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JFK Conspiracy Theories: It Never Ends

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The astute JFK assassination scholar uses all of the available evidence to help to form a picture of what occurred that day. Others simply cherry-pick to fit their own foregone conclusion.
 
Robert Prey said:
Forty plus witnesses to your zero. Deal with it.
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Robert Prey said:
40 plus witnesses to your zero.
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Well, I misspoke. Your incessant and increasingly frantic attempts to shift the burden of proof are no longer cute, and have grown tedious. Especially since those attempts are pretty much the only content you post anymore.

As I said, you seem to be laboring under the false impression that if you make an affirmative claim and offer a certain kind of evidence in favor of that claim, the only valid rebuttal must come in the form of an affirmative statement to the opposite effect, and be supported by equal or greater amounts of the same kinds of evidence. Sorry, but in the real world you do not get to limit your critics to making the kinds of rebuttals for which you are the most prepared.

You are the one claiming your "forty plus medical witnesses" are so superlative that they trump all other evidence. That is a bar you set for your evidence, not anyone else. It isn't our fault that you're now discovering that your evidence doesn't clear the bar.
 
Robert Prey said:
None of those witnesses have been impeached, including Lipsey.
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Except last night you wrote:

Robert Prey said:
On further review, he is not a good witness for either side, his testimony being inconsistent and contradictory. No matter. There are others. In his place on my list of 40 plus, include...
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Care to explain why last night you removed his name from the list and offered a substitute, but today without any further rehabilitation he's back on the list?

Do you see now why people rightly accuse you of ignoring rebuttals and just trying to have the same argument over and over again no matter what is said to you?

On the other hand, those with zero witnesses are safe from being challenged or impeached. A cowardly argument.
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No, just not the argument you fervently want. Trying to heap shame upon your critics for not accepting your burden of proof is a desperate non-argument.

Please learn the difference between a rebuttal and a counterclaim. It's important.
 
Robert Prey said:
The astute JFK assassination scholar, wonders about the quality of all of the so-called "evidence."
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Indeed, we're trying to get you to look at the quality of the evidence you've been obsessing over for 100 pages or more, and through several iterations of the same argument. You tell us that your group of "medical witnesses" alone gives us evidence of such superlative quality and unimpeachable authority and evidentiary value, that based solely upon that strength you're confident that all other evidence can be disregarded if it appears to disagree -- by no other virtue than disagreement.

So let's be clear. Out of all the available evidence that's ever been discovered, discussed, subpoenaed, debated, subjected to all manner of scrutiny -- out of all the kinds of evidence available: eyewitness, documentary, circumstantial, forensic, photographic, medical -- you carve out a group of alleged lay eyewitnesses and/or expert witnesses, and tell us that this small subset of one kind of evidence alone has the power to quash every other type and amount of evidence, no matter how credible to other people it may seem. And you further try to shame us into this methodology by saying only brainwashed stooges would believe any of the other evidence and doubt your (interpretation of your) witnesses.

But wait! When you frankly admit that elements of your evidence aren't of as high a quality as you thought -- even to the point of withdrawing them -- but then hastily try to put them back on the list, we realize that this alleged standard of quality in your proof doesn't apply to you. You wish to apply it only to your critics. You have a different standard of proof for your own arguments.

Others, simply worship at the feet of "authority."
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While you seem to fervently believe that all your critics are brainwashed government stooges, you haven't managed to show that any of the arguments or rebuttals you're evading have that as their cause, motivation, or basis.

You have made a claim. You have presented evidence for that claim. Your evidence is being scrutinized, even to the point that you feel it needs to be withdrawn. You are being asked to account for evidence that seems to contradict your claim. All this is part of an ordinary intellectual process of investigating and testing. To write it off as the effect of "brainwashing" is a straw man.

Straw Man said:
The astute JFK assassination scholar uses all of the available evidence to help to form a picture of what occurred that day. Others simply cherry-pick to fit their own foregone conclusion.
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Indeed, I'd be happy if we had some conclusion, foregone or otherwise. The question has been asked what "single strongest" piece of evidence points to Oswald. That's the wrong way to approach the question. The question is more appropriately, out of all the people who may have killed Kennedy, toward whom does the evidence most preponderously point? Is there another individual? If so, name him and let's look at that evidence. The problem with simply picking away at the prevailing theory is that without a strong alternative, all the picking still leaves the original theory as the prevailing theory.

We have also asked Robert and any other conspiracy theorist to tell us their version of the evidents that day in Dallas, and to name other suspects. To date we haven't had one that I know of. This is the difference between conspiracism and real investigation. Conspiracism just tries to make you feel stupid and shameful for believing the "official story," while a real investigation can identify and support an alternative affirmative proposal.

So far, as near as I can tell, Robert's "conclusion" seems to be "Everyone is brainwashed but me and just blindly following authority." That's the only thing he's arguing at this point anyway.
 
Robert Prey said:
That statement is very much like Humes DoubleThink statement:

"Scientifically sir, it is impossible for it to have been fired from other than behind. Or to have exited from other than behind."
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What is "double think" about this statement?

I am sorry but plain and simple English does not becoma an enigma just because it suits Robert.

Scientifically sir, it is impossible for it to have been fired from other than behind.
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This means it was impossible for the bullet to have come from any direction other than behind.

Or to have exited from other than behind.
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Or to have exited in any direction other than having come from behind.

The bullet entered JFK from behind.
It left in a direction that means it came from behind.

That seems pretty much single speak to me.

Where is the difficulty you have understanding it?
 
Robert Prey said:
Forty plus witnesses to your zero. Deal with it.
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Less than forty to more than zero.

Also the number of witnesses other people produce is hardly of importance to showing why your witnesses do not say what you think they say, or do not support your conclusion.

Please desist with this meaningless (and provably false) "Scoreboard Fallacy"
 
Robert Prey said:
None of those witnesses have been impeached, including Lipsey.
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They have however been shown not to contradict the WC or autopsy, or to be a medical witness, or to support your conclusions when the totality of their statements are considered.
 
Robert Prey said:
The astute JFK assassination scholar, wonders about the quality of all of the so-called "evidence." Others, simply worship at the feet of "authority."
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No.

The astute scholar of any subject looks at evidence objectively. You may wonder about the "quality" of evidence, yet you "worship at the feet of authority" of "Medical witnesses". Why do you blindly place the authority of your "4o medical witnesses" above objective evidence?

If you wish to bemoan quality of evidence then let us actualy look at the quality of the evidence:

You have not been able to prove any photographic or film evidence false,except by your own "worship of authority" for the likes of Jack White. You have not identified:

*Any frame of the Z film that shows an artefact of alteration.
*Any method the Z film could be faked or altered with out sign.
*Any artefact of alteration in the Back Yard Photos.
*Any method by which LATENT prints can be transfered from a dead body to a rifle.
*Any evidence of the (authenticated) autopsy photos being of a faked or altered body.
*Any counter evidence of how, when, or why any photographic evidence was faked.
*Any viable way the "ghost" would be used in producing the back yard photographs.
*Any documentary evidence to support your claims that objective evidence was buried, locked away, covered up, whitewashed, etc.


Or in short, any reason to discredit the quality of any evidence, outside of the HSCA questioning how much use the autopsy photos would be in court.

We now have to wonder about the complete lack of evidence of any meaningful objective quality supporting your own claims.

One truly has to wonder how you can bemoan these scholar chaps for the quality of their evidence when you apparently can produce none.
 
Tomtomkent said:
What is "double think" about this statement?

I am sorry but plain and simple English does not becoma an enigma just because it suits Robert.

This means it was impossible for the bullet to have come from any direction other than behind.

Or to have exited in any direction other than having come from behind.

The bullet entered JFK from behind.
It left in a direction that means it came from behind.

That seems pretty much single speak to me.

Where is the difficulty you have understanding it?
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Robert is quoting a telephone conversation David Lifton (author of BEST EVIDENCE, which proposes a ridiculous and macabre alteration of JFK's body to conceal evidence that all the shooters were in front of JFK) had with Doctor Humes, who was one of the three pathologists who performed the autopsy.

This telephone conversation occurred a few years after the assassination, and while Robert won't quote it, in that same conversation, Humes did affirm the autopsy report was correct, there was no pressure on him from anyone to reach any specific findings, and he re-affirmed all the shots came from behind the decedent.

Instead, Lifton (and his proxy on this board, RP) focused on the one sentence, and wonders, "What could it mean?" Lifton conjectured that Humes was trying to leave him a hint or a suggestion without coming right out and saying it. He (Lifton) goes from this one statement out of context to conjecturing Humes found evidence of a shot exiting the back of the head, and was trying to tell him of that obliguely.

If you want a good laugh, read Lifton's book. It is well-documented and well-meaning, but horribly-reasoned. His train of thought got derailed early, and it plowed through homes and levelled nearly an entire forest before it finally came to rest, with Lifton settling on the body alteration theory as the best solution to the crime. The problem is apparent: at no point did he ever consider a given witness could be wrong, nor try to reconcile the witness statements to the physical evidence. Instead, he assumed they were all right, and thus reached the 'body-alteration' theory as the best fit to the witnesses statements.

Hank
 
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I'm still waiting for what it means to be a "medical" witness. I've asked twice, and I keep getting diverted into red herrings such as "witnesses to a medical event" (which may be the answer, but Robert won't confirm it) or "on site" witnesses, which suggests lay witnesses. Expert or lay?

Without using any sort of disjunction, what can Robert say is the single attribute that unites all his "forty plus" witnesses?
 
HSienzant said:
Instead, Lifton (and his proxy on this board, RP) focused on the one sentence, and wonders, "What could it mean?" Lifton conjectured that Humes was trying to leave him a hint or a suggestion without coming right out and saying it. He (Lifton) goes from this one statement out of context to conjecturing Humes found evidence of a shot exiting the back of the head, and was trying to tell him of that obliguely.

If you want a good laugh, read Lifton's book.
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Interestingly, when I read your first sentence, it made me think of Lifton's approach in his book.

And I absolutely DID get a good laugh out of Best Evidence - at least, as much as I read. I couldn't get much past the first chapter because I was laughing so hard at his photographic analysis that found all the shooters. "This blob over here is another shooter. And so is this blob over here in this picture. And this fuzzy section behind the sign in this picture." etc Given all those shooters in the picture, here is what must have happened....

He made the most creative Rorschach interpretation sound reasonable.
 
JayUtah said:
I'm still waiting for what it means to be a "medical" witness. I've asked twice, and I keep getting diverted into red herrings such as "witnesses to a medical event" (which may be the answer, but Robert won't confirm it) or "on site" witnesses, which suggests lay witnesses. Expert or lay?

Without using any sort of disjunction, what can Robert say is the single attribute that unites all his "forty plus" witnesses?
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A medical witness is a person who has medical knowledge whether by background or as being an official observer at a medical procedure or an autopsy.

You're welcome.
 
Robert Prey said:
A medical witness is a person who has medical knowledge whether by background or as being an official observer at a medical procedure or an autopsy.

You're welcome.
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Simply being an observer grants you medical knowledge? Even if you were, for example, just there to guard a body?

Hmm.

Should you not instead be asking if the medical knowledge of a photographer, guard, or observer qualifies them to comment upon a procedure they may have witnessed?

If they are, in short, a medical professional able to give a professional medical opinion?

Now I understand your definition of the term I can see it is clearly nonsense.
 
HSienzant said:
Robert is quoting a telephone conversation David Lifton (author of BEST EVIDENCE, which proposes a ridiculous and macabre alteration of JFK's body to conceal evidence that all the shooters were in front of JFK) had with Doctor Humes, who was one of the three pathologists who performed the autopsy.

This telephone conversation occurred a few years after the assassination, and while Robert won't quote it, in that same conversation, Humes did affirm the autopsy report was correct, there was no pressure on him from anyone to reach any specific findings, and he re-affirmed all the shots came from behind the decedent.

Instead, Lifton (and his proxy on this board, RP) focused on the one sentence, and wonders, "What could it mean?" Lifton conjectured that Humes was trying to leave him a hint or a suggestion without coming right out and saying it. He (Lifton) goes from this one statement out of context to conjecturing Humes found evidence of a shot exiting the back of the head, and was trying to tell him of that obliguely.

Hank
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Factually incorrect. The enigmatic Humes quote does not come from some phone conversation but from the Warren Commission Hearings.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh2/html/WC_Vol2_0184b.htm
 
Tomtomkent said:
No.

The astute scholar of any subject looks at evidence objectively. You may wonder about the "quality" of evidence, yet you "worship at the feet of authority" of "Medical witnesses". Why do you blindly place the authority of your "4o medical witnesses" above objective evidence?

If you wish to bemoan quality of evidence then let us actualy look at the quality of the evidence:

You have not been able to prove any photographic or film evidence false,except by your own "worship of authority" for the likes of Jack White. You have not identified:

*Any frame of the Z film that shows an artefact of alteration.
*Any method the Z film could be faked or altered with out sign.
*Any artefact of alteration in the Back Yard Photos.
*Any method by which LATENT prints can be transfered from a dead body to a rifle.
*Any evidence of the (authenticated) autopsy photos being of a faked or altered body.
*Any counter evidence of how, when, or why any photographic evidence was faked.
*Any viable way the "ghost" would be used in producing the back yard photographs.
*Any documentary evidence to support your claims that objective evidence was buried, locked away, covered up, whitewashed, etc.


Or in short, any reason to discredit the quality of any evidence, outside of the HSCA questioning how much use the autopsy photos would be in court.

We now have to wonder about the complete lack of evidence of any meaningful objective quality supporting your own claims.

One truly has to wonder how you can bemoan these scholar chaps for the quality of their evidence when you apparently can produce none.
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Rule NO. 1. One question or challenge at a time. (But all that garbage has been answered and debunked. Medical witnesses are not authoritative conclusions, but facts in support of a logical conclusion namely, more than one shooter.)
 
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