A discussion on weighing up two sides of an argument

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

I fear we may have derailed this thread...

[DJA]

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

The Hammster's piece or my line that requires punctuation which is much more fun?

Sorry Dave, after Jeff's marathon post, I was all funned out.

[DJA]

The Hammster's piece or my line that requires punctuation which is much more fun?

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Where did most people cease reading that,if they started in the first place?

that that is is that that is not is not is it

I had a crack at it, I really did.

[Wickerman]

I meant "fact" in the circumstances we are discussing.

Ah, ok, I thought it might be 'game time'. As if my interpretation of what is factual might be different than what is given when we Google it - no difference.

Not really.Quite unpopular here.

I think you mean the reception of a cover-up theory is unpopular here, yes it would appear so. It's my view that many posters see it for what it is.

What I meant was the originators of a 'who was JtR' theory here on Casebook seem to want to include 'the cover-up', - can you think of some-one's who doesn't?

Certainly not. I respect your views and usually agree with them.In fact most of your "likes" are mine.

Well, thankyou much for the vote of confidence, though I must admit I don't look at anyone's 'like' box, least of all my own.

[DJA]

Where did most people cease reading that,if they started in the first place?

that that is is that that is not is not is it

[JeffHamm]

Years back, like in the late 90's, I was on a forum with a NASA scientist. The groups ended up on this topic of what is Theory and what is Speculation, and how we arrive at 'truth'.

See if I can remember how it was explained.
- A Theory is one interpretation of a set of facts.
- One fact does not make a Theory.
- Each fact must be provable.
- There can be many interpretations of the same group of facts, but only one interpretation (the Theory) is the correct one.
- If you have 10 facts (an arbitrary number) on any subject, the resultant interpretation is a Theory. However..
- If one of those facts turns out to be incorrect, the resultant Theory is now mere Speculation.
- It only takes one false fact to degrade a Theory into Speculation.

So, where we read of theorists who have a Jack the Ripper suspect, just be aware you need evidence comprised of a set of facts. And each fact must be provable, for you to have a genuine Theory, otherwise what you have is just fantasy (Speculation).

Hi Wickerman,

That would have been an interesting conversation. I have suggested that research be viewed as 3 separate "spaces", if you will. Theoretical space, which is a collection of truth statements, which can be subjected to evaluation via the rules of logic. A theory is a collection of truth statements. For a theory to be "true", all statements must evaluate to true. If one is shown to be false, the theory is false, although it may not be fatal to all other statements, and only requires a revision. There is also methods space (the things we do, so what the police did in their searches, or how an inquest was held, for example) and data space (what resulted from what was done; what evidence did they find in their search, what did people testify to, etc).

While that set up is easy with experiments, where things set in methods space (how you set up the experiment) lead to values in data space (what you do determines what you find) and then one compares what was observed with what was predicted within theoretical space. If the observed values do not match the predicted values, that creates the paradox allowing experimental observations to falsify the truth statements where one states the observed values will equal the predicted value. Since they don't, that's false, setting up a chain of disconfirmation in theoretical space.

With JtR, the methods are less controlled situations, and would include things like what a witness was doing when they observed a situation, which they later testify to in the context of the inquest or interview.

This shows up a lot in discussions, where people wonder if the witness was paying sufficient attention to identify the person (i.e. Lawende's identification of Eddowes via her clothes). If that's a poor method of identification (which of course it is), then does the data (him deciding the clothes are similar and testifying as such) matching the predicted value (if he saw them he has a chance of recognizing them -> he may recognize her clothes) and that last statement matches his testimony. The problem, of course, is that there are all sorts of theoretical bits that come into play, such as failures of memory, he might have seen her but not recognized her clothes (that didn't happen of course), or he might not have seen her and misidentified her clothes as the ones he saw (which also fits the data).

It is always a theoretical claim that "this data is wrong", because the data is what the data is, it's the explanation that is being questioned. If someone argues "Lawende's statement is invalid" they don't mean his words are invalid, they are adding in theoretical space "but he misidentified Eddowes clothes as the clothes he saw but which were of another person", which is just a complicated way of saying Lawende didn't see Eddowes. But it puts statements into theoretical space.

Theoretical space, however, has to tie into observations. So, to make that claim, one needs to tie it to data somehow. Generally, the Lawende identification type thing starts to point to "similarity of dress among Victorian women of the day in that area", and other things to point out that misidentification is highly probable. While it doesn't prove misidentification hadn't happened in this instance, it does question whether the data arises from actual recognition.

Speculation is just the filling in of theoretical space without ties to data space (i.e. we don't have evidence for these statements). Generally, theoretical space is an attempt to explain the observed, and we expand the observations by investigation. Speculation is just the filling in of theoretical space with statements without ties to data space. That can be useful because it may suggest what needs to be done for an investigation, and if the data space fills up with values that those speculative statements made, they become supported and integrated into the overall collection of statements (into theory), but until they do, they are considered weak points and can be removed at will and replaced with any set of speculations that do not conflict with observed data.

To compare various "speculation fills", then one can use things like "Your speculation involves very rare events, mine involves highly common events", in which case the latter is considered the better option (it is logically more sound to go with the more common events until data space indicates those events did not happen). Also, explanations that "fill in the gaps" with the fewest number of unsupported statements are better, simply because unsupported claims are to be avoided.

I guess it's a similar idea, that theoretical statements are ones that have at least some ties to data space, and speculations are statements without ties to direct observations.

- Jeff

[DJA]

I'm almost certain you'll be well aware what the definition of a 'fact' is.

Interesting, I notice the 'cover up' is quite popular in JtR theories.
Have I posted anything you take issue with?

I meant "fact" in the circumstances we are discussing.

Not really.Quite unpopular here.

Certainly not. I respect your views and usually agree with them.In fact most of your "likes" are mine.

[DJA]

4/1461

[Wickerman]

Define fact,if you would.

I'm almost certain you'll be well aware what the definition of a 'fact' is.

I have over 20 points that support an extremely strong case based on circumstantial evidence,....

It is rare for a murderer to be caught in the act, so most police cases rely strongly on circumstantial evidence, but even circumstantial evidence must be factual.

...and have absolutely no doubt that Henry Gawen Sutton was Jack the Ripper.

I'm sure you do, aren't most theorists convinced by their own conclusions?

Under criminal law that would suffice for a trial,except he's already dead.

You're in a better position to judge than I am.

Also have a strong case that there was a cover up at high levels,including police and at least one politician.

Interesting, I notice the 'cover up' is quite popular in JtR theories.
Have I posted anything you take issue with?

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff


In your OP you tend to frame the discussion as one of probability. Personally, I do not find probablity very interesting in most historical arguments, because either something happened or it did not. You might consider that simplistic, but really, that's what it boils down to. The problem is that some posters here have a hard time accepting that we sometimes have too little information to accurately determine what happened or what did not happen.

Probability, in the form of general knowledge about Victorian society, can in some cases help us determine whether some arguments are valid, e.g. the high literacy rate can at least falsify the theory that JtR could not have written letters or the GSG (because a high lteracy rate would mean the killer had a high probablity of being literate).

Hi Kattrup,

Ok, first I want to separate the notion of the events that actually happened. Those are the true events, and as you say, something either happened or it did not.

Now, whether or not we are trying to understand a case from an hour ago or 133 years ago, we have to work from evidence and try and work out what happened. What we end up with, though, is a belief in what happened, not the original truth ( we don't recreate the past in a literal sense after all ). Unlike truth, belief can be distributed ( I believe X more than y and y more than z, type things). They total our total belief.

Our beliefs can change as new evidence or arguments get presented then our beliefs should track towards the true events, though we can never end up there because the unprovable statement (but what if that evidence is wrong) always exists. Bit as more evidence piles up, that type of argument becomes weaker. Probability is used to illustrate the idea, where probabilities represent the strength of the evidence (so just saying "maybe they lied" is weak evidence against, and corroboration of a statement adds strength to the initial claim ).

So, it is not truth as a probability, but rather probabilities are often used to either indicate how we should rationally distribute our belief, or to illustrate the notion of how belief should be distributed.

I.e. if I said JtR's birthday was June 3, and offered nothing as support, then I'm as good as guessing, so I have 1 / 365 chance of being correct. If my theory hinged on that being true, you could say the odds are so against it 364:1 against, that you would say it could be rejected, even though I argue "but it could be June 3"... Sure, it's not 0, but to believe it is irrational. If I end up finding something that pointed to June 3 as JtR birthday and started piling up the evidence, belief should start to increase - beliefs can change.

So, true events are not probabilities, but we can only ever get to truth by our belief system. It can be wrong (we can strongly believe something that is false, but evidence, even weak evidence, should operate to shift our beliefs towards true explanations and beliefs).
-Jeff

[DJA]

Hi Jeff


In your OP you tend to frame the discussion as one of probability. Personally, I do not find probablity very interesting in most historical arguments, because either something happened or it did not. You might consider that simplistic, but really, that's what it boils down to. The problem is that some posters here have a hard time accepting that we sometimes have too little information to accurately determine what happened or what did not happen.

Probability, in the form of general knowledge about Victorian society, can in some cases help us determine whether some arguments are valid, e.g. the high literacy rate can at least falsify the theory that JtR could not have written letters or the GSG (because a high lteracy rate would mean the killer had a high probablity of being literate).

We have more than enough information.

Look at Eddowes' murder and GSG.

[DJA]

Define fact,if you would.

I have over 20 points that support an extremely strong case based on circumstantial evidence, and have absolutely no doubt that Henry Gawen Sutton was Jack the Ripper.

Under criminal law that would suffice for a trial,except he's already dead.

Also have a strong case that there was a cover up at high levels,including police and at least one politician.

[Wickerman]

.....A statement is either true or it is not true. A theory is only true if all of its statements are true.
otherwise it requires revision. While some view such things as mostly true, or partly true, they formally boil down into a mix of true or false building blocks.

Years back, like in the late 90's, I was on a forum with a NASA scientist. The groups ended up on this topic of what is Theory and what is Speculation, and how we arrive at 'truth'.

See if I can remember how it was explained.
- A Theory is one interpretation of a set of facts.
- One fact does not make a Theory.
- Each fact must be provable.
- There can be many interpretations of the same group of facts, but only one interpretation (the Theory) is the correct one.
- If you have 10 facts (an arbitrary number) on any subject, the resultant interpretation is a Theory. However..
- If one of those facts turns out to be incorrect, the resultant Theory is now mere Speculation.
- It only takes one false fact to degrade a Theory into Speculation.

So, where we read of theorists who have a Jack the Ripper suspect, just be aware you need evidence comprised of a set of facts. And each fact must be provable, for you to have a genuine Theory, otherwise what you have is just fantasy (Speculation).