JFK Conspiracy Theories: It Never Ends

[JayUtah]

So you finally admit that sometimes a chin that looks square, really is square?

No. I'm acknowledging your admission that there can be more than one outcome to the examination of a photograph. Previously you seemed to think your interpretation was the only one. You wouldn't accept the possibility that an interpretation could vary from yours. Now it seems you do.

 

[JayUtah]

Are you ducking the question again?

No. You appear to be asking me what the criteria are for determining the authenticity of a photograph. I've pointed out for several days that there exists a convention that governs both the criteria and the burden of proof for the authenticity of an historical document or artifact. I'm asking you now whether you know what that convention is, or whether you are admitting, by the act of asking me, that you do not know what the convention is.

Put another way, if you knew what the convention was, you wouldn't have to ask me what the criteria for authenticity are. But instead of assuming you don't know the convention, I'm asking you to confirm explicitly whether that is the case. I'm giving you a chance to state something up front rather than me having to infer it.

 

[JayUtah]

I'd say bluffing and a whole lot of puffing.

You're free to prove at any time that I'm not bluffing. However, that will probably require you to respond to my detailed posts with more than "Cop-out" or "Baloney."

I asked you once about the difference in degrees of freedom between affine and projective spaces. Start with that. Prove I'm bluffing about it. There were many more detailed technical discussions that followed, but I recall that was the first.

 

[JayUtah]

What happened to 'historical convention"????

This has nothing to do with historical conventions of authenticity. Well, not directly.

I'll go through it again, since you seem to be obtuse on this point. The appearance of a feature in a photograph is governed by more than the the affine shape of the feature. It is affected, in fact, by a large number of factors, many of which I've discussed and some of which you've acknowledged as valid by trying to control for them by means of manipulating a digital copy of the image.

If you argue that the appearance in image space must uniquely determine a property in affine space, then you must have demonstrated that you have controlled for all those other factors. Simply ignoring them or declaring them irrelevant commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent, especially after having admitted their effect by manipulating the image.

Naturally the "It looks square because it is square" is one possible outcome, but it isn't the only one. If you assert that it's the best outcome out of all those available, you have the burden to prove it to be the best from among them. Up until now you haven't even acknowledged explicitly that other outcomes exist. Now that you have, you can begin to construct a proof for your preferred explanation.

 

[TheRedWorm]

Are you ducking the question again? What is authentic? You're the self-proclaimed expert.

Speaking of dodging things; how do you deal with an eyewitness(me) that saw LHO shoot JFK?

 

[infocusinc]

NO. You have it wrong. Sometimes a square chin really is a square chin. Deal with it.

Testy when cornered eh Robert?

Here is your problem.

You stake a very big part of your claim the backyard photos are fake on the assumption the chin that appears to be square cannot be Oswalds. You say his head has been added above the chin to a body that looks amazingly like Oswalds. You are not alone, this is a CT staple, and you parrot the claims.

However you are unaware that camera position in relation to the subject can change drastically the look of an object. My MacBook Pro photo showed in graphic detail how this process works.

Clearly the camera was well below the chin level in the backyard photos, this cannot be denied.

Why?

First the camera, and Imperial Reflex was designed as a waist level finder camera. It had no eye level finder. To compose the user needed to hold the camera well below the head and look DOWN to the ground glass inside of the finder housing.

Second we also know the camera was held that low by viewing the internals of the photos themselves. On the left side of the backyard photos are a set of stairs. These stars make a great tape measure. If we can see the top side of a stair tread, the camera is above the level of the step. If we can see the underside of the stair tread the camera is below that tread. Viewing these stair tread proves the camera was well below the level of Oswald's chin.

We are looking at Oswalds chin from below.

As my image strip of Obama has shown, Obama has a pointy chin similar to Oswalds.

Viewed from eye level it looks pointy just as Oswald's does.

Viewed from below, Obama's chin appears square, just like Oswald's

The major plank of your claim rests on your statement that Oswald has a pointy chin and not a square chin and the BY photos show a square chin thus they must be fake.

Empirical testing and observation of other well know people show that the common way a pointy chin is depicted in photos from a low camera angle is to appear SQUARE.

The square looking chin on Oswald in the backyard photos is EXACTLY WHAT SHOULD BE EXPECTED. This is the exact opposite of your claim.

Clearly sometimes a square chin is just a square chin. But the nature of perspective tells us that a point chin will ALSO look square when photographed form certain angles.

There is no anomaly with Oswald's chin. It is depicted exactly as perspective demands.

Your failure here is a classic example of what happens when you parrot something without having the knowledge to know if the claim is correct or not.

Now, you can't tell us this is not Oswalds chin because it looks square. Oswalds chin SHOULD look square in the backyard photos and I've just explained why.

So NO..YOU have it wrong.

Get over it.

 

[Southwind17]

No. That's the point. He doesn't have a square chin, except in the backyard photos. Deal with it.

... and Obama doesn't have a square chin except in those photos in which he happens to depict a square chin. There - dealt with! Next please.

 

[Southwind17]

A routine pic found in a child's puzzle book. And that's where all your junk belongs. In the toy department.

 

[Southwind17]

This is, in many ways, the portion of our visual apparatus that is fooled by optical illusions. Photography presents us all the time with optical illusions generated by the various processes involved in it, as well as by the underlying nature of projective geometry.

'Visual illusions', to be exact. The optics are working just fine!

 

[EventHorizon]

No. It was a "heads I win tails you lose" trick . Answer it was a shadow on a garage, and the self-proclaimed "expert" would have gleefully cried, "Why no, it was face. You lose!!!" An infantile challenge. The self-proclaimed expert is not worthy of anyone's time.

No. Just no. You're really trying to outdo yourself with absurd statements.

 

[RoboTimbo]

For Robert:

Are you more mad at the loon sites for lying to you????? Or at yourself for how easily you were taken in by it?????

This time I won't blame you for running away from answering. LOL.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

It's a simple question and for 20 pages you [JayUtah] have refused to answer. Is the photo genuine or not. Can't have it both ways.

As I wrote in post # 4545:

Clyde, you're making the claim that the photos are fake. That means you have to prove it.

Is this too technical a point for you to understand?

So is it?

 

[Regnad Kcin]

...For the umpteenth time, is the pic genuine or not???

Here you go once again:

Clyde, you're making the claim that the photos are fake. That means you have to prove it.

Is this too technical a point for you to understand?

I hope this helps!

 

[Regnad Kcin]

No. It was a "heads I win tails you lose" trick . Answer it was a shadow on a garage, and the self-proclaimed "expert" would have gleefully cried, "Why no, it was face. You lose!!!" An infantile challenge. The self-proclaimed expert is not worthy of anyone's time.

One shouldn't put words, real or imaginary, in another's mouth.

Please deal with what people say/write, not what you imagine they do or would have.

 

[pakeha]

...
However you are unaware that camera position in relation to the subject can change drastically the look of an object. My MacBook Pro photo showed in graphic detail how this process works.

Clearly the camera was well below the chin level in the backyard photos, this cannot be denied.

Why?

First the camera, and Imperial Reflex was designed as a waist level finder camera. It had no eye level finder. To compose the user needed to hold the camera well below the head and look DOWN to the ground glass inside of the finder housing.

Second we also know the camera was held that low by viewing the internals of the photos themselves. On the left side of the backyard photos are a set of stairs. These stars make a great tape measure. If we can see the top side of a stair tread, the camera is above the level of the step. If we can see the underside of the stair tread the camera is below that tread. Viewing these stair tread proves the camera was well below the level of Oswald's chin.

We are looking at Oswalds chin from below.

As my image strip of Obama has shown, Obama has a pointy chin similar to Oswalds.

Viewed from eye level it looks pointy just as Oswald's does.
Viewed from below, Obama's chin appears square, just like Oswald's
The major plank of your claim rests on your statement that Oswald has a pointy chin and not a square chin and the BY photos show a square chin thus they must be fake.

Empirical testing and observation of other well know people show that the common way a pointy chin is depicted in photos from a low camera angle is to appear SQUARE.

The square looking chin on Oswald in the backyard photos is EXACTLY WHAT SHOULD BE EXPECTED. This is the exact opposite of your claim.

Clearly sometimes a square chin is just a square chin. But the nature of perspective tells us that a point chin will ALSO look square when photographed form certain angles.
There is no anomaly with Oswald's chin. It is depicted exactly as perspective demands.

Your failure here is a classic example of what happens when you parrot something without having the knowledge to know if the claim is correct or not.

Now, you can't tell us this is not Oswalds chin because it looks square. Oswalds chin SHOULD look square in the backyard photos and I've just explained why ....

Thanks for posting this information up so clearly.

For Robert:

Are you more mad at the loon sites for lying to you????? Or at yourself for how easily you were taken in by it????? ...

In my own case, the first.
Like the point about the head-wound, this point about the photo should have died a natural death decades ago.

 

[Tomtomkent]

An infantile challenge. The self-proclaimed expert is not worthy of anyone's time.

Well there have been infantile challenges in this thread.

Who keeps demanding "were they lying or mistaken?"
Or "Where's YOUR evidence?" When the burden of proof has been explained. Or "Is it genuine or not?"

If one is going to call others infantile or sophomoric one had best not be making statements like "baloney" and giving the kind of logic the rest of us suffered for that short halycon period where the play ground seemed like heaven and putting Lego up your nose seemed a good idea.

Had Robert said "there is no chin" then stated how a two dimensional shadow upon a three dimensional object, in a two dimensional image, appeared to depict a three dimensional face, there would be no need to point and laugh as Robert would have been at last discussing the geomotry of shadows that other posters have been trying to engage him on.

That this was seen as some kind of trap whispers some worrying hints about Roberts mindset.

 

[Robert Prey]

Testy when cornered eh Robert?

Here is your problem.

You stake a very big part of your claim the backyard photos are fake on the assumption the chin that appears to be square cannot be Oswalds. You say his head has been added above the chin to a body that looks amazingly like Oswalds. You are not alone, this is a CT staple, and you parrot the claims.

However you are unaware that camera position in relation to the subject can change drastically the look of an object. My MacBook Pro photo showed in graphic detail how this process works.

Clearly the camera was well below the chin level in the backyard photos, this cannot be denied.

Why?

First the camera, and Imperial Reflex was designed as a waist level finder camera. It had no eye level finder. To compose the user needed to hold the camera well below the head and look DOWN to the ground glass inside of the finder housing.

Second we also know the camera was held that low by viewing the internals of the photos themselves. On the left side of the backyard photos are a set of stairs. These stars make a great tape measure. If we can see the top side of a stair tread, the camera is above the level of the step. If we can see the underside of the stair tread the camera is below that tread. Viewing these stair tread proves the camera was well below the level of Oswald's chin.

We are looking at Oswalds chin from below.

As my image strip of Obama has shown, Obama has a pointy chin similar to Oswalds.

Viewed from eye level it looks pointy just as Oswald's does.

Viewed from below, Obama's chin appears square, just like Oswald's

The major plank of your claim rests on your statement that Oswald has a pointy chin and not a square chin and the BY photos show a square chin thus they must be fake.

Empirical testing and observation of other well know people show that the common way a pointy chin is depicted in photos from a low camera angle is to appear SQUARE.

The square looking chin on Oswald in the backyard photos is EXACTLY WHAT SHOULD BE EXPECTED. This is the exact opposite of your claim.

Clearly sometimes a square chin is just a square chin. But the nature of perspective tells us that a point chin will ALSO look square when photographed form certain angles.

There is no anomaly with Oswald's chin. It is depicted exactly as perspective demands.

Your failure here is a classic example of what happens when you parrot something without having the knowledge to know if the claim is correct or not.

Now, you can't tell us this is not Oswalds chin because it looks square. Oswalds chin SHOULD look square in the backyard photos and I've just explained why.

So NO..YOU have it wrong.

Get over it.

Baloney. All chins do not magically transform to square when shot from a waist high camera. And there are plenty of non-CT photo experts (Malcomb Thompson, Maj. John Pickard) that agree there is something fishy about the chin. Nor is the chin the only obvious anomaly. I've proved the 9 o'clock shadow of the rifle in 133B to be false as well. Deal with it.

 

[Robert Prey]

This has nothing to do with historical conventions of authenticity. Well, not directly.

I'll go through it again, since you seem to be obtuse on this point. The appearance of a feature in a photograph is governed by more than the the affine shape of the feature. It is affected, in fact, by a large number of factors, many of which I've discussed and some of which you've acknowledged as valid by trying to control for them by means of manipulating a digital copy of the image.

If you argue that the appearance in image space must uniquely determine a property in affine space, then you must have demonstrated that you have controlled for all those other factors. Simply ignoring them or declaring them irrelevant commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent, especially after having admitted their effect by manipulating the image.

Naturally the "It looks square because it is square" is one possible outcome, but it isn't the only one. If you assert that it's the best outcome out of all those available, you have the burden to prove it to be the best from among them. Up until now you haven't even acknowledged explicitly that other outcomes exist. Now that you have, you can begin to construct a proof for your preferred explanation.

Why don't you begin by proving the photo to be authentic or do you agree that it just might not be authentic. Take a stand.

 

[Robert Prey]

No. I'm acknowledging your admission that there can be more than one outcome to the examination of a photograph. Previously you seemed to think your interpretation was the only one. You wouldn't accept the possibility that an interpretation could vary from yours. Now it seems you do.

Excellent. So it appears to me that the chin is fake and it appears to you it may not be fake, but you admit that it just might be fake. so both of us agree, the chin just might be fake. End of story.

 

[Robert Prey]

Well by this point Robert it's pretty clear what other posters think your opinion is worth...

Truth only needs a majority of one. And most of those who lurk on this board are dumbfounded Lone Nutters who just cant' accept proof that they've been duped and snookered for over 50 years and desperately seeking justification for their naive belief in government sponsored brainwash.