Pierre's research so far...

[JadenCollins]

Jaden

while you are probably right about that, I have a nagging, idea back of my mind, just have to see what thread comes out next,

steve

I bet it will be on New Year's Eve.

[Rosella]

What does Pierre mean by a 'police official' as distinct from a serving police officer, someone like Anderson of the Met or Lt Col Smith of the City Police? Because, if he's hinting at a high ranking City 'police official' as the killer, then there's not a wide range of people to choose from!

[Elamarna]

Jaden

think could be earlier.

given he has said not seen picture of his suspect, do you notice how he doesn’t like that,
and that he seems to quote so often from the material on this site, i guess we can eliminate those police with a photo, but perhaps not given his credibility issues.

steve

[Elamarna]

What does Pierre mean by a 'police official' as distinct from a serving police officer, someone like Anderson of the Met or Lt Col Smith of the City Police? Because, if he's hinting at a high ranking City 'police official' as the killer, then there's not a wide range of people to choose from!

yes if he is serious its not a big group,
however he has also said the person lived for a short time in a mansion.
he has also said he got an idea of how the person looked from seeing a photo of a relative, ..he confirmed he has not seen a photo of the person.

He is also suggesting that the person confessed, he says he has a confession!

[GUT]

I think his suspect is MM.

[Elamarna]

dear GUT

if it is, that means more misleading information.

he has previous specifically denied that, but so what, he feels he can say what he likes.?

in addition he has said:

"I haven´t seen a photo of him yet. I think there might be one in an archive,"

so we are to assume he has not looked at the the pages about police officials, probably that is where he got the term from he uses rather than police officers, where MM picture is clear.

in addition is not Pierre claiming the killer is a police official in 1888.
was not MM blocked in 1887 and did not actually join until 1889.

Was he actually in the police in 1888? would he have had access to beat times and uniforms?

Any answers welcome as i am not 100% sure.

[Pierre]

Hi GUT

he likes to call himself a scientist but it appears he is actually an historian of some sort. the two with all due respects are not the same thing.
There obviously is a fair degree of science in historical research, however his research is limited on this subject to reading documents from the 1880's.
Therefore he obviously sees his interpretation of these documents as scientific. It is these he gives as evidence
he told me he does not want to read anything else has :
"I don´t want my understanding contaminated." he sees himself as having no bias. he really e must be the first person in history who has no bias at all.

my main point however was that it all seems very personal to him, I wonder why?

First of all he told us he found this information almost by accident while researching something else, but he has not told us what.
Nether has he been forth coming about what he researches normally, I have asked him again today,, no specifics just the general field.


steve

Hi Steve,

I have several exams within the social sciences.

Regards Pierre

[Elamarna]

Hi Steve,

I have several exams within the social sciences.

Regards Pierre

Very interesting, What level?

so what some scientists call a "soft Science" no disrespect to anybody else here, please accept that.

[GUT]

Hi Steve,

I have several exams within the social sciences.

Regards Pierre

Can someone please translate????

[Elamarna]

Gut

i assume he means degrees

[JadenCollins]

meaning; he has none.

All BS!

[Elamarna]

the id of pierre and his suspect

I was researching a point raised by someone else here, when I found something very interesting, some very strong data. Am waiting for a few posts from people, lets call them Data sources before making any announcements, but I think I have found Pierre.......

If I am proved right, we will know Pierre, we will know his suspect and his motivation.

This may read like a spoof, but its not.

Elamarna

[kookingpot]

Hi Steve,

I have several exams within the social sciences.

Regards Pierre

I have some reservations about your expertise in the social sciences. You keep saying you have lots of experience in the academic realm, but it seems to me that all you have is access to an archive. You don't seem to understand how the social sciences work, the importance of secondary literature (not just primary sources), or anything that one should get from higher level education in history or other social sciences.

Yes, primary sources are the basis upon which historians build their arguments. But secondary sources are equally important. You have to know what other people are saying on a subject before you can enter the conversation. Your insistence on not reading the pertinent secondary literature in this case reveals a lack of understanding of how the study of history works at the higher levels. You have to read other people's work, understand what evidence they use, and evaluate their arguments, even if it is to criticize and explain its flaws (as many on this side do).

Primary source documents are limited by the fact that you don't always necessarily know the full context of the documents in question. Primary sources are biased. (ALL sources are biased. Again, the first thing you learn in an upper-level history class). You can't necessarily take primary source documents at face value all the time, you have to carefully evaluate each one. Relying solely on primary source documents is faulty methodology, as they teach in introductory methods classes in graduate school. Others are doing the exact same thing, looking at the same sources, and making their own interpretations. Being a historian (and here we are in fact being historians, as far as I am concerned), is not just a matter of collecting information from primary sources, but of interpreting them and arguing for your interpretation. This also relies on understanding what arguments have already been put out there. You have to read secondary literature to understand how the rest of the scholarly world views the primary sources.

Here's the important part. You don't have to agree with the secondary literature. By all means, criticize away. Find the flaws, expose the flaws, that is how the scholarly conversation works. But you have to read it in order to be able to engage with it, and to be able to situate your argument in the ongoing scholarly conversation. By not reading it, you are closing off an important resource, and making yourself willfully ignorant on many issues. When I was in graduate school, this was the first thing my advisor said to me.

By repeatedly insisting that you don't want to read the secondary literature because you "don't want your understanding contaminated" reveals that you don't understand how the study of history actually works. Even if it's just to say that all the secondary literature has been deficient in some way, you have to have read it to have any sort of meaningful impact. You have to be familiar with all the theories that are out there, even if you think they are erroneous. You have to know why you think they are erroneous, and the reason can't be "because I know I'm right, so they have to be wrong". You can't just say someone's theory is wrong because you "know" yours is right. You have to understand what evidence led them to that conclusion, and understand where their evidence is strong and where it isn't. And to do that, you have to have read their work. This is the process of peer review, an ESSENTIAL part of anything remotely resembling an academic discussion. It helps you to evaluate where your evidence is strong and where it isn't. (hint: the v-shaped cuts = chevrons is not strong evidence. You need a lot more.) If you read more widely, you would have read more opinions on these, on many different sides, and see the strength of the evidence that you have. If you understand the things that make others' arguments strong or weak, you can situate your own work in that same discussion, and see where your own work is strong or weak.

There are many, many reasons why reading secondary literature is important, and very, very few reasons it would not be good. The importance of secondary literature is drilled into you in upper levels of education in the study of history. It is a grave mistake to ignore it willfully, and detrimental not only to the reception of your own argument, but to your formulation of a theory as a whole. And this mistake makes me doubt the quality of your expertise in the social sciences.

[Elamarna]

Kookingpot

a great post.

[Pcdunn]

Very interesting...

I was researching a point raised by someone else here, when I found something very interesting, some very strong data. Am waiting for a few posts from people, lets call them Data sources before making any announcements, but I think I have found Pierre.......

If I am proved right, we will know Pierre, we will know his suspect and his motivation.

This may read like a spoof, but its not.

Elamarna

Hello, Elamarna,

The beginning of your post does sound somewhat like a spoof of Pierre's style, but if you're on the track of something, more power to you!

Re the point you raised elsewhere, about how Pierre seems to take his search "personally", I asked him awhile back if the culprit he was after was related to his own family-- he denied it, of course, but when hasn't Pierre denied any suggestion we have made on the forums?