probability

[lynn cates]

Hello All. Some seem challenged when it comes to understanding probabilities and the significance thereof. Right. Perhaps this will help.

We know that:

1. Mrs. Brown died the same night as Kate Eddowes.

2. These two were about two miles apart in space and less than two hours apart in time.

3. They were totally unrelated killings.

What are the probabilities for that happening? Whatever the probability, it will be a very small real number.

Now the difficult question. In spite of that very small number, did the two events happen or not? (Come on, it's not THAT difficult, you can do it.)

Good! They DID happen. In spite of the very low probability, they OCCURRED.

Wonder if we can learn a lesson from this? Nah?

Thought so.

Cheers.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hello All. Some seem challenged when it comes to understanding probabilities and the significance thereof. Right. Perhaps this will help.

We know that:

1. Mrs. Brown died the same night as Kate Eddowes.

2. These two were about two miles apart in space and less than two hours apart in time.

3. They were totally unrelated killings.

What are the probabilities for that happening? Whatever the probability, it will be a very small real number.

Now the difficult question. In spite of that very small number, did the two events happen or not? (Come on, it's not THAT difficult, you can do it.)

Good! They DID happen. In spite of the very low probability, they OCCURRED.

Wonder if we can learn a lesson from this? Nah?

Thought so.

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn,

I get the meaning...and the words "totally unrelated" sing out loud.

Learnt the lesson years and years ago my friend :-)


best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

Thank you.

Your aid to understanding probabilities is most useful, though probably wasted on most Ripperologists, who tiresomely insist on trusting everything they have been told, especially by policemen.

This is why they are doomed to spin their wheels for all eternity.

I and my fellow heretics prefer the Cartesian method. We search for certainty by systematically though tentatively doubting everything.

Double-event? What double-event?

Regards,

Simon

[Harry D]

Hello All. Some seem challenged when it comes to understanding probabilities and the significance thereof. Right. Perhaps this will help.

We know that:

1. Mrs. Brown died the same night as Kate Eddowes.

2. These two were about two miles apart in space and less than two hours apart in time.

3. They were totally unrelated killings.

What are the probabilities for that happening? Whatever the probability, it will be a very small real number.

Now the difficult question. In spite of that very small number, did the two events happen or not? (Come on, it's not THAT difficult, you can do it.)

Good! They DID happen. In spite of the very low probability, they OCCURRED.

Wonder if we can learn a lesson from this? Nah?

Thought so.

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn,

You seem to be pursuing a specious line of reasoning, that if two unrelated throat-slashings could be committed within a short space of time, why not three? Then why not four? Or five?

Thanks.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Lynn,

You seem to be pursuing a specious line of reasoning, that if two unrelated throat-slashings could be committed within a short space of time, why not three? Then why not four? Or five?

Thanks.

Hello Harry,

Hang about here just a cotton picking minute please!

1. Either Mrs. Brown was related to the other killings or she was not.


2a. If she was, then your idea of what is possible has just gone flying out of the window, Poste Haste.

2b. If she was NOT related, then the two knife killings of women on that night happened close together in space and time which just happened to be UNRELATED.



It isn't too hard to swallow. Mrs Brown was unrelated. She was killed. It was on the same night. It was not too far away. (2 miles is nothing)

Now tell me how or why it is probable, by the same reckoning of probability, that Mrs Brown's murder is ALSO related to Eddowes and Stride?

Because if you are calling one...why not the other?... One killer, three murders.... I don't see anyone shouting the odds for that one... now I wonder why?



Well, I will tell you.

It doesnt fit in with a cosily planned and promoted double event scenology that has been wrapped up in Police newspaper since 30th September 1888, thats why.

The simple reason for it is that the police DARED not admit they had a normal domestic killing on the same night as a loony with a theorhetical grudge against open street surgeons.
Despite what todays police experts will tell you.

It was all to do with losing face. In a hot political environment.
Just like Casebook. It's all politics of keeping in with the top brass.


Obvious to some of us. The wheels MUST not come off the Ripper bandwagon.

It's all to do with keeping the game alive. Sod the truth.



Phil

[Harry D]

Hello Phil,

Who knows, had Sarah Brown's husband not handed himself in, we might now be talking about a 'triple-event'. But since we know with the wisdom of hindsight that it wasn't a Ripper crime, Sarah Brown really has no bearing on the other two murders.

[Debra A]

Opinion is very obviously divided over Stride as a JTR victim-that's why there are so many threads and polls about it. The police in 1888 linked her-that's the starting point we are given,we can't re-write that as it can never be proven if she was or wasn't can it?

[Rob Clack]

Different area, different day.

Each case should be treated separately.

Rob

[Lechmere]

Brown was very clearly a different type of murder

[lynn cates]

thanks

Hello Phil. Thanks.

Yes indeed.

(Sorry for the tardy reply but I was doing YOUR kind of work today. Hard, but very satisfying to work with special needs people.)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Dante and Descartes

Hello Simon. Thanks.

Hmm, sounds like a fate devised by Dante. (heh-heh)

Ah, yes, Descartes--now THERE was a reasoning bloke.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

specious

Hello Harry. Thanks.

I agree that, anytime we try to solve a crime based on probability, we are engaged in specious reasoning. Much better to advert to forensic science, eh?

Cheers.
LC

[c.d.]

Hello Lynn,

I see you are still heavily into being condescending in your posts. Is that really necessary?

You are still leaving out a salient fact in your argument. There is no evidence whatsoever that Mrs. Brown was a prostitute or ever engaged in soliciting. However, there is evidence that both Liz and Kate engaged in prostitution even if only on occasion. That has to be factored into the equation. In other words, what are the odds that two prostitutes would both have their throats cut so close together in space and time on the same night? Add to the equation that the argument (at least in my opinion) for a non-Jack killer is weak and that leaves us with Jack as their killer.

c.d.

[lynn cates]

logician

Hello Phil. You should be a logician my friend.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

forensics

Hello Debs. Thanks.

Perhaps some day we SHALL know with certainty there was a "Double Event." And that gives me not the slightest moment for pause.

But IF we do, it will come about through forensic science--not hand waving based on probability.

Cheers.
LC