g'night all.
Cheers,
Judy
http://www.casebook.org/2006
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Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 896
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 16, 2005 - 1:42 am: |
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Baron von Zipper / Mike the Mauler -
Who said anything about Cornwell being a murderer? Hello? I compared her to Tumblety, not Jack the Ripper.
David,
You seem to make less and less sense the more you post, which is always amazing considering that at some point that shouldn't even be possible anymore.
OF COURSE coming to a conclusion before you investigate is bad. It's the old "don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up." I know that that's exactly what you did with your alleged solution to the case so you feel the need to defend that, but come on, the real world doesn't put up with that nonsense.
Cornwell is not a profiler. She distorts what actual profilers say to fit her already created conclusion that Sickert was guilty. Your claim that profilers have chosen Kosminski, Cohen and Sickert is completely false, as profilers don't do that, they take about types of people, not specific people. You are demonstrating your lack of knowledge of the topic by making those statements.
Cornwell is just as proven of a quack as Tumblety was, just in different fields. They both have made false claims of expertise, they both sold products that didn't live up to the promises, and so forth. If you object to Cornwell being called a quack then the same arguments can be made to claim that Tumblety was not one either. Once again your entire argument comes down to you believing that one conclusion is right and one is wrong and not providing any sort of rational explanation for why that would be. You just state your own opinion as a fact and ridicule others for not agreeing with you.
And OF COURSE I link Cornwell to frauds, because she made several claims that are proven false. It's not so much that I am unfairly using words to try to falsely give that impression, as you seem to be implying, but that those of us around here for any length of time can name off a long, long list of things she got completely wrong, and a number of them being things that are not really excusable for someone claiming to write nonfiction.
I mean, come on David, you used to post lots of criticism of Cornwell yourself. The only time you were ever quoted in a Ripper journal was when you were making fun of Cornwell for the same things I am making fun of her for now. It looks like you are just so used to disagreeing with whatever I say that you'll contradict me even for saying something you already said.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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Baron von Zipper
Sergeant
Username: Baron
Post Number: 47
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 16, 2005 - 12:36 pm: |
|
Dan,
You're right. I was referring to the notion that Tumblety was somehow involved in Lincoln's murder/assassination, which wasn't true. I should have said assassin's accomplice. Sorry for the mistake.
cheers
Mike the Mauler
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Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 899
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 16, 2005 - 6:58 pm: |
|
Hi Mike,
Oh, OK. That's explains it then. No worries.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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Mr Poster
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, September 16, 2005 - 2:52 am: |
|
Hello
Two or three years ago, you said that Cornwell's lesbianism influenced her methodology in arriving at the conclusions she had made at the time....
Lesbians, gaping holes in penises, cutting up pictures, obsessed with proving Walter did it..... Its getting more scary by the minute.
Mr P
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Gordon Bennett
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2005 - 4:53 pm: |
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"Papers arrived yet, Fawlty?"
"Not yet, Major."
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Rosey O'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, September 16, 2005 - 5:11 am: |
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Hi All,
To quote Pat: "I remember hearing my father's big footsteps coming down the hall; my mother was crying, and I went into hysterics, screaming for him not leave, AND OF COURSE HE DID,". This could be an answer, explanation, for her various outpourings of the soul via the novel and...the male serial killer in our hearts and our homes?
Rosey, :-) |
David Radka
Sergeant
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 14
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, September 18, 2005 - 8:37 pm: |
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Mr. Norder wrote:
1. ”OF COURSE coming to a conclusion before you investigate is bad. It's the old "don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up." I know that that's exactly what you did with your alleged solution to the case so you feel the need to defend that, but come on, the real world doesn't put up with that nonsense.”
>>We aren’t talking about “coming to a conclusion before you investigate” in the case of Cornwell. We’re talking about a logical order of ideas that either is or isn’t adequate to determine the truth of the conclusion. I wouldn’t want to take the side of an argument that works against a logician purely on the basis that chronologically he had made up his mind concerning his conclusion before he formulated his premises. That would be tantamount to suicide.
2. “Cornwell is not a profiler. She distorts what actual profilers say to fit her already created conclusion that Sickert was guilty.”
>>As long as she doesn’t misreport what a professional profiler has said, what’s wrong with this procedure? Why does she need to be a professional profiler herself to write a book about profiling? Why is she not entitled to her opinion concerning what profilers have written?
3. “Your claim that profilers have chosen Kosminski, Cohen and Sickert is completely false, as profilers don't do that, they take about types of people, not specific people. You are demonstrating your lack of knowledge of the topic by making those statements.”
>>I’d like to ask our readers to step back, take a deep breath, and develop an appreciation of the pathology of this position. Read it over a few times. Mr. Norder says that my statement that the Whitechapel murderer has been professionally profiled as Kosminski, Cohen and Sickert, as I posted recently on this thread, is “completely false” because profilers “don’t talk about specific people.” Mr. Norder tells us this despite universal awareness that the FBI’s professional profiler Mr. Roy Hazelwood has profiled JtR as Aaron Kosminski, and that the FBI’s professional profiler Mr. John Douglas has profiled him as David Cohen, and that Cornwell together with her professional profiling assistants have profiled him as Walter Sickert. Mr. Hazelwood says his profile “fits Kosminski dead bang,” and Mr. Douglas says his fits “either David Cohen, or someone very much like him.” Each reader who accepts Mr. Norder as his or her Editor ought to reflect over his patently deceitful public statement. What manner of compulsion, and utter disregard for truthfulness, would be required for him to be saying something like this to us?
4. ”Cornwell is just as proven of a quack as Tumblety was, just in different fields. They both have made false claims of expertise, they both sold products that didn't live up to the promises, and so forth. If you object to Cornwell being called a quack then the same arguments can be made to claim that Tumblety was not one either. Once again your entire argument comes down to you believing that one conclusion is right and one is wrong and not providing any sort of rational explanation for why that would be. You just state your own opinion as a fact and ridicule others for not agreeing with you.”
>>This is no more than fantasies, obsessions, and scrambled thinking on the part of Mr. Norder, who apparently wants to be seen cutting some considerable dash as a debunker, and as bravely delivering a deadly blow to Cornwell on behalf of his readers. Tumblety is obviously a fraud and a quack because of what he did. He claimed he was a doctor and offered medical advice and performed medical procedures lacking an MD degree. Full stop. By definition, he’s a fraud. Correct me if I’m wrong, now, but I’m not aware that Cornwell makes any fraudulent claims about herself anywhere. She’s not falsely claiming she has some kind of professional certificate in profiling, if such a thing exists, she’s only claiming she knows about profiling because she’s read about it and worked with profilers. There is nothing inherently wrong or fraudulent about this claim. People who claim expertise based on study or experience, but lack a certificate in the area, if in fact one exists for the area in question write a great number of books and articles. Lots of non-CPAs have published in “The Journal of Accountancy,” for example, detailing specific debit and credit accounting entries and presentation techniques—they do so based on their experience in various industries with particular or unusual accounting applications, such as the hospital business or municipal government. What’s wrong with that? When Cornwell offers her opinions on the case, how can it be said she does so in quackery? How does her “product not live up to the promises” she makes? All she “promises” us is her logical argument and opinion. In fact her opinion is wrong, her argument to establish Sickert’s guilt is insufficient, and thus she slanders him. But thousands of books published today contain erroneous arguments and are wrong. This doesn’t necessarily mean their authors personally are frauds. Mr. Norder imagines expertise as a purely objective matter and limited to his narrow definition, but in large measure it is also an open, ethical one. One needs to be able to appreciate how one’s own subjectivity may be influencing what one claims about oneself, and to have a conscience. Now if someone writes a book or article about a field where a certificate is a presumed requirement, that’s different. I’d think it would be pushing hard against the definition of fraud, for example, if someone without an MD wrote a book about the human spine and offered specific remedies and techniques to deal with its injuries and diseases, because the MD certification exists and people writing about specifics in this area are presumed to have it.
5. “And OF COURSE I link Cornwell to frauds, because she made several claims that are proven false. It's not so much that I am unfairly using words to try to falsely give that impression, as you seem to be implying, but that those of us around here for any length of time can name off a long, long list of things she got completely wrong, and a number of them being things that are not really excusable for someone claiming to write nonfiction.”
>>There is no logical operation of “linking someone to frauds”--one either is a fraud, or one is not. And lots of authors are incompetent. They get things completely wrong, and make claims that are proved false. And I guess Mr. Norder is right, there is no excuse for publishing such material; the author ought to make very sure of what he or she publishes before the book comes out, and even then there is risk. But errors and inadequacies alone surely don’t make them quacks or frauds; it just means they are wrong. Should we think Don Rumbelow a quack for advocating Druitt? After all, he didn’t prove him guilty. How about Stewart Evans for Tumblety, a homosexual most unlikely to mount a campaign of murder against women? Plus, since Druitt and Tumblety can’t both be the Ripper, at least one of them has got to have it completely wrong. But they are surely not frauds, I think. These authors are competent with the case evidence and their positions. They are wrong, but wrong doesn’t imply fraud. Mr. Norder’s feeling that Cornwell is just so bloody wrong she’s a quack is a failure on his part to recognize the relativism of his thinking. Cornwell is not nearly as competent as Rumbelow and Evans, but she is no more wrong than they.
This goes by the boards, of course, if it is shown that Cornwell is hiding some empirical information that would make it impossible for Sickert to have done the murders—such as that he had been in France during the Terror, for example. Then she would be a fraud.
6. “I mean, come on David, you used to post lots of criticism of Cornwell yourself. The only time you were ever quoted in a Ripper journal was when you were making fun of Cornwell for the same things I am making fun of her for now.”
>>I’m a serious person, and I don’t see criticism as making fun of anybody. Fraud further is a very serious charge, and should never be made facetiously. I do not think of Cornwell as a fraud, and have not expressed such an opinion of her in the past. If I have, please cite it in full here.
7. “It looks like you are just so used to disagreeing with whatever I say that you'll contradict me even for saying something you already said.”
>>Please quote and cite me in this regard, Mr. Norder. But you’ve already borne false witness against me in terms of what I’ve said hundreds of times on this web site, haven’t you, and plan to do so many times more?
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 903
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, September 18, 2005 - 9:13 pm: |
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Hi David,
Another long post full of misinformation and false accusations. It's always amusing to see you post here, thanks.
"We aren’t talking about “coming to a conclusion before you investigate” in the case of Cornwell."
Actually, YES, yes we are. She says she knew who did it before she investigated and her "investigation" consisted of twisted facts and mistakes solely used to try to prove she was right, not to try to be accurate.
"I wouldn’t want to take the side of an argument that works against a logician purely on the basis that chronologically he had made up his mind concerning his conclusion before he formulated his premises. That would be tantamount to suicide."
Suicide for your ridiculous theory, yes, as you made up your mind before you did any research also.
This isn't a question of forming a hypothesis and then testing it and willing to discard it if the facts don't fit it, which is perfectly fine of course. It's a case of making up one's mind beforehand and facts be damned.
"As long as she doesn’t misreport what a professional profiler has said, what’s wrong with this procedure?"
But she DOES misreport what they said, hello, pay attention.
"despite universal awareness that the FBI’s professional profiler Mr. Roy Hazelwood has profiled JtR as Aaron Kosminski, and that the FBI’s professional profiler Mr. John Douglas has profiled him as David Cohen"
That's not "universal awareness", that's you being highly misinformed again. They picked those people as likely supects based upon a small sampling of people to choose from and pointed out that it could also be lots of other possible people who just weren't listed to them as known suspects. They most certainly DID NOT name either of those people as being Jack the Ripper as part of a profile process. Profilers do NOT name who is guilty, that's just not what they do by any stretch of the imagination.
"Correct me if I’m wrong, now, but I’m not aware that Cornwell makes any fraudulent claims about herself anywhere."
She pretends to have a professional background in forensic science, which she does not have. She worked as a secretary and misrepresents her background to convince people that she is educated on the topic.
"How does her “product not live up to the promises” she makes?"
Do the words "Case Closed" mean anything to you?
"But thousands of books published today contain erroneous arguments and are wrong. This doesn’t necessarily mean their authors personally are frauds."
They are frauds if they knowingly misrepresent themselves or the facts. Many of these authors you allude to are not outright frauds, no. Cornwell, however, has been chronic in her abuse of facts. For example, her latest ads claiming to not be obsessed about Walter Sickert makes the claims that nobody has shown that Sickert was in France during the Ripper murders and a number of other things that are willful distortions of the truth. She is a fraud, because she knows that if she tells the truth her claims are obviously unsupported and wrong so she chooses not to tell the truth and still proclaim herself right.
"if it is shown that Cornwell is hiding some empirical information that would make it impossible for Sickert to have done the murders—such as that he had been in France during the Terror, for example. Then she would be a fraud."
Well, see, your problem was that you just weren't paying attention then I guess. Now that you agree she is a fraud you can apologize for your comments and admit I was right. OK, you should do those things, but then I sincerely doubt you would ever actually do such a thing.
"But you’ve already borne false witness against me in terms of what I’ve said hundreds of times on this web site, haven’t you"
Actually, no... You just make always that claim when I catch you saying something that is wrong or disrespectful, and then, when I post a direct link to what you said proving it, you just claim everyone else in the world misread it and that the words actually have different meanings to you than the definitions in use by the rest of the world.
In other words, you're up to your same old nonsense.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 1000
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, September 18, 2005 - 9:31 pm: |
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Dear Dave;
I ask you once more...
Two or three years ago, you said that Cornwell's lesbianism influenced her methodology in arriving at the conclusions she had made at the time....
...do you still agree with those sentiments?
...and if you weren't aware, Cornwell now asks for a "teamwork" approach in one of her paid adverts to deducing the solution to the Case...something Dan forgot to mention.
1000 posts....where's my free auto!!!!!
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Howard Brown
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Howard
Post Number: 1003
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Monday, September 19, 2005 - 5:36 am: |
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Dave:
Forget about the post above,pal. Just shine it on. You don't have to reply.
No big thing... |
Maria Giordano
Inspector
Username: Mariag
Post Number: 467
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Monday, September 19, 2005 - 10:29 am: |
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Just for the record,folks, Douglass said that he thought the Ripper was someone LIKE David Cohen(in the book Cases that Haunt Us).Not specifically David Cohen himself.
This knee-jerk reaction to Dan Norder's posts is getting pretty old.
Mags
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R.J. Palmer
Chief Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 711
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, September 19, 2005 - 4:54 pm: |
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This is rather like splitting hairs. Having just read Mr. Douglas's book, I'd have to say that he comes as close to completely endorsing the David Cohen theory as someone possibly could. He discusses Fido's theory in considerable detail, and his hesitation is because of historical uncertainties in a case so old.
As for "knee jerk" reactions, please note that I orginally wrote:
"I see [Cornwell] as a natural result and extension of the pop-Psychology, F.B.I. Behavioral Science Unit, "sexual serial killer", profiling culture. She breaths it with every breath." (RP 9/12)
Please note: natural result and extension.
Mr. Norder's response (9/14) was to act outraged that I had claimed that Cornwell "represented the field."
But clearly I made no such claim.
My argument was---and I completely stand by it-- that Ressler & Douglas made a very dubious, descriptive, and superficial model of the so-called 'serial killer.' Yes, folks, ideas matter. The title of one of John Douglas's chapter's in Mindhunter was something along the lines of "The Murderer Will Have a Stutter." Doesn't anyone really believe this? Does anyone really think you can look at the body of a mangled victim and determine the murderer will have a certain physical abnormality? If so, what was Bundy's defect? Dahmers? So for 'stutter' please read fistula. It's hiding one's head in the sand to argue that Cornwell wasn't deeply influenced by this superficial model and used it extensively in her arguments (as did, say, Bruce Paley). Ergo, I happen to agree with the brunt of Mr. Radka's argument above. Ressler & Douglas in a number of popular books and countless popular documentaries have promoted a superficial model, (what I call a 'descriptive model' because it describes superficial effects rather than causes). To argue that Cornwell doesn't represent "the field", or that profilers would need to have endorsed her findings (which I never argued) ducks the issue and is an arguement that ideas don't matter.
(Message edited by rjpalmer on September 19, 2005) |
David Radka
Sergeant
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 15
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 3:40 pm: |
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I agree with Mr. Roger J. Palmer in his post immediately above 100%.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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Steve Swift
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 3:18 pm: |
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Does anyone really think you can look at the body of a mangled victim and determine the murderer will have a certain physical abnormality?
Does anyone, apart from you, think it's as simple as all that? |
David Radka
Sergeant
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 16
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 23, 2005 - 12:53 pm: |
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1. Mr. Radka wrote: "We aren’t talking about “coming to a conclusion before you investigate” in the case of Cornwell."
Mr. Norder answered: “Actually, YES, yes we are. She says she knew who did it before she investigated and her "investigation" consisted of twisted facts and mistakes solely used to try to prove she was right, not to try to be accurate.”
>>No we are not, Mr. Norder. Ms Cornwell offers empirical evidence and reasoned argument concerning the identity of the Whitechapel murderer, and it is on the merits of these that her work sinks or swims. To say that she made up her mind before she developed her arguments may be part of an explanation concerning why demerits appear in her work, but it can’t be used in itself to find her work inadequate. You falsely imply that making up one’s mind relatively early is always a fatal error, or that it cannot be overcome later, despite that the point at which Cornwell made up her mind is unrelated to her arguments. Thus you create a kind of spurious ‘reality’ or continuum of Cornwell’s for yourself, within which you imagine you ‘catch’ her deciding falsely. But reality is relative to the individual, yours is relative to you; truth is a different matter. Yours is not a truth-based criticism of Cornwell but a reality-based one, and because it is therefore subjective on your part, it isn’t really criticism at all. Vast numbers of philosophical arguments, including many of those on which western culture is founded, have been arrived at by guessing the conclusion ahead of formulating part or sometimes all of the argument. Philosophers regularly critique works in terms of how the argument could be changed to better justify the conclusion, taken as given.
Since Mr. Norder so lavishly indulges himself in this sort of ersatz “debunking” on this web site, anyone reading him ought to keep the following little maxim from the critic Mr. Sidney Corngold in mind:
“(A critic must beware of) …the empty generality of psychoanalytic criticism that fuses and dissolves the manifest textual intent into a latent biographical intent, then confidently lends it the stature of the archetype…The empirical biographical intent of a work can be so insignificant in contrast with the depth of the work as to be instructive…” --From his critique of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.”
In other words, Cornwell may have desperately wanted to blame Walter Sickert, she may have trumped up her whole position in a pique at what he may represent to her, and we might wish to take this position to explain why she chooses an argument against him that fails, but at the same time we must keep all that separate from her argument per se. The argument taken in itself either attains to the truth of the matter, or it doesn’t.
2. Mr. Norder wrote: “This isn't a question of forming a hypothesis and then testing it and willing to discard it if the facts don't fit it, which is perfectly fine of course. It's a case of making up one's mind beforehand and facts be damned.”
>>A “facts be damned” approach would likely lead to an inadequate argument, I must agree. But pace any assumption that this is how Cornwell may have proceeded, we aren’t here primarily to criticize her personally, are we? Aren’t we here to criticize her work? Let me tell you something of what I subjectively think about you, Mr. Norder. You apparently want to hurt people, in this case Patricia Cornwell. You want to get in very close, and deliver a devastating blow from point-blank range. You think that by doing this, you feather your own editorial nest. That’s why you so often deal in the mode of ‘reality.’ Now, I don’t use this opinion of your latent biographical intent to criticize your arguments, although I do use it to explain in part why you make so many invalid arguments.
3. Mr. Radka wrote: "As long as she doesn’t misreport what a professional profiler has said, what’s wrong with this procedure?" Mr. Norder replied: “But she DOES misreport what they said, hello, pay attention.”
>>I don’t believe she does, Mr. Norder. I think you are attempting to pass off some bull sham on us. Please cite in detail the profiler she is misreporting and the specific nature of the misreporting, giving textual references we can verify. Please don’t give us another one of your non sequitor “reality lessons.”
4. Mr. Radka wrote: "despite universal awareness that the FBI’s professional profiler Mr. Roy Hazelwood has profiled JtR as Aaron Kosminski, and that the FBI’s professional profiler Mr. John Douglas has profiled him as David Cohen" Mr. Norder responded: “That's not "universal awareness", that's you being highly misinformed again. They picked those people as likely supects based upon a small sampling of people to choose from and pointed out that it could also be lots of other possible people who just weren't listed to them as known suspects. They most certainly DID NOT name either of those people as being Jack the Ripper as part of a profile process. Profilers do NOT name who is guilty, that's just not what they do by any stretch of the imagination.”
>>Notice how Mr. Norder compulsively tries to slip psuedoscience by us in order to fudge his way out of a jam. The term “sampling” sounds scientific, and by his use of it here he appears to the distracted reader to rather be making some sort of cogent point about profiling. Add that to his huffy tone, and such a reader would be inclined to believe he’s “shot me down” above. But profiling has nothing to do with sampling. Profilers do not sample. Therefore the notion that Hazelwood’s and Douglas’ profiles of the Whitechapel murderer aren’t really of Kosminski and Cohen as I say because the sample was too small is invalid. Note the flourishing finish, too: he points out that by no stretch of the imagination do profilers determine guilt. This is absolutely true, and I must agree 100% with it, but it’s got nothing to do with the question of whether or not Hazelwood profiled JtR as Kosminski, and Douglas as Cohen. Hazelwood’s interview on the Discovery Channel and Douglas’ book (as attested to by Mr. Palmer above) amply document my position.
I’m shaking my head, here in my little office. I can’t believe Mr. Norder has followers.
5. Mr. Radka said: "Correct me if I’m wrong, now, but I’m not aware that Cornwell makes any fraudulent claims about herself anywhere." Mr. Norder said: “She pretends to have a professional background in forensic science, which she does not have. She worked as a secretary and misrepresents her background to convince people that she is educated on the topic.”
>>Does she say she’s got a degree or a professional certificate in forensic science? Does she specifically claim to have legally conducted forensic examinations on her own? Of course not. She’s buddied up to people who have, observed them in action, she praises them highly, and says she’s read a good deal on the subject herself. She then claims that’s good enough for the competence she needs to write her book on JtR. Irrespective of whether or not she’s right about who JtR was, who’s to say it isn’t? She is not saying that she has a formal “education” in forensic science, such as a college degree or a certificate. You only imagine that her reality is tantamount to her doing so, once again so that you may thereupon “catch” her misrepresenting herself. I shake my head.
6. Mr. R: "How does her “product not live up to the promises” she makes?" Mr. N: “Do the words "Case Closed" mean anything to you?”
>>Exaggeration and non sequitor. Just because she has a defective book doesn’t mean she is a fraud and a quack.
7. Mr. R: "But thousands of books published today contain erroneous arguments and are wrong. This doesn’t necessarily mean their authors personally are frauds." Mr. N: “They are frauds if they knowingly misrepresent themselves or the facts. Many of these authors you allude to are not outright frauds, no. Cornwell, however, has been chronic in her abuse of facts. For example, her latest ads claiming to not be obsessed about Walter Sickert makes the claims that nobody has shown that Sickert was in France during the Ripper murders and a number of other things that are willful distortions of the truth. She is a fraud, because she knows that if she tells the truth her claims are obviously unsupported and wrong so she chooses not to tell the truth and still proclaim herself right.”
>>Exaggeration, non sequitor, inability to discount one’s own subjectivity. You present yourself as able to climb into Cornwell’s reality and make pronouncements about it. Her “abuse of facts” is your opinion, and to some extent it holds water. But at worst all it does is damn the work, not the author personally. No one has conclusively proven that Sickert was in France during the Terror; that is also still an opinion at this point.
8. Mr. R: "if it is shown that Cornwell is hiding some empirical information that would make it impossible for Sickert to have done the murders—such as that he had been in France during the Terror, for example. Then she would be a fraud." Mr. N: “Well, see, your problem was that you just weren't paying attention then I guess. Now that you agree she is a fraud you can apologize for your comments and admit I was right. OK, you should do those things, but then I sincerely doubt you would ever actually do such a thing.”
>>Please cite this information in detail, providing references. Tell us how and when Cornwell obtained it.
9. Mr. R: "But you’ve already borne false witness against me in terms of what I’ve said hundreds of times on this web site, haven’t you" Mr. N: “Actually, no... You just make always that claim when I catch you saying something that is wrong or disrespectful, and then, when I post a direct link to what you said proving it, you just claim everyone else in the world misread it and that the words actually have different meanings to you than the definitions in use by the rest of the world. In other words, you're up to your same old nonsense.”
>>Your positions against me are as empty as those of yours against Cornwell are exaggerated. IMHO, you like to hurt people.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1735
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 23, 2005 - 1:17 pm: |
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David,
You mean Stanley, not Sidney, right?
A huge Kafka fan,
--John |
David Radka
Sergeant
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 17
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 23, 2005 - 1:36 pm: |
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Stanley, correct. I liked this quote so much I typed it out and posted it to my cork bulletin board. It's been there since about 1984. The paper is now so yellowed I misread the name.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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David Radka
Sergeant
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 20
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 8:36 pm: |
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Mr. Brown wrote: “Dear Dave...Don't be offended,okay ? Two or three years ago, you said that Cornwell's lesbianism influenced her methodology in arriving at the conclusions she had made at the time...do you still agree with those sentiments? Thank you.”
>>I think Cornwell’s Lesbianism may well have had something to do with how she worked on the case, albeit her work stands alone on its propositions and conclusions to sink or swim. In an autobiographical sense, her work may be said to amount to little more than gossip about a man who represents the hated male stereotype to her, replete with its sternness, nastiness, possessiveness and violence toward women, and so on through the usual litany of female complaints about men. We have to have minds broad enough to recognize both of these perspectives, while at the same time keeping them distinct across the ranges of the many issues that apply to them. It wouldn’t be the first time that an innocent man was gossiped about by a Lesbian and fingered for the Whitechapel murders. Vittoria Cremers and Mabel Collins were Lesbians, and I suspect the same sort of harrowing gossiping was going on between them concerning Stephenson as is found in Cornwell’s book. What is inherently wrong with maintaining this duality of perspectives? The matter seems straight enough to me, and moreover is confirmed in the history of study of this case.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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Howard Brown
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Howard
Post Number: 1031
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 5:59 am: |
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Dear Dave;
Thank you for the response. Good point there,regarding Cremers and Collins [ who although involved with Cremers, batted from both sides of the plate to be honest..]. You may well be right...
I've thought about Cremers the same way that you had mentioned a while back about Cornwell. Thats why I asked you,as you were the only one who,rightfully so or just in musing, who had mentioned a theorists' or "evidence" bearer being influenced by their sexual bent.
Thanks again.
How Brown
Prop.
WWW.JTRForums.com
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Melissa Turcios
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, November 13, 2005 - 1:56 am: |
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In re-reading this post, it seems like I’m picking on you Mr. Radka; this was unintentional. I’m sorry in advance because I don’t want to incur your wrath.
Mr. Radka QUOTE: How can it be said that it matters at all in what order [Cornwall] thought it? If she presents a series of arguments (If A, then B; If B, then C) why should she be blamed if she had thought of C before A in the chronological sense? […] Perhaps she initially did fancy him guilty simply because John Greaves recommended him to her. But specifically how does this impact her logic that Sickert was guilty?
(I’m going to quote myself because I feel strongly about this) A quick review of the scientific method hammered into our heads in grade school will show you that you do not BEGIN with a CONCLUSION (i.e that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper) but that BASED ON THE EVIDENCE you DEVELOP a conclusion. Her writing is not the writing of a scientist, enumerating facts and drawing reasonable and irrefutable conclusions, rather she uses elaborate legerdemain and acrobatic logic to CIRCUMVENT THE FACTS. This is not science and this is certainly NOT JUSTICE. (You will say this is not the argument- read on)
All persons, whether guilty or not, deserve to have their supposed crimes to be justly and, moreover, objectively evaluated. If an investigation begins without impartiality, the results should not be completely trusted. “Innocent until proven guilty” should be the foundation of every investigation. Any circumvention of this easy-to-adhere-to axiom cannot possibly result in a fair evaluation of guilt, even if this conclusion is ultimately correct. I know people may question this statement, but I sincerely mean it. So, I’m sorry Mr. Radka, but I can’t acknowledge an investigation that began with bias, and, moreover, is perpetuated with and by bias. I cannot emphasize enough that you read her book… again.
Mr. Radka QUOTE: Vast numbers of philosophical arguments, including many of those on which western culture is founded, have been arrived at by guessing the conclusion ahead of formulating part or sometimes all of the argument.
This isn’t pondering on the greater questions of life. A man’s reputation is defamed. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but a famous artists’ character should not be “conclusively” defamed on opinion alone. She does not have to be famous or have background in forensics (although it would be nice), she just needs to understand that because of what she wrote you can’t put flowers on his grave on some online site. Because of what she wrote, a talented artist has had his abilities largely obscured by a largely unsubstantiated theory.
Mr. Radka QUOTE: But at worst all it does is damn the work, not the author personally.
Why would ANYONE who HONESTLY wanted to search for truth “abuse facts”? What kind of person does that make you if you don’t treat facts fairly or treat the reader/jury fairly when a man’s reputation is at stake? I find that VERY damning both argument-wise and character-wise.
Howard Brown QUOTE: You may well be right,R.J. People with ideas from out of left field may be the solution...who knows?
…So long as they don’t have to be misleading. ::grins::
- Melissa Turcios |
Dan Norder
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 1001
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - 1:27 pm: |
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Hi Melissa,
Yes, there's a huge difference between coming up with a hypothesis that you test against the evidence and coming up with a conclusion that you manipulate the evidence to match up with. Scientists do the former, Cornwell and Radka (and all too many other people) do the latter.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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David Radka
Detective Sergeant
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 56
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 9:09 pm: |
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Ms Turcios wrote:
1. “A quick review of the scientific method hammered into our heads in grade school will show you that you do not BEGIN with a CONCLUSION (i.e. that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper) but that BASED ON THE EVIDENCE you DEVELOP a conclusion. Her writing is not the writing of a scientist, enumerating facts and drawing reasonable and irrefutable conclusions, rather she uses elaborate legerdemain and acrobatic logic to CIRCUMVENT THE FACTS. This is not science and this is certainly NOT JUSTICE…”
>>I agree, “she uses elaborate legerdemain and acrobatic logic.” She presents no reasonable evidence to link Sickert to a crime scene; instead, she merely indicates that he was, in her opinion, the sort of man to be the Whitechapel murderer.
I do not entirely agree that what she does “is not science.” I don’t see any reason to disbelieve her DNA work per se, albeit it fails to show a connection of the letters to the murders. To the extent she uses the scientific method and her conclusions are fully based on her experiments, I wouldn’t think we should fault her. Whether we like it or not, she has used the tool of science, despite that she thereupon broadens her scientific conclusions into irrational statements.
I do not agree that we are seeking “justice” in studying the Whitechapel murders. What we are doing is epistemology. We are trying to find some fundamental concept that will unify the case evidence as a whole. There was no justice done at the time in this now over 100 year-old case, and there cannot be any done now.
2. “All persons, whether guilty or not, deserve to have their supposed crimes to be justly and, moreover, objectively evaluated. If an investigation begins without impartiality, the results should not be completely trusted.”
>>What you are illicitly doing here is trying to get us to buy the equating of science (“objectively evaluated”) with justice. But science is only a tool used to understand the empirical world, it is not justice. Many scientific people make science their personal lifestyle to such a degree that they can’t see any difference between it and whatever else may be good and desirable. Science obviates faith, you can’t believe in both Darwin and Christ, science is justice, science is the only valid methodology, science explains subjective and inter-subjective phenomena, science is all we need, etc.
2. ““Innocent until proven guilty” should be the foundation of every investigation. Any circumvention of this easy-to-adhere-to axiom cannot possibly result in a fair evaluation of guilt, even if this conclusion is ultimately correct.”
What conclusion do you mean? I can’t follow what you are saying.
Be that as it may, it should be emphasized there is no way to prove who the Whitechapel murderer was purely empirically. Thus we cannot have any “result in a fair evaluation of guilt” as you wish. If you think a purely empirical methodology is available, please say what it is. If you can’t and you still wish to be a Ripperologist, then you have to change what you want.
3. “I know people may question this statement, but I sincerely mean it. So, I’m sorry Mr. Radka, but I can’t acknowledge an investigation that began with bias, and, moreover, is perpetuated with and by bias. I cannot emphasize enough that you read her book… again.”
>>Why does it matter what we think of first? Doesn’t the order of ideas count for something? Did Hegel write all the transformations in “The Science of Logic” in their proper order? Did he personally start with “Being, pure Being,” or instead did he perhaps start with “Nothing, pure Nothing?” Who are you to say that Cornwell’s investigation “began with bias?” Were you a fly on her wall at the time? How do you know how she proceeded? Are not her logical arguments what we are evaluating, not her personal subjectivity? So what if she’s got peccadilloes?
4. “Mr. Radka QUOTE: Vast numbers of philosophical arguments, including many of those on which western culture is founded, have been arrived at by guessing the conclusion ahead of formulating part or sometimes all of the argument.” This isn’t pondering on the greater questions of life. A man’s reputation is defamed. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but a famous artists’ character should not be “conclusively” defamed on opinion alone. She does not have to be famous or have background in forensics (although it would be nice), she just needs to understand that because of what she wrote you can’t put flowers on his grave on some online site. Because of what she wrote, a talented artist has had his abilities largely obscured by a largely unsubstantiated theory.”
>>If we have a good argument that Sickert dunnit, then we ought to say so. The problem is that Cornwell doesn’t have a good argument, but she says so. I wouldn’t want to say we need absolute scientific proof to say so, because the scientific method is only one of many ways to know. Many other ways of knowing exist, such as in philosophy or the larger realm of the arts and sciences. What do you want to do, banish these? Who are you to do that?
5. “Mr. Radka QUOTE: But at worst all it does is damn the work, not the author personally. Why would ANYONE who HONESTLY wanted to search for truth “abuse facts”? What kind of person does that make you if you don’t treat facts fairly or treat the reader/jury fairly when a man’s reputation is at stake? I find that VERY damning both argument-wise and character-wise.”
>>I know plenty of people, some of them good, who “abuse facts.” I myself have “abused facts” in honest searches for the truth. If you don’t search for truth really hard, and take the risk of maybe abusing some facts, you aren’t going to find very much truth. I have to give Ms Cornwell credit for pushing the envelope of what she could do, as did Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The problem is she learned she couldn’t fly through solid rock like he. Remember Chiang?
6. “In re-reading this post, it seems like I’m picking on you Mr. Radka; this was unintentional. I’m sorry in advance because I don’t want to incur your wrath.”
>>Wrath, schmrath. If you don’t ask questions, you don’t learn anything.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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Eric Haks
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - 12:03 am: |
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“Mr. Radka QUOTE: Why does it matter what we think of first? Doesn't the order of ideas count for something? Did Hegel write all the transformations in "The Science of Logic" in their proper order? Did he personally start with "Being, pure Being," or instead did he perhaps start with "Nothing, pure Nothing?" Who are you to say that Cornwell's investigation "began with bias?" Were you a fly on her wall at the time? How do you know how she proceeded?"
>>Why doesn't it matter what we think of first? Does the order of ideas count for something? Did Hegel write all the transformations in "The Science of Logic" in their proper order? Did he personally start with "Nothing, pure Nothing," or instead did he perhaps start with "Being, pure Being?" Who are you to say that Cornwell's investigation didn't "begin with bias?" Were you a fly on her wall at the time? How do you know how she proceeded?
"Mr. Radka QUOTE: If we have a good argument that Sickert dunnit[...]"
>>Did you happen to lose your SAT thesaurus?
"Mr. Radka QUOTE: Wrath, schmrath."
>>Is it anywhere near your rhyming dictionary?
PS Who the heck says peccadilloes?
PPS Aren't you banned or something? |
Melissa Turcios
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 21, 2005 - 11:44 pm: |
|
Well, to start at the beginning, I don't mean that I'm going to throw Walter Sickert out of 'The Grande Olde List o' Suspects' based on a couple investigations not done the way I would have liked. In fact, Walter Sickert isn't such a bad suspect, especially when compared to the others I've read about. The issue I took with Cornwall’s book was that she jumped the gun with her assertion that "He is Jack the Ripper." You see, when you mess around with words like "guilty" and "innocent" or "serial killer responsible for the mutilations of approximately half a dozen victims in the Whitechapel area," it's dangerous and damning business. This is unfair to readers who aren't discerning enough to realize when she's just supposing or theorizing because her entire book is written in the same authoritative voice. There isn't a clear line where fact ends and theorizing begins, because she uses her theories to later support her other theories (e.g. the fistula). This isn't entirely fair, and it may not be very honest either, (that's another argument we started to get into, but one thing at a time).
This is also unfair to Walter Sickert because even if these conclusions may be ultimately correct, they're premature and mostly subjective. That's what I meant by: If an investigation begins without impartiality [or "innocent until proven guilty"], the results should not be completely trusted.” When subjective evidence is going to be a large portion of the argument, I have to say that I’ll take her argument with a barrelful of salt knowing that she had already made up her mind prior to investigating.
Mr. Radka QUOTE: “Who are you to say that Cornwell’s investigation “began with bias?” Were you a fly on her wall?
>>Do I think she began with bias? Yes. I used bias to mean that she had begun with a pre-existing inclination towards Sickert that would inhibit impartial judgment. Impartial judgment (which is VERY important to me in case you haven't noticed  ) is the only thing that can really ground an investigation founded on a lot of subjective evidence (in a world in which so many other divergent pet theories exist!).
Of course, I wasn’t a fly on her wall, but she did say herself that she’d virtually made up her mind on Walter from the get-go without really looking into the evidence.
Mr. Radka QUOTE: “Are not her logical arguments what we are evaluating, not her personal subjectivity?”
>>-But the point I’m trying to make is that you can’t take the subjectivity out of her arguments! This is why they fall apart and why its premature to say “Case Closed: Man Condemned”!
Mr. Radka QUOTE: “What you are illicitly doing here is trying to get us to buy the equating of science (“objectively evaluated”) with justice. But science is only a tool used to understand the empirical world, it is not justice.”
Well, of course I understand that they’re not the same thing, but Cornwall is using science (or the scientific method) to arrive at a verdict isn’t she? I’m not saying there the same, I’m saying there’s a confluence between them; I don’t really see the big deal about creating a link between the scientific method and the legal process. In an ideal investigation, guilt should be “objectively evaluated” and tested against facts to determine whether a hypothesis is correct.
Mr. Radka QUOTE: “Be that as it may, it should be emphasized there is no way to prove who the Whitechapel murderer was purely empirically.”
>>I agree with you completely. |
N. Beresford.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, November 25, 2005 - 6:14 pm: |
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The trouble is that 'non-justice' can be done which I think was Ms Turcios' point. The very nature of epistemology will have justice as it's bi-product or even starting point, not non-justice.
David, if you do not have justice you can never know if you've solved the case unless you sweep it under the carpet because somebody has to face the evidence ie. it has to be presented to someone.
David, crimes are evaluated on the whole objectively and everything in law and statutes tries to get the system more and more this way taking much of the decision making away from the judge who has to use his experience of previous cases to guide his judgement.
Well, I can tell you that guilt is not guilt without justice.
The thing is her investigation may have ended with bias.
"but a famous artists’ character should not be “conclusively” defamed on opinion alone." - Exactly - hence the observation of bias, non-justice. The book in itself is circumstantial evidence which is weighty in any case. |
David Radka
Detective Sergeant
Username: Dradka
Post Number: 74
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - 9:50 pm: |
|
Ms Turcios wrote:
1. “The issue I took with Cornwall’s book was that she jumped the gun with her assertion that "He is Jack the Ripper." You see, when you mess around with words like "guilty" and "innocent" or "serial killer responsible for the mutilations of approximately half a dozen victims in the Whitechapel area," it's dangerous and damning business. This is unfair to readers who aren't discerning enough to realize when she's just supposing or theorizing because her entire book is written in the same authoritative voice. There isn't a clear line where fact ends and theorizing begins, because she uses her theories to later support her other theories (e.g. the fistula). This isn't entirely fair, and it may not be very honest either, (that's another argument we started to get into, but one thing at a time).”
>>Okay, here is my view of her possible motivations for writing the book: Cornwell had built her career on writing fiction about forensic science. While successful, she’s got an imbalance there. While she understands and portrays forensic science truthfully in her novels, forensic science is non-fiction, and she writes about it in fiction. She hears about this from people who she thinks are giving her the high hat; they claim she’s got no real qualifications in the field and can’t contribute beyond a certain point. So Cornwell wants to do something to bridge this gap. Presto! John Greaves shows up in her life and tells her about Sickert. She hires forensic scientists who will answer to her, not vice versa as had been, a big improvement from her perspective. In the end she has a book that is forensically scientific and successful, and the fact that it is fiction concerning the case evidence is lost on her customers, who aren’t Ripperologists. She can say she’s mastered the scientific field and solved a big case. She’s got what she wanted out of it, as she sees it. It’s all a neat little closed loop. Cornwell is tough, tougher than most men, and capable of pushing the hard sell while believing in what she does.
2. “This is also unfair to Walter Sickert because even if these conclusions may be ultimately correct, they're premature and mostly subjective. That's what I meant by: If an investigation begins without impartiality [or "innocent until proven guilty"], the results should not be completely trusted.” When subjective evidence is going to be a large portion of the argument, I have to say that I’ll take her argument with a barrelful of salt knowing that she had already made up her mind prior to investigating.”
>>I take it with a good portion of salt, myself. However, making up her mind ahead of time can’t be proven of her, and even if true still would not damage a good logical argument if she’d offered one. Plenty of doctoral students in philosophy approach their dissertation directors floating various arguments they want to prove or disprove for their work—isn’t that equivalent to Patricia’s first meeting with John Greaves? In the end it’s what the argument says that counts, not who believed what when.
3. “Mr. Radka QUOTE: “Who are you to say that Cornwell’s investigation “began with bias?” Were you a fly on her wall?
Ms Turcios: Do I think she began with bias? Yes. I used bias to mean that she had begun with a pre-existing inclination towards Sickert that would inhibit impartial judgment. Impartial judgment (which is VERY important to me in case you haven't noticed ) is the only thing that can really ground an investigation founded on a lot of subjective evidence (in a world in which so many other divergent pet theories exist!).”
>>Okay, let’s think through the possibility that she did begin with a pre-existing inclination. In fact her pre-existing inclination would probably have been much more subtle and complex than even you give her credit for, Ms Turcios. I think she possibly wanted to write herself into the non-fiction category, out of all sorts of greedy lusts and sublimated wishes and purposes, and she cold-bloodedly used Sickert’s reputation to do so. Cornwell might be the type of woman who uses men--you don’t have to be heterosexual to do that. But I still say: So what? Everyone has got all kinds of hidden agendas—you and I included. We can still function, can’t we?
4. “Of course, I wasn’t a fly on her wall, but she did say herself that she’d virtually made up her mind on Walter from the get-go without really looking into the evidence.”
>>As long as she doesn’t claim Sickert dunnit because her women’s intuition tells her so, what’s the problem? She says he dunnit because of her argument.
5. “Mr. Radka QUOTE: “Are not her logical arguments what we are evaluating, not her personal subjectivity?”
Ms Turcios: But the point I’m trying to make is that you can’t take the subjectivity out of her arguments! This is why they fall apart and why its premature to say “Case Closed: Man Condemned”!”
>>Her arguments fall apart because she can’t link the DNA on the postage stamps to a crime scene, not because she believes what she believes about Sickert, or because her Daddy spanked her, etc.
6. “Mr. Radka QUOTE: “What you are illicitly doing here is trying to get us to buy the equating of science (“objectively evaluated”) with justice. But science is only a tool used to understand the empirical world, it is not justice.”
Ms Turcios: Well, of course I understand that they’re not the same thing, but Cornwall is using science (or the scientific method) to arrive at a verdict isn’t she? I’m not saying there the same, I’m saying there’s a confluence between them; I don’t really see the big deal about creating a link between the scientific method and the legal process. In an ideal investigation, guilt should be “objectively evaluated” and tested against facts to determine whether a hypothesis is correct.”
>>You are trying to cross a cat with a dog, to get a ‘cog.’ Justice is a different matter than science; we can’t have ‘justince.’ Cornwell does not give a verdict; she is not herself a court, judge or jury. Is the second law of thermodynamics just? When we observe heat passing from a warm room to a relatively cooler one, is there a confluence with justice there? I think not. Science is a tool; justice a more human thing. Is a jury verdict an ‘objective evaluation,’ or is it what twelve people believe?
Thank you for an excellent post, Ms Turcios. I think you are an intelligent and thoughtful Ripperologist. I hope that you will consider joining us on the A?R M&R thread someday.
David M. Radka
Author: "Alternative Ripperology: Questioning the Whitechapel Murders"
Casebook Dissertations Section
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c.d.
Detective Sergeant
Username: Cd
Post Number: 110
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - 10:08 pm: |
|
I'm having trouble remembering. Can someone help me out? I know that Ms. Cornwell did her DNA investigations on the stamps used on the Ripper letters but where did she get a sample of Sickert's DNA to compare it to?
c.d. |
Howard Brown
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Howard
Post Number: 1204
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - 10:21 pm: |
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Dear Ms. Turcios:
Mr. Radka means John Grieve,not Greaves, who was a Scotland Yarder.
Dave didn't mention [it wasn't necessary for him to do so...] that Mr. Grieve had opted for someone like Aaron Kosminski, in a pre-Cornwell phase, was probably more likely to have been the Ripper.
Allow me to counter the following claim by my esteemed colleague:
" Cornwell is tough, tougher than most men, and capable of pushing the hard sell while believing in what she does..."
Mr. Radka might be right in the "toughness",as far as aggressiveness...and we all should appreciate tough chicks....but Cornwell didn't really rely on any toughness regarding this book's sales...she has an edge on the Begg's and Sugden's of the world...she had an established style of writing which is found in her fiction writing, which might be something endemic to American crime fiction writing.
As Kevin Braun pointed out,months ago...she has now opted to ask for "help" in research. Maybe she ain't such a tough chick after all,eh? |
Melissa L. Turcios
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 12:24 am: |
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Mr. Radka QUOTE: "Cornwell does not give a verdict; she is not herself a court, judge or jury."
>>The fact is that every writer who purports to write non-fiction has a responsibility to his/her audience. Because the reader may or may not know a lot about a given subject- here Jack the Ripper, the information must be handled delicately. Walter Sickert is dead as are the victims- an actual trial is ridiculous. The only thing remaining is that Sickert is being tried in the eyes of people, and being found guilty by those less discerning because of the deceptive way the book is written.
Thank you very much for the nice comment, Mr. Radka.
- Melissa |
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