An experiment

[Elamarna]

Steve,

Thanks for clarifying. I've never had the pleasure of receiving a PM from Pierre. He certainly has a compulsion! Pierre is vociferous in arguing his theories & I do enjoy reading the posts between you, David & Pierre as being new to these boards I learn quite a lot from them. In fact these boards are a hive of information.

Best regards.

Hi Wigngown,

Pierre has fixed ideas about how evidence can be assessed and indeed what can be counted as evidence, it does make for some strong exchanges indeed.

The main issue is that Pierre has a theory, the suspect of which he will not at present name, that does make any discussion of things difficult, and fuels a degree of frustration..

So we wait, while thread after thread appears, in the hope that he may at some stage give a name so the real debate can begin.

regards

Steve

[Errata]

Hi Wigngown,

Pierre has fixed ideas about how evidence can be assessed and indeed what can be counted as evidence, it does make for some strong exchanges indeed.

The main issue is that Pierre has a theory, the suspect of which he will not at present name, that does make any discussion of things difficult, and fuels a degree of frustration..

So we wait, while thread after thread appears, in the hope that he may at some stage give a name so the real debate can begin.

regards

Steve

It's what we refer to in these parts as an "ugly baby" dilemma.

He has a precious precious baby. He will not tolerate any aspersions against his darling little baby. The problem is, it's a ugly baby. And calling it an ugly baby is the truth. But he won't hear it. Because it's his baby.

Researchers cannot afford babies of any complexion. And if people say the baby is ugly, they have to stand there and take it, because that's the job. If you cannot behave like a researcher, you cannot claim the benefits of being called one.

[wigngown]

Steve,

It is frustrating. I'm sure Pierre is a decent enough person & clearly has a preferred suspect, a Police Official, (whatever that means) who once lived in a Manor House. No one could ever accuse Pierre of not being a lateral thinker, that's for sure. I look forward to the day we get a name.

Thanks for taking the time to bring me up to date.

Best regards.

[wigngown]

Errata,

Good analogy. It must be difficult having spent so much time researching something then have someone else pick it apart but you're right in what you say.

Best regards.

[Elamarna]

Steve,

It is frustrating. I'm sure Pierre is a decent enough person & clearly has a preferred suspect, a Police Official, (whatever that means) who once lived in a Manor House. No one could ever accuse Pierre of not being a lateral thinker, that's for sure. I look forward to the day we get a name.

Thanks for taking the time to bring me up to date.

Best regards.

no problem

s

[David Orsam]

I have been considering why Pierre has trouble getting his message across in this forum.

I believe the reason for this is his strange, almost religious, adherence to the principles of so-called "source criticism" which he keeps feeling the need to repeat.

What is clear from reading the Wikipedia page provided by Pierre is that "source criticism" was developed as a guide to analysing historical texts. It was not developed as guide to analysing evidence given by witnesses in criminal cases.

Indeed, the problem with "academic historians" as Pierre calls them, is that they are not normally required to solve murder cases and, while, some of the principles in analysing eyewitness evidence in criminal cases may be similar to the analysis of historical text written by chroniclers, they present different issues and require a different use of language in discussing them.

For example, with a historical text written by an eyewitness, we can easily refer to that document as "a source" and it does not cause any confusion. When speaking of a eyewitness to a crime, however, one (by which I include historians) would not normally refer to that person as "a source". The document in which their evidence is recorded (by others) is the source.

We can refer to the bias of a historical document but one doesn't normally refer to the "bias" of an eyewitness in a criminal case: the issue is whether they are giving honest or dishonest testimony.

Pierre constantly refers to the "tendency" of a witness. In the Wikipedia article, there is a single reference to the word "tendency" which comes in the section attributed to two Swedish writers, Torsten Thurén (of the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication at Stockholm University) and Sebastian Olden-Jřrgensen (a lecturer in Archeology, Ethnology and History at Copenhagen University). This is in the pair of sentences stating: "The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations." As far as I am aware, the work of neither author has been translated into English which suggests a certain obscurity and I am not aware of the use of the word "tendency" in this context in any other historical work. Nevertheless, I am sure that the writers are referring to issues with sources, i.e. historical texts, rather than issues with witnesses in criminal cases.

Every book I have ever read by an "academic historian" has been written in plain English without the need to constantly set out the underlying mechanics of how a historical document has been read. In any event, the problem with using the concept of bias to analyze witness evidence is that it does not anticipate a witness who is deliberately lying at a criminal hearing.

The fundamental flaw that I perceive in Pierre's analysis is that he does not consider the difference in motivation between someone writing a document giving an account of a certain event and a witness providing evidence to the authorities in a criminal case. The author of the document probably has an audience in mind and may well be writing propaganda so the historian needs to be aware of this but the witness is in a different position. Their role, in theory, is to provide a straightforward factual account of what they saw to the police and to any subsequent judicial inquiry. They will potentially be subject to questioning and cross-examination so they do not have an unfettered forum in which to promote a bias like the author of a document who may draft and re-draft that document until it says exactly what he or she wants it to say. No doubt a witness may lie for their own reasons in the witness box but, if making such an allegation against a witness, one needs to provide a convincing explanation as to why they would have done so. It is not enough to identify a possible "bias".

In short, what I believe Pierre is doing is applying a guide to textual analysis of historical documents to the analysis of oral evidence in criminal cases and, while there are some obvious similarities between the evidence presented in a historical text and evidence presented in the witness box, they are nevertheless two different beasts, produced for two very different reasons, and one cannot simply apply the language used for analysis of the former to the latter without creating confusion, which is what Pierre, in my opinion, does.

[Pcdunn]

I can almost see why he does, though-- these crimes are historical, still unsolved (to general satisfaction), and he treats the written accounts of them as historical documents.

Thank you for mentioning the odd use of the word "tendency" in Pierre's posts, by the way-- that baffled me quite a lot.

[David Orsam]

I can almost see why he does, though-- these crimes are historical, still unsolved (to general satisfaction), and he treats the written accounts of them as historical documents.

Yes but I think that is where there is confusion because the police statements and depositions are not the same type of historical documents being envisaged by those writers on historical method. In fact, the police statements and depositions are, in effect, and for our purposes, little more than transcripts of what people said (albeit not 100% complete as I have mentioned in the past). So one can't focus on these documents as a historian would focus on a historical document in the sense of conducting full textual analysis of the document.

I also think Pierre has been a little misled by the use of the word "eyewitness" in the Wikipedia article because it's a different type of eyewitness we are dealing with here.

As I said, there are similarities but they are not identical and that is creating problems both of language and of understanding.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=David Orsam;376705]I have been considering why Pierre has trouble getting his message across in this forum.

I believe the reason for this is his strange, almost religious, adherence to the principles of so-called "source criticism" which he keeps feeling the need to repeat.

What is clear from reading the Wikipedia page provided by Pierre is that "source criticism" was developed as a guide to analysing historical texts. It was not developed as guide to analysing evidence given by witnesses in criminal cases.

You are totally wrong. Inquest sources are sources from the past. Historical texts are written by historians.

Indeed, the problem with "academic historians" as Pierre calls them, is that they are not normally required to solve murder cases and, while, some of the principles in analysing eyewitness evidence in criminal cases may be similar to the analysis of historical text written by chroniclers, they present different issues and require a different use of language in discussing them.

A murder case in 1888, where there are sources left, is a case in the past. The past is the object of study for historians. A problem in the past can be defined as a scientific problem and solved as a scientific problem. If you have any scientific conscience when you try to solve the scientific problem, you should use this in combination with your knowledge of the problem in the past, to do justice to the past. You shall not destroy the past, and not the sources from the past, but you shall do it justice. You can not be a policeman, stepping into a court room in the past or into a room in Miller´s Court. You can not do an ex post police investigation of a case built on sources of investigations, you can not "re-investigate" the investigation. You can only examine the sources at hand - the sources left to us, the rest is gone, and you are obliged to do this with historical methods, since the problem is an historical problem, since the sources are sources from the past and they are the object of study for historians. I am not a "chronicler, I am a post modern historian. We are social scientists and do not construct catalogues about the lives of kings and queens in chronological order.

For example, with a historical text written by an eyewitness, we can easily refer to that document as "a source" and it does not cause any confusion. When speaking of a eyewitness to a crime, however, one (by which I include historians) would not normally refer to that person as "a source". The document in which their evidence is recorded (by others) is the source.

You must distinguish the external source criticism from the internal source criticism. All sources can be subject to source criticism. For example, what I call "the Prater sources" are the sources where Prater appears. Her function was to be a witness - in the past. But as a speaking subject in the text she is more than a pure "function": she constructed a narrative, and this narrative is written down by a person in a court room. Every source from the past have dimensions for performing external and internal source criticism.

We can refer to the bias of a historical document but one doesn't normally refer to the "bias" of an eyewitness in a criminal case: the issue is whether they are giving honest or dishonest testimony.

Every narrative source has a dimension for internal source criticism. A source where a witness is telling a story is a narrative source. This means that you must analyse the tendency in the source.

Pierre constantly refers to the "tendency" of a witness. In the Wikipedia article, there is a single reference to the word "tendency" which comes in the section attributed to two Swedish writers, Torsten Thurén (of the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication at Stockholm University) and Sebastian Olden-Jřrgensen (a lecturer in Archeology, Ethnology and History at Copenhagen University). This is in the pair of sentences stating: "The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations." As far as I am aware, the work of neither author has been translated into English which suggests a certain obscurity and I am not aware of the use of the word "tendency" in this context in any other historical work. Nevertheless, I am sure that the writers are referring to issues with sources, i.e. historical texts, rather than issues with witnesses in criminal cases.

No. Just because you are not familiar with analysing tendencies in sources does not mean that it doesn´t exist. Analysing tendencies does not exist for you, since you know nothing about it. But it does exist at the universities.

Every book I have ever read by an "academic historian" has been written in plain English without the need to constantly set out the underlying mechanics of how a historical document has been read. In any event, the problem with using the concept of bias to analyze witness evidence is that it does not anticipate a witness who is deliberately lying at a criminal hearing.

Now you mention the simplicity of the books you have read. This explains a lot.

Could you possibly explain what you mean by: "...the problem with using the concept of bias to analyze witness evidence is that it does not anticipate a witness who is deliberately lying at a criminal hearing"?

The fundamental flaw that I perceive in Pierre's analysis is that he does not consider the difference in motivation between someone writing a document giving an account of a certain event and a witness providing evidence to the authorities in a criminal case.

Haha! Oh, yes, I certainly do! This is exactly what external source criticism is useful for!

The author of the document probably has an audience in mind and may well be writing propaganda so the historian needs to be aware of this but the witness is in a different position.

You are learning, I hear.

Their role, in theory, is to provide a straightforward factual account of what they saw to the police and to any subsequent judicial inquiry.

You use the word "role" as in theatre. Are you referring to Erving Goffman?

As historians we use the concept of function for the external source criticism.

But your expression "straightforward factual account" is very dangerous. Do you mean to say that you believe that the sources state "factual accounts" and have no tendencies? You are speaking about sources from a murder inquest!

They will potentially be subject to questioning and cross-examination so they do not have an unfettered forum in which to promote a bias

But the judges and the jury were not historians and did not understand "tendencies". Nor did the police. That is why there are historical methods. We do not "cross examine". We do not "question" the dead witnesses. We analyse the cross-examinations and questioning of the dead witnesses in the sources. Because the results of the cross-examinations and questioning are narratives. They are the object for the internal source analysis.

like the author of a document who may draft and re-draft that document until it says exactly what he or she wants it to say.

That is another type of source. Not my object of study here.

No doubt a witness may lie for their own reasons in the witness box but, if making such an allegation against a witness, one needs to provide a convincing explanation as to why they would have done so. It is not enough to identify a possible "bias".

First you must perform the source criticism, then you can draw the conclusions.

In short, what I believe Pierre is doing is applying a guide to textual analysis of historical documents to the analysis of oral evidence in criminal cases and, while there are some obvious similarities between the evidence presented in a historical text and evidence presented in the witness box, they are nevertheless two different beasts, produced for two very different reasons, and one cannot simply apply the language used for analysis of the former to the latter without creating confusion, which is what Pierre, in my opinion, does.

You must learn to distinguish external source criticism from internal source criticism. When you make a clean cut, it is easy. You are getting them mixed up, and this is also why you believe that a newspaper can be reliable because you believe the reporter they used was reliable.

Regards, Pierre

[John G]

Hello Pierre,

Erm...perhaps you would suggest disbanding the forces of law and order, i.e. police, judiciary, juries, as a means of investigating crimes, and replacing them with a bunch of post-modern historians.

[Pierre]

Hello Pierre,

Erm...perhaps you would suggest disbanding the forces of law and order, i.e. police, judiciary, juries, as a means of investigating crimes, and replacing them with a bunch of post-modern historians.

Hi John,

No, historians do not interfere with the past and the sources of the past. If we did, there would be no history.

What is the source for the "neatly folded clothes"?

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

You are totally wrong. Inquest sources are sources from the past. Historical texts are written by historians.

Firstly, it is not true that historical texts are written by historians. A historical text - in other words a text from the past - is written by anyone who was alive in a certain period. I am fully aware that inquest sources are sources from the past but so what?

A murder case in 1888, where there are sources left, is a case in the past. The past is the object of study for historians. A problem in the past can be defined as a scientific problem and solved as a scientific problem. If you have any scientific conscience when you try to solve the scientific problem, you should use this in combination with your knowledge of the problem in the past, to do justice to the past. You shall not destroy the past, and not the sources from the past, but you shall do it justice. You can not be a policeman, stepping into a court room in the past or into a room in Miller´s Court. You can not do an ex post police investigation of a case built on sources of investigations, you can not "re-investigate" the investigation. You can only examine the sources at hand - the sources left to us, the rest is gone, and you are obliged to do this with historical methods, since the problem is an historical problem, since the sources are sources from the past and they are the object of study for historians. I am not a "chronicler, I am a post modern historian. We are social scientists and do not construct catalogues about the lives of kings and queens in chronological order.

Anyone who analyzes historical events is by definition a historian but where you are in error is in saying (to the extent you are saying it) that only an "academic historian" can analyze historical events and that they are the always best person to do so. When it comes to analyzing a murder from 1888 academic historians are not necessarily the best people to do it because they don't have all the necessary skills. I would also add that when investigating a murder from 1888 one is not "obliged" to do it in any certain way. If the "historical method" on Wikipedia is not appropriate then it doesn't have to be used. You are going badly wrong if you think, as you seem to, that there are rules that must be followed. As I've mentioned, the guidance set out on Wikipedia is designed for historical texts - texts from history if you prefer - but not for evidence given by witnesses in criminal cases.

You must distinguish the external source criticism from the internal source criticism. All sources can be subject to source criticism. For example, what I call "the Prater sources" are the sources where Prater appears. Her function was to be a witness - in the past. But as a speaking subject in the text she is more than a pure "function": she constructed a narrative, and this narrative is written down by a person in a court room. Every source from the past have dimensions for performing external and internal source criticism.

I don't have to distinguish anything from anything. The distinction you wish to make between internal and external source criticism is artificial, just as the concept of "source criticism" itself is. That's what you don't seem understand. There are no rules dealing with critical thinking. Your claim that Prater "constructed a narrative" is a subjective opinion. What she was actually doing was giving evidence under questioning as to what she saw and heard on the night in question.

Every narrative source has a dimension for internal source criticism. A source where a witness is telling a story is a narrative source. This means that you must analyse the tendency in the source.

I don't have to do anything. I don't have to analyse the "tendency" in a source. One uses ones critical facilities to try and establish whether a witness is giving truthful evidence. That's it.

No. Just because you are not familiar with analysing tendencies in sources does not mean that it doesn´t exist. Analysing tendencies does not exist for you, since you know nothing about it. But it does exist at the universities.

But we are not in a university Pierre.

Now you mention the simplicity of the books you have read. This explains a lot.

I repeat that every book I have ever read by a professor of history is written in plain English. If you can draw my attention to one published in England that is not then please do so.

And I can only go back to what I once said to you. If you want to convince people of something you need to write in plain English. Any reader of your work is a human being, not a robot. You need to put forward a convincing or compelling argument. Continually referring to the mechanics of "historical method" is unhelpful. I appreciate you will never appreciate this and my words will be wasted but it's the best advice I can give you.

Could you possibly explain what you mean by: "...the problem with using the concept of bias to analyze witness evidence is that it does not anticipate a witness who is deliberately lying at a criminal hearing"?

Yes, at no point in that Wikipedia article you mentioned does it refer to concepts of honesty and dishonesty, truth and lies. It refers only to bias which is not relevant for criminal testimony.

But your expression "straightforward factual account" is very dangerous. Do you mean to say that you believe that the sources state "factual accounts" and have no tendencies? You are speaking about sources from a murder inquest!

I'm not speaking about sources from a murder inquest. I'm talking about witnesses at a murder inquest. I do not recognize the concept of "tendencies". When a witness answers a question in a murder inquest they are either telling the truth or they are lying. It is for the historical investigator to attempt to determine which.

But the judges and the jury were not historians and did not understand "tendencies". Nor did the police.

Quite possibly because "tendencies" is an artificial concept created by a couple of Swedish academics and not, as far as I can tell, widely used, if used at all outside of Sweden and, frankly, of very little, if any, use to anyone. What the judges, jury and police could do was use their judgement, based on their life experience, as to whether witnesses were telling the truth or not.

We do not "cross examine". We do not "question" the dead witnesses. We analyse the cross-examinations and questioning of the dead witnesses in the sources.

Yes, I don't disagree.

Because the results of the cross-examinations and questioning are narratives.

No, because if a witness is telling the truth there is no "narrative" involved.

First you must perform the source criticism, then you can draw the conclusions.

You must learn to distinguish external source criticism from internal source criticism. When you make a clean cut, it is easy. You are getting them mixed up, and this is also why you believe that a newspaper can be reliable because you believe the reporter they used was reliable.

All you are doing here Pierre is lecturing. I "must" do this and I "must" do that without having provided any credentials of your right to give such a lecture. Nor have you provided any practical demonstration of your analytical skills on this forum. It seems to me that if I followed your example I might end up interpreting a harmless letter to a newspaper, inviting citizens of London to attend the Lord Mayor's Day parade, as a coded message to the police about the location of the next Ripper murder and the identity of the next victim. That would make me look very stupid indeed.

[John G]

Hi John,

No, historians do not interfere with the past and the sources of the past. If we did, there would be no history.

What is the source for the "neatly folded clothes"?

Regards, Pierre

The matter of the folded clothes is referred to in a number of articles on this site. One reference cited is: MEPO 3/140, f225, 226.

By the way, what is your view of Noam Chomsky's comments on postmodernism, i.e. that it's meaningless?:

"Seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest resource to Hume's advice in similar circumstances:to the flames."

Personally, I agree

[John G]

Pierre,

Now that you have declared yourself to be a "postmodernist historian", I think this explains a lot. You may be interested in this essay on the impact of postmodernism on the history profession:

http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/story27.html#_ftn2

The author opines, "They [postmodernist] are not sceptical of any particular historical interpretation, but rather they deny history in general and want to replace these absolutes that define the profession with an anarchist model of intellectual apathy toward anything of relevance."

Pierre, are you an anarchist?

[David Orsam]

The matter of the folded clothes is referred to in a number of articles on this site. One reference cited is: MEPO 3/140, f225, 226.

To the extent that reference is supposed to support the folded clothes I think it's a dud. Checking my records, it appears that MEPO 3/140, f225, 226 is no more than an extract from the Daily Telegraph of 13 November 1888 of the inquest proceedings (contained within the police file on the Kelly murder) and this report doesn't mention any folded clothes. From just having a quick look around this evening I'm wondering if the folded clothes are actually a myth that gets repeated until it has the appearance of fact. In any event, a better reference is needed.