When did investigators start watching Kozminski?

[Sam Flynn]

Choosing the word 'town' rather than 'vast, sprawling metropolis' would be a little misleading.

Indeed, Gary.

[Sam Flynn]

It wouldn't be if that consideration didn't also involve sidelining lots of evidence as coincidence.

From what I've seen, it's more often those who have a favourite suspect who end up sidelining evidence and declaring that X or Y can't be attributed to coincidence, when it clearly can.

[MrBarnett]

I can't see how arriving at an opinion on the basis of an objective consideration of a wide range of evidence can be considered "reductionism".

Surely, the blurring of boundaries one typically encounters in such discussions represents are far better examples of this phenomenon. By slackening our quality criteria to the extent that (e.g.) Battersea and Spitalfields are classed as "the same town", we are being reductive indeed.

A similarly reductionist antiques dealer wouldn't get very far if his/her criteria to evaluate an item extended no deeper than "jewellery", "pottery" and "furniture".

Choosing the word 'town' rather than 'vast, sprawling metropolis' would be a little misleading.

[Batman]

I can't see how arriving at an opinion on the basis of an objective consideration of a wide range of evidence can be considered "reductionism".

It wouldn't be if that consideration didn't also involve sidelining lots of evidence as coincidence and have no bearing on the opinion formed at the end of the conclusion, or maybe even worse, said sidelined coincidences are in contradiction to the conclusion formed. For example, side-ling evidence of an anti-Semitic JtR so that a Jewish suspect fits some of the evidence. Omitting a victim because a suspect was in jail or not in the country at the time. Things like that.

[Sam Flynn]

I can't see how arriving at an opinion on the basis of an objective consideration of a wide range of evidence can be considered "reductionism".

Surely, the blurring of boundaries one typically encounters in such discussions represents are far better examples of this phenomenon. By slackening our quality criteria to the extent that (e.g.) Battersea and Spitalfields are classed as "the same town", we are being reductive indeed.

A similarly reductionist antiques dealer wouldn't get very far if his/her criteria to evaluate an item extended no deeper than "jewellery", "pottery" and "furniture".

[Batman]

Like Abby said, there's too many coincidences when it comes to the Ripper/Torso pattern. In common Ripper lore, Mary Kelly was the final victim. Half a year later another prostitute washes up dead, her uterus extracted with the abdominal flaps (a la Chapman & Kelly). The following month another prostitute dies in Whitechapel, her throat cut and her abdomen mutilated. A couple months later, an unidentified torso is dumped in Whitechapel with a long abdominal gash. What are the odds that after a period of inactivity, Ripper-esque and Torso murders overlap within a few months? The same thing, of course, that happened during the Autumn of Terror & the Whitehall Mystery. We can argue the minutiae of what constitutes a Ripper murder, or whether these Torso victims were indeed murdered, but we're at risk of missing the big picture here when it's staring us in the face.

Instead of a unified overarching explanation to the murders and some torsos, it seems that some critics don't even accept that JtR murdered Eddowes and Kelly or Stride and Eddowes. So the chances of them accepting a torso are slim.

That reductionism involves so many mass coincidences that all we can say is that mass coincidences are acceptable to them, yet they end up being no further along than the early ripper writers like Sugden and Rubelow. Kozminski research is always ongoing but what new does dividing the incidents up into separate unrelated crimes do? The answer is - absolutely nothing. It does nothing new. It simply retains all the evidence done by others before and rejects the connections. That's it.

Now they have a dozen perps to find. Makes it easier when a chosen suspect clashes with a time and place of a crime. Just put the crime down to someone else and the original suspect fits. It's fitting the evidence to a suspect and not a suspect to all the evidence.

All this is about is finding the right suspect to explain all the evidence. That's it. Sure there can be some coincidences, but a layered thick McDonald's coincidence burger isn't an explanation. It is simply dismissing evidence because one believes in accepting multiple coincidences. Which in daily life, we don't accept in the day to day activities. We could just claim that DNA is a coincidence and that we can accept the low odds of it belonging to someone else, or that shoe prints that match are just a coincidence, or that a suspect matching the composite is just a coincidence, but sell that to a jury in one mouthful - "It's someone else's DNA that is coincidentally like his and his shoe prints are just a coincidence and he just happens to look like the perp, but jury members, please, this isn't evidenced beyond a reasonable doubt. It is all just a coincidence." That's why juries don't eat McDonald's coincidence burgers.

[Harry D]

Like Abby said, there's too many coincidences when it comes to the Ripper/Torso pattern. In common Ripper lore, Mary Kelly was the final victim. Half a year later another prostitute washes up dead, her uterus extracted with the abdominal flaps (a la Chapman & Kelly). The following month another prostitute dies in Whitechapel, her throat cut and her abdomen mutilated. A couple months later, an unidentified torso is dumped in Whitechapel with a long abdominal gash. What are the odds that after a period of inactivity, Ripper-esque and Torso murders overlap within a few months? The same thing, of course, that happened during the Autumn of Terror & the Whitehall Mystery. We can argue the minutiae of what constitutes a Ripper murder, or whether these Torso victims were indeed murdered, but we're at risk of missing the big picture here when it's staring us in the face.

[Sam Flynn]

Not being one to refuse an opportunity to help out...

The real question here is of course what "The same man was responsible for both the Ripper murders and the torso murders" is in Welsh.

Roedd yr un dyn yn gyfrifol am lofruddiaethau'r Rhwygwr a'r llofruddiaethau torso.

Or "flaps".

Fflapiau.

No they were two separate men.

Na, dau ddyn gwahanol oeddynt.

[Robert]

Mae'n ddrwg gennyf, Gary.

[Sam Flynn]

I'd say it's less tangential than Learn Welsh with Gareth in the 'antisemitism as diversion' thread.

Fair point, but least I was the one who started that thread

[MrBarnett]

Llawn Cymraeg ffrio-up, os gwelwch chi'n dda.

You forgot to order 'extra bubble' (I think).

[Robert]

Llawn Cymraeg ffrio-up, os gwelwch chi'n dda.

[John Wheat]

Some things, Harry, are a joy to discuss. Others are quite the opposite. Me, I´m fine discussing these matters regardless of the thread. Others are not as happy about it, for whatever reason.

The real question here is of course what "The same man was responsible for both the Ripper murders and the torso murders" is in Welsh. Or "flaps".

No they were two separate men.

[Fisherman]

I'd say it's less tangential than Learn Welsh with Gareth in the 'antisemitism as diversion' thread.

Some things, Harry, are a joy to discuss. Others are quite the opposite. Me, I´m fine discussing these matters regardless of the thread. Others are not as happy about it, for whatever reason.

The real question here is of course what "The same man was responsible for both the Ripper murders and the torso murders" is in Welsh. Or "flaps".

[Harry D]

3. The 1873 case clearly had nothing to do with Kosminski, the subject of this thread, so why bring it up?

I'd say it's less tangential than Learn Welsh with Gareth in the 'antisemitism as diversion' thread.