If There Were Multiple Killers Wouldn't We Expect to See More Killings?

[Roy Corduroy]

Most universities teach probability and statistics in the math department. And, if you failed algebra, you aren't going to do well with statistics. Stats & probability is a complex discipline that includes logic, but math as well. A course called "finite math" was require before you could take stats at my university. In finite, you spend a couple of days just on Venn diagrams.

Yes I took finite math. That's what you took for a business degree instead of going on to real college algebra and beyond. Then we took 'business calculus" otherwise known as baby calculus. And yes we hated our statistics teacher. Hated the ground he walked on. Because he made us think!

If I had it to do over, I would have gotten a degree in music education. Then I could be a band director, or what not. My schoolteacher friends, those dirty rats. They get the whole summer off.

Like Lynn. I bet he goes water skiing all summer long

Roy

[Errata]

Hello Errata. So you regard statistics as math? Very well.

Cheers.
LC

For a girl who switched between 4 art majors and 2 social sciences, statistics is math. So is counting. With or without fingers.

All numbers are math. And are to be regarded with suspicion. Because they can leap up and fail you at anytime.

[Wickerman]

Urging people to study up on serial killers to better understand the Ripper crimes will only help mislead the next generation of Ripper students, its one reason the study "is a thousand times more confused that it was in 1888"..as my friend and very well informed researcher/author Simon Wood once said.

Sadly, since Profiling has reared its ugly head, Ripperology has gone to hell in a handbasket. The intelligence of those cold case serial killers has been so limited to the point of them being regarded as robots.
Not only can they no longer think for themselves, they must follow a script, good grief!

When you know at least 3 killers were around,...

I think the operative word is "know", if we knew one way or the other, there would be less debate.

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

In the good old summer time--not.

Hello Roy. Thanks.

"They get the whole summer off.

Like Lynn."

If only you knew! I have taught 125 classes in the last 5 calendar years. A good bit of that is summer teaching. Always glad when the autumn arrives.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

absolute

Hello Errata. Thanks.

Actually, the good point about math is that it is based on fixed rules. They never vary. And no rot about population samples--as in stats.

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Hello Errata. Thanks.

Actually, the good point about math is that it is based on fixed rules. They never vary. And no rot about population samples--as in stats.

Cheers.
LC

Statistics are arrived at through many methods. But at some point, a calculator comes out, and that when I get cold sweats of fear.

I think my favorite was a study done about defensive gun use, where the sociologist polled 500 people in North Florida, and then just multiplied the percentages by the population of the US. Which is where the rot that the NRA still peddles about 80% of gun owners using their weapon to defend themselves comes from. Because swamp folk from North Florida totally represent the values and culture of the rest of the country.

But this is totally besides the point.

[RivkahChaya]

Yes, I had the three hour course in probability and statistics at university. Easy A. But I also studied real math.

OK, I get your point, but the basic composition (called, usually, Freshman Comp, W101, or something) is always in the English department, even though no one who is majoring in English ever has to take it, because we either test out of in during orientation, or have it waived on the basis of our SAT scores (the latter, in my case).

Finite math and probability and stats were not easy for me, as I don't generally wrap my head around math well, but they were interesting, so I did much better than I would have in some of the other math options, like intro calculus, or the advanced trig class, or whatever else the limited number of options for math classes I had were, since I didn't test well in placement at orientation. I felt like I'd done well not to get stuck talking the non-credit prep course.

[lynn cates]

sample

Hello Errata. Thanks.

Yes, one must be careful about drawing representative samples.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

calculus of the ripper

Hello Rivkah. Thanks.

Yes, someday I hope someone draws a map of the Whitechapel victims, writes an equation of the resulting curve, and then takes its derivative to find the killer.

That would be a welcome change from the probability rot about likelihood.

Cheers.
LC

[Colin Roberts]

Yes, someday I hope someone draws a map of the Whitechapel victims, writes an equation of the resulting curve, and then takes its derivative to find the killer.

That would be a welcome change from the probability rot about likelihood.

I should think that the second derivative of the progression of your arrogance, between posts 1 and 8,564 would be more telling.

[Colin Roberts]

rot

Hello Caroline. Thanks.

"If you see what looks like a tiger coming towards you in the dark and you shoot him between the eyes, chances are you will bag your tiger and live to tell the tale. It's somewhat less likely that you will be eaten by two one-eyed tigers, who were walking towards you arm-in-arm and missed your bullet."

Rot.

Cheers.
CR

PS. As my good friend Buzz Lightyear would say: To infinity [posts], and beyond.

[Errata]

Hello Caroline. Thanks.

"If you see what looks like a tiger coming towards you in the dark and you shoot him between the eyes, chances are you will bag your tiger and live to tell the tale. It's somewhat less likely that you will be eaten by two one-eyed tigers, who were walking towards you arm-in-arm and missed your bullet."

Rot.

Cheers.
CR

PS. As my good friend Buzz Lightyear would say: To infinity [posts], and beyond.

In medicine it's "If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras". Which is a totally solid plan. But it doesn't mean that the idea of zebras never comes up in conversation, because once in a blue moon you are going to be facing down a stampede of zebras. As someone with evidently a very peculiar physiology and immunity, I have a healthy (or unhealthy) respect for zebras.

I once had an interesting immune response called reverse pityriasis rosea. Which is essentially a virus causing small skin lesions instead of coughing and sneezing. Which is rare. Now any doc in a box will tell you that a woman who lives with cats who comes in with a pencil eraser sized itchy rash on her leg has ringworm. And I was treated for ringworm. And every other spot that cropped up (which ended up being a lot) was treated for ringworm. I didn't have ringworm, so it didn't go away. When I went to get it actually tested, the lesion had the fungal appearance of ringworm, and when tested was fungal the way ringworm is. Because as it turns out, if you don't have ringworm, but treat yourself for ringworm, you give yourself the fungus that accompanies ringworm, just without the parasite. It took two months to figure out what the lesions were, and it was a couple of weeks after the correct diagnosis that I finally was cured of the ringworm I didn't have in the first place.

Why do I tell this kind of gross story? Aside from pointing out that zebras are lurking out there, it demonstrates that expectation alters a situation. The expectation was that I had ringworm. That expectation not only delayed a correct diagnosis, but being treated as a ringworm patient gave me the symptoms of ringworm, down to the fungal infection in the lesions. Expectation of ringworm resulted in positive tests for ringworm. Despite the fact I didn't actually have it. Expectation of a serial killer results in proof of a serial killer. It has in one instance even created a serial killer. Expectation of a serial killer can easily lead to more unsolved murders, if no one is looking for a one off. And the same applies for single killers. If you expect it, you find it. But proof is not truth. We can assemble a mountain of evidence one way or the other that constitutes proof in any court of law. But that doesn't make it truth.

Do we seek proof, or do we seek truth? And can either be anything other than subjective without a way to confirm a theory? I tend not to be concerned with the odds. Frankly, my own experience tells me that the boggling vagaries of the human mind trump odds any day. But that's my experience. But a person getting struck by lightening is so rare as to be nigh impossible. But if someone comes in to the ER during a storm soaking wet with a terrible burn and their body reacting to a severe electrical shock, we don't ignore the possibility, no matter how unlikely.

I presented a theory. It is not something I am emotionally wedded to. If someone wants to tear it apart, I'm not going to cry. I welcome it in fact. But it cannot be dismissed based on odds. It has to be challenged on facts available about the crime itself or human behavior. So I'll start it off. One problem with my theory is that such obsessive behavior precludes stopping of one's own free will. It would also cause profound distress to be incarcerated and deprived of obsessive rituals, to the point that it would result in suicide after incarceration, or a complete breakdown. Which would include confession. So we are left with the killer moving or dying. And there isn't a lot of evidence to support either of those conditions.

[Abby Normal]

Hello Caroline. Thanks.

"If you see what looks like a tiger coming towards you in the dark and you shoot him between the eyes, chances are you will bag your tiger and live to tell the tale. It's somewhat less likely that you will be eaten by two one-eyed tigers, who were walking towards you arm-in-arm and missed your bullet."

Rot.

Cheers.
CR

PS. As my good friend Buzz Lightyear would say: To infinity [posts], and beyond.

Hi Colin
Were you the one who showed the statistics of women murdered in London in 1888 was approx 6 or 7 (im guessing here) higher in previous and after years?

With all other things considered, i find this info pointing to a single serial killer at work.

[bolo]

Hello Michael,

All Im suggesting is look at the evidence in these cases, all some others are suggesting is that the answers lie in the data of serial killers in the modern era.

I prefer to look in the directions that the evidence suggests are probable, but to each their own I suppose. If its probable within serial killer dogma that a serial mutilator kills without even a mutilation attempt...then I guess I can see an argument for Stride. However, its not probable...its merely possible.

of course everyone should work with the (little) evidence that is there and try to keep the fantasy stuff out of it, and that is exactly what I'm doing. It's just that some of my interpretations of the available evidence slowly changed over time from a firm belief in the C5 to a scenario with multiple killers (I call it C3+ ). I haven't really fleshed it out yet, that's why I keep it at following the tracks of full-time researchers and authors who know a heck of a lot more about the case than I ever will and take threads like this as a welcome opportunity to play around with my thoughts in public to see what others make of it (not a lot of feedback so far, guess that should tell me something).

About comparing modern serial killer cases to very cold cases like the Whitechapel murders, I think it's an interesting intellectual game but wouldn't consider it a prerequisite for aspiring Ripper hunters. Trouble is that many people seem to get their info mainly from websites that feature short text documents on each case, together with some statistics and mug shots of the killer. At first glance, many of these condensed bits and pieces of information seem to follow a certain pattern - violent childhood, psychological, psycho-social and/or physical deficiencies, torture, bloodlust, often coupled with a strong sex drive, etc. However, once you single out a few cases and explore them in full, you will soon find out that each and every one of them is different and unique. This makes comparing cases problematic and probably is one of the reasons why these killers are so hard to catch.

Regards,

Boris

[lynn cates]

framed

Hello Boris.

"About comparing modern serial killer cases to very cold cases like the Whitechapel murders, I think it's an interesting intellectual game but wouldn't consider it a prerequisite for aspiring Ripper hunters. Trouble is that many people seem to get their info mainly from websites that feature short text documents on each case, together with some statistics and mug shots of the killer. At first glance, many of these condensed bits and pieces of information seem to follow a certain pattern - violent childhood, psychological, psycho-social and/or physical deficiencies, torture, bloodlust, often coupled with a strong sex drive, etc. However, once you single out a few cases and explore them in full, you will soon find out that each and every one of them is different and unique. This makes comparing cases problematic and probable[.]"

I'm with you. This extract is suitable for framing.

Cheers.
LC