JFK Conspiracy Theories: It Never Ends

[Southwind17]

Robert - the shadow effect that gives the impression of a square chin is plainly observable by anybody looking at the photo. This is not an apparent anomaly revealed to us all by the great Jack White. Please tell me there's something of greater revelation that you can ascribe to Jack, that's not readily apparent to the lay observer.

Perfectly logical, and indeed demonstrable, explanations of the impression of a square chin have been provided to you. Please explain, and demonstrate, that these are invalid, rather than continuing to simply claim that the apparent square chin is an anomaly. I'm still offering to provide a line diagram by way of elucidation, if you're struggling to understand what has been very plainly explained to you.

Robert - consider this photo:



Notice the square face, by which I mean the essentially straight shadow line down the centre of the face giving the illusion that half of the face has been chopped off?

This is exactly the same illusion as in the b/y photos of LHO, except that it occurs in the horizontal plane rather than vertical.

The reason we know the face hasn't actually been chopped in half lies simply in our deduction that that is highly unlikely to be the case, and our experience of lighting and shadow. The reason that you don't necessarily default to ascribing this as the cause of the appearance of a square chin on the b/y photos is that some people do actually have square chins. Given the obvious lighting and shadow depicted in other areas of the b/y photo, however, it should be obvious to anybody with reasonable powers of deduction that lighting and shadow is much more likely to be the cause of the apparent square chin than the notion that the photo has been tampered with.

I doubt you'll disagree with the foregoing, although I expect you'll reject it, consistent with your tendency towards obtuseness.

 

[Southwind17]

Robert - if you're struggling to assimilate my last post this might help:



Round face or square face?!

 

[Tomtomkent]

There are several. But there is no point in going into all of them when the one already alluded to has not been refuted -- that would be the square chin in the b/y photos as compared to the rounded chin in his mugshot. If you can refute that simple observation by claiming that the person who points out this anomaly is not an "expert" then there is no need to go any further. Objective reality is taken over by Ad Homienm attack and a fallacious Appeal to Authority.

So because one anomaly has been shown to have an explanation outside of tampering (two if you include the "impossible" shadow, and you cant prove the expertise of your expert you wont tell us what t he rest of the evidence is? Because it will be as easily disproven?

Oh, and please state what ad homenim attack has been made? You presented white as an expert. His expertise have been questioned AS WELL AS the explanation for his "anomalous" chin assertion, not in place of it.

Are your statements ignoring this mistaken or lies?

 

[Tomtomkent]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/526994f69aa82e6e49.jpg[/qimg]

I grow increasingly sure that a Guy Fawks mask is being worn beneath the sand.

I wonder why Robert failed to address the issues.

 

[jargon buster]

Ahem......Robert, your failure to respond speaks volumes.

Do you think the backyard photographs were made to link Oswald to the rifle or to hide the fact of the second shooter?

Robert, if you had 40 witnesses that said I had held up a liquor store and during the trial CCTV footage of someone else holding up the store on the day and time in question was presented by my defence, what do you think would happen?

Again 40 witness statements as opposed to photographic evidence, which is the strongest?

tick, tock, tick, tock.......

 

[Robert Prey]

tick, tock, tick, tock.......

My rule is one question at a time. And it better be an intelligent question or there will be no response.

 

[Robert Prey]

Objective Reality 101. Now boys and girls, are these two chins the same or different????

 

[HSienzant]

I thought I'd have a go at dot-pointing the pertinent features of Robert's current position thus:

• Robert's argument is based wholly on witness statements, both eye witnesses and 'expert' witnesses, believing that witness statements trump physical evidence
• Robert fails to either understand and/or acknowledge the fallibility of eye witnesses
• Robert fails to understand and appreciate that somebody called as an 'expert witness' isn't necessarily an expert, or even competent
• Robert fails to understand the meaning of the following:
  • Ad Hominem
  • Common sense
  • Expert
• Robert fails to understand and appreciate the principle of cause and effect, electing to draw tenuous conclusions from indirectly related information
• Robert fails to understand and appreciate the fallacy of begging the question and circular arguments
• Robert believes that one becomes expert by simply looking long and hard
• Robert believes that if something doesn't accord with his preferred version of events then that thing has necessarily been tampered with
• Robert believes that science is all about repetition
• Robert's response to this will probably be 'baloney'

Have I overlooked anything?!

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/526994f69aa82e6e49.jpg[/qimg]

Robert, apparently trying to be helpful, points out you missed that he has his head in the sand. I would argue that's not precisely where I would put it, but we'll give Robert a pass on that, as it's close enough.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

I do not place faith in Jack White or any other alleged "expert" but in the Evidence itself, a difficult concept for those who worship at the feet of Authority and "expert" assertions.. Nor do I subscribe to all of what Jack White professes concerning the B/Y photo anomalies. But some of what he has has demonstrated is irrefutable by the "science" of simple observation.

Good thing you put "science" in quotes above. Because it's not.

However, there are people with expertise in the relevant area of photo analysis, and they say the photo is unaltered. All you got is your impression of what the photo should show, and the opinion of an man with no expertise in photographic analysis, rather than anything of substance. And your impression, as has been pointed out to you, doesn't take into account the different lighting in the two photos, nor does it take into account one is a sharp focus head shot, and the other is a blurred blowup from a much smaller picture. The negative of the photo in question has been studied and it turns out there is no change in the silver grain pattern even under high magnification, revealing the photo hasn't been tampered with. Both the FBI (in 1964) and the HSCA Photographic panel (in 1978) made that determination, independent of each other.

On the other hand, what do you got?

"It looks wrong to me."

Sorry, that's just another in a long line of logical fallacies by you:

Argument from Personal Incredulity - I cannot explain or understand this, therefore it cannot be true. Creationists are fond of arguing that they cannot imagine the complexity of life resulting from blind evolution, but that does not mean life did not evolve.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx

And this despite the fact it has been explained to you. Repeatedly.



Hank

 

[jargon buster]

My rule is one question at a time. And it better be an intelligent question or there will be no response.

Im pretty sure you can answer them one at a time, you can even use your normal method of multiple unanswered posts if you like.
They are intelligent questions Robert, in fact they are very simplistic, and the reason you duck them is the fact they dont give you a chance to deflect and derail.

Objective Reality 101. Now boys and girls, are these two chins the same or different????

same chin, one with a shadow and one without.
Prove it isnt.

 

[Tomtomkent]

Objective Reality 101. Now boys and girls, are these two chins the same or different????


[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/526994f69cf9db62af.jpg[/qimg]


[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/526994f69cfb07dade.jpg[/qimg]

Same chin. Different lighting.

Odd you argue how differently these images are while claiming an object pointing towards the camera is "exact enough" to an object pointing away from the camera. Identical shapes in differing amounts of shadow are enough to be unmatchable, but polar opposites are "exact enough"?



Laughable inconsistancy.

 

[Tomtomkent]

Eta; joke removed as it may have been in breach of forum rules.

 

[HSienzant]

I do not place faith in Jack White or any other alleged "expert" but in the Evidence itself...

Now you say that. But for the better part of two weeks you've been arguing the precise opposite, that Jack White's expertise in the subject area of photo analysis is demonstrably strong, and he is at least the equal of the FBI experts and the HSCA photo experts who studied the first-generation originals and the extant negative of one of the backyard photos.

Now that's it's been repeatedly demonstrated that Jack White doesn't have the relevant expertise, you want to divorce yourself from him, but you were singing a different song all along, defending him and defending his analysis. You lied about White's not accounting for perspective, saying he did, but didn't know the technical term for it. You tried to inflate his credentials by calling him an expert witness for the HSCA, but that was likewise false.

• ...Compare Jack White's experience and non-degrees with this other guy from the Panel and I just don't see much difference....

• Just like Jack White, a man with an extensive background in photography,....

• .... While I do not dwell on whether White is an "expert" since that is a very ambiguous term, the HSCA did by calling him in as an "expert" witness.

• White didn't concede anything about not accounting for perspective. Only that he didn't know the meaning of a technical term for it. But you continue to dwell on "expertise" in favor of the evidence that he and other experts have pointed out...(emphasis added)

...Nor do I subscribe to all of what Jack White professes concerning the B/Y photo anomalies. But some of what he has has demonstrated is irrefutable by the "science" of simple observation.

A. He hasn't demonstrated anything.
B. What conclusions of Jack White concerning the backyard photos *don't* you subscribe to, and why? I mean, isn't he a unquestioned authority in this field, and you just a simply laymen? Doesn't his expertise mean you don't have the standing to question his conclusions? NO? Well, why doesn't that apply to the rest of us? I question all of Jack White's conclusions, because I've seen him make plenty of simple mistakes. I'll ask again, which ones do you question, and why?

 

[Border Reiver]

At the risk of beating the dead horse - same chin, different lighting.

Now, what difference does this make to the accepted narrative?

 

[LSSBB]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/526994f69aa82e6e49.jpg[/qimg]

Is this your "baloney" icon?

 

[RoboTimbo]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/526994f69aa82e6e49.jpg[/qimg]

Good catch. You also have your head in the sand.

 

[JayUtah]

I do not place faith in Jack White or any other alleged "expert"...

You did until recently. You were all about experts like Jack White and John Costella until the discussion shifted to a real-world examination of whether or not they were experts. Now instead of forthrightly conceding that they do not pass voir dire you're trying to dishonestly claim that your argument "really" was about something else. Do you think we're dumb? Do you think we're not reading the thread?

...but in the Evidence itself, a difficult concept for those who worship at the feet of Authority and "expert" assertions.

Dramatics noted. You don't have to make explicit your irrational disdain for real-world expertise; it's been obvious now for some time.

The problem is that you don't see how "the evidence" is inextricable from Jack White's opinion. "The evidence" is not the photo. The question is the authenticity of the photo, the evidence for which are the things said about the photo. What White says about the photo is based on his assumptions, which have been proven wrong.

I wrote earlier about this. Conspiracy theorists try to prove something is fake by observing things that violate their expectations. They want to pretend that the case lies solely in the observations, not in whether their expectations are valid.

Nor do I subscribe to all of what Jack White professes concerning the B/Y photo anomalies.

This is news. You said he was an "expert in the anomalies" in the backyard photo, but now you're backpedaling and saying he was wrong about some of them. Is he the expert, or are you the expert? Or are there no experts?

But some of what he has has demonstrated is irrefutable by the "science" of simple observation.

It's no science at all. "Simple observation" is just a euphemism for "layman's uninformed opinion." Especially in the science of photographic analysis, we are aware of underlying factors that layman do not know about and hence don't include in their "simple" observation. We are further aware of ways in which a casual observation may be misleading or ambiguous, hence we apply tools and techniques to supplant our naked-eye observation with more objective scrutiny. Laymen typically are not aware of these techniques. And so forth; the end result is that the layman's expectations are never fully or correctly informed, hence their "simple observation" is often unreliable.

What you're saying in effect is, "I know a fake photo when I see one." Nope, not science at all.

 

[HSienzant]

You did until recently. You were all about experts like Jack White and John Costella until the discussion shifted to a real-world examination of whether or not they were experts. Now instead of forthrightly conceding that they do not pass voir dire you're trying to dishonestly claim that your argument "really" was about something else. Do you think we're dumb? Do you think we're not reading the thread?



Dramatics noted. You don't have to make explicit your irrational disdain for real-world expertise; it's been obvious now for some time.

The problem is that you don't see how "the evidence" is inextricable from Jack White's opinion. "The evidence" is not the photo. The question is the authenticity of the photo, the evidence for which are the things said about the photo. What White says about the photo is based on his assumptions, which have been proven wrong.

I wrote earlier about this. Conspiracy theorists try to prove something is fake by observing things that violate their expectations. They want to pretend that the case lies solely in the observations, not in whether their expectations are valid.



This is news. You said he was an "expert in the anomalies" in the backyard photo, but now you're backpedaling and saying he was wrong about some of them. Is he the expert, or are you the expert? Or are there no experts?



It's no science at all. "Simple observation" is just a euphemism for "layman's uninformed opinion." Especially in the science of photographic analysis, we are aware of underlying factors that layman do not know about and hence don't include in their "simple" observation. We are further aware of ways in which a casual observation may be misleading or ambiguous, hence we apply tools and techniques to supplant our naked-eye observation with more objective scrutiny. Laymen typically are not aware of these techniques. And so forth; the end result is that the layman's expectations are never fully or correctly informed, hence their "simple observation" is often unreliable.

What you're saying in effect is, "I know a fake photo when I see one." Nope, not science at all.

I can see a 'baloney' coming from a mile away. No way Robert will attempt to respond to this with any substantive points.

Hank

 

[JayUtah]

Objective Reality 101. Now boys and girls, are these two chins the same or different?

How can you talk about objective reality while at the same time just asking people to look at two photos and render an opinion? How does that achieve objectivity? You're thinking purely subjectively.

As stated by others, we're looking at the same chin, lit differently in each case. Human perception of contour is based entirely on shading. Perception of edge is based almost solely on differences in luminance. Thus without properly considering illumination, one cannot directly compare two photographs purportedly of the same object.

There are techniques for edge and contour extraction that are objective and rely on the optical density of the photograph, not only some person's perception. Both objective and subjective methods are affected by luminance quantization and density response factors. One of your photos has been quantized using a Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion method. The other has a polarized density response, rendering shade and shadow indistinct. This is a significant effect, as we infer from various cues that the illumination is strong, directional, and at a significant phase angle.

Where spatial coherence is the desired measure, spatial resolution and quantization comes into play. One of your photographs has very poor spatial resolution, but appears to have a uniform pixel distribution function. This makes it a candidate for various deconvolution methods.

Since you have made no demonstrated attempt to apply the available objective methods to the question of whether these photos depict the same individual, I'm going to conclude that you are either unaware of those standard techniques, or that -- contrary to your statement -- an objective evaluation is something you don't really want.

 

[HSienzant]

I thought I'd have a go at dot-pointing the pertinent features of Robert's current position thus:

• Robert's argument is based wholly on witness statements, both eye witnesses and 'expert' witnesses, believing that witness statements trump physical evidence
• Robert fails to either understand and/or acknowledge the fallibility of eye witnesses
• Robert fails to understand and appreciate that somebody called as an 'expert witness' isn't necessarily an expert, or even competent
• Robert fails to understand the meaning of the following:
  • Ad Hominem
  • Common sense
  • Expert
• Robert fails to understand and appreciate the principle of cause and effect, electing to draw tenuous conclusions from indirectly related information
• Robert fails to understand and appreciate the fallacy of begging the question and circular arguments
• Robert believes that one becomes expert by simply looking long and hard
• Robert believes that if something doesn't accord with his preferred version of events then that thing has necessarily been tampered with
• Robert believes that science is all about repetition
• Robert's response to this will probably be 'baloney'

Have I overlooked anything?!

On your point 3; I just want to point out that while Jack White was called as a witness before the HSCA, it wasn't as a expert witness.
That was solely Robert's categorization of White's testimony, but not the HSCA's.

So I think it should read:
[*]Robert fails to understand and appreciate that somebody called as a witness isn't necessarily an expert, or even competent

• Robert thinks there is a science of Simple Observation
• Robert thinks not being a member of any photography societies, getting your theories published in conspiracy books, and self-publishing conspiracy videos makes one as expert in the field of photography as being published in photography magazines, being a contributing editor to a photography magazine, lecturing and writing on photography, and being a member of multiple photography societies (he did say he didn't see much difference between Jack White's expertise and David Eisendrath's. Eisendrath was a member of the HSCA photographic panel).

...Compare Jack White's experience and non-degrees with this other guy from the Panel and I just don't see much difference.