Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[dropzone]

This is precisely what I've been saying. For some reason, this is incendiary to some.

I did not mean to be incendiary or insulting and I wish I had received more than free books and acknowledgments for the books I researched for--God knows the author made enough. I just know that it is human nature to feel an investment in what you worked so long, hard, and expensively on and, especially when there is money involved, ones objectivity can suffer. And, as a noob, I had no idea how much some people here dislike each other and how happy they are to show it. Almost as bad as "real" scientists!

[Chris]

Yes I read that some while back (or something very like it). The point is that the DNA can't be definitive. It can be strongly suggestive of a connection but that's all.

The bit that particularly caught my eye was the comment from a Guardian article, on the difficulties of basing a match on short fragments of the mitochondrial DNA molecule:
Ross Barnett of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen also questioned the depth of the mtDNA match between the skeleton and Ibsen.
"The [diagrams] they showed were only about 30 base pairs or so … you need to have quite a lot more than 30 base pairs to get a deep match." The more common a mtDNA type is in the population, the more base pairs of DNA are required to get a reliable match.

http://www.theguardian.com//uk/2013/feb/04/richard-iii-skeleton-bone-dna

This is what was done with the shawl DNA (certainly for the "Eddowes" match, and presumably also for the "Kozminski" match). We don't know how many base pairs were matched, but there may be a clue in the statement that for the "Kozminski" DNA there was a 99.2% match for one strand and 100% for the other. If the 0.8% error represented a mismatch at a single position, that would imply there were about 125 base pairs in the sequence.

[Chris]

We don't know how many base pairs were matched, but there may be a clue in the statement that for the "Kozminski" DNA there was a 99.2% match for one strand and 100% for the other. If the 0.8% error represented a mismatch at a single position, that would imply there were about 125 base pairs in the sequence.

Actually, we also have a clue from the fact that for the "Eddowes" comparison (and possibly for the "Kozminski" comparison too) seven segments from the two hypervariable regions of the mitochondrial DNA were used. These regions have a combined length of about 1140 base pairs, so on average the segments could have contained no more than about 160 base pairs each.

That would be consistent with the "Kozminski" match being based on a sequence of about 125 base pairs.

[Lechmere]

Tom, it seems to me that you did accuse him of lying about something when you said:
‘…he could have independently published, like I and so many others have done, sparing us having to lie to our readers’.

I guess you would like to see high street bookshops put out of business as well, because that would be the result.
I have no problem with books being published ‘properly’. It puts constraints on the author but that is just one of the swings and roundabouts.
I didn’t say an author has no control. But there are inevitably pressures - many are constructive, such as insisting that arguments are properly developed.

I’d doubt the other guy you mention is raking much in.
But my intention would be to publish via a mainstream publisher – and if my ‘case closed’ offering brings in the dosh – whoopee.

Incidentally I am probably one of the few people who is potentially hit by the publication of Russell's 'definitive' book - if the 'mainstream' world takes it as being definitive. But you will not find me criticising him for publishing or making his claims.

[Tom_Wescott]

Tom, it seems to me that you did accuse him of lying about something when you said:
‘…he could have independently published, like I and so many others have done, sparing us having to lie to our readers’.

You think you're clever, Ed. But you're not. You and not I accused authors of allowing their publishers to force them to lie when you wrote: "If you publish a suspect book via a mainstream publisher, then guess what?
They will pretty much insist that it is presented as case closed and the definitive answer.
Is anyone actually unaware of that?
Can the author realistically be blamed for presenting his own case as definitive?"

I was responding that post-2011 it's not fair to blame the publisher, because the author has options. And yes, if a publisher makes a writer claim something is definitive when it's not, then someone is lying.

I guess you would like to see high street bookshops put out of business as well, because that would be the result.

Absolutely not. You mistake 'independent publishing' with e-book publishing. My book is available in paperback and Kindle, Helena's in those two formats as well as hardcover. These book stores are more than welcome to shelve them, and in the next few years, they will if they wish to remain in business.

[quote=LechmereI have no problem with books being published ‘properly’. It puts constraints on the author but that is just one of the swings and roundabouts.
I didn’t say an author has no control. But there are inevitably pressures - many are constructive, such as insisting that arguments are properly developed.[/quote]

You just said publishers make writers lie, and now you're claiming they have higher standards than writers who don't lie??? It depends on your definition of 'properly'. I consider my work 'proper', as well as Robert Maclaughlin's, Neal Shelden's, Helena's, etc. If you want to take Uncle Jack, Hands of a Woman, The Fifth Victim, Carnac, ad nauseum and call them 'proper', then so be it. There is no longer standards of quality in traditional publishing. That's long gone. And I'm not certain it's ever been there with Ripper books. Prince Jack?

I’d doubt the other guy you mention is raking much in.
But my intention would be to publish via a mainstream publisher – and if my ‘case closed’ offering brings in the dosh – whoopee.

It will make the same whether you self-publish or go through a publisher. And it will make money. Difference is, you won't see any of it because your publisher and agent will keep it. I've done my research and know what I'm talking about. You'll learn it all too, either before or after you publish.

Incidentally I am probably one of the few people who is potentially hit by the publication of Russell's 'definitive' book - if the 'mainstream' world takes it as being definitive. But you will not find me criticising him for publishing or making his claims.

Nor I!!! I don't know why you singled me out for this nonsense when it all applies to virtually every Ripper author other than myself???

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

I did not mean to be incendiary or insulting and I wish I had received more than free books and acknowledgments for the books I researched for--God knows the author made enough. I just know that it is human nature to feel an investment in what you worked so long, hard, and expensively on and, especially when there is money involved, ones objectivity can suffer. And, as a noob, I had no idea how much some people here dislike each other and how happy they are to show it. Almost as bad as "real" scientists!

Who dislikes who??? Other than Stewart's falling out with House and Phillips, which I'm sure will be temporary. Other than that, it's all been business as usual as far as I can tell.

And if you've been insulting, I haven't seen it. But then at some point I started skimming posts.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[NRTomasheski]

removed because irrelevant

[The Good Michael]

It's interesting to read this article from last year, quoting experts urging caution regarding the DNA match with Richard III:
http://io9.com/5981784/richard-iii-i...ay-dna-experts

Thanks Chris. What I'm getting from that is that, sure Kosminski was a match. But maybe we all are.

Mike

[dropzone]

Who dislikes who??? Other than Stewart's falling out with House and Phillips, which I'm sure will be temporary. Other than that, it's all been business as usual as far as I can tell.

And you and Lechmere just recently. And my own sniping with Jeff Leahy,whom I do not dislike, but whose comments towards me have raised my hackles a bit. But I'm starting to get this place. You guys know each other very well and lob locker room insults back and forth, as guys will. On my usual board I've been there 14 years and have forgotten what it's like to jump in someplace new, so I will take it in that spirit and try to limit my natural snarkiness until I know people better.

Unless someone is wrong, of course.

[Tom_Wescott]

And you and Lechmere just recently. And my own sniping with Jeff Leahy,whom I do not dislike, but whose comments towards me have raised my hackles a bit. But I'm starting to get this place. You guys know each other very well and lob locker room insults back and forth, as guys will. On my usual board I've been there 14 years and have forgotten what it's like to jump in someplace new, so I will take it in that spirit and try to limit my natural snarkiness until I know people better.

Unless someone is wrong, of course.

Lechmere? Naw, he's just a frustrated writer wishing he'd put his book out a month ago. He's the main (and damn near the only) supporter of the Charles Cross theory. Jeff Leahy is a dyed in the wool Kosminskian from way back. In his defense, at least he's not jumping on the band wagon.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Mabuse]

Hi Mabuse

The way you might be able to check this would be to look at other documents in the series and see if the same hand and red pencil is found on them ...

I'm due to be the UK next year, and will be in the LMA. If I have time, I'll try and have a butcher's.

I'll be back in Blighty myself in July, so this is exactly the sort of thing I might look into, as well.

[mickreed]

But I'm starting to get this place. You guys know each other very well and lob locker room insults back and forth, as guys will. On my usual board I've been there 14 years and have forgotten what it's like to jump in someplace new, so I will take it in that spirit and try to limit my natural snarkiness until I know people better.

Unless someone is wrong, of course.

Yeah, it does take a bit of getting used to, and I'm just getting there. Some of these blokes have been firing at each for years it seems. Many of them even know the real names behind the pseudonyms.

I struggle with bottling my natural snarkiness too, but agree with you fully. If they're wrong (and quite a few of them are) - let them have it.

[Tom_Wescott]

Many of them even know the real names behind the pseudonyms.

Yep, but not all of them. You know that somebody on here is Russell Edwards, right?

Yours truly,

Don Rumbel...er...Tom Wescott

[GUT]

Yep, but not all of them. You know that somebody on here is Russell Edwards, right?

Yours truly,

Don Rumbel...er...Tom Wescott

G'day Tom

You wish!!

[Mabuse]

Hello again Mabuse.
I am not saying anything for sure here, and I am certainly not a forensic handwriting expert, but that red annotation looks fairly unlike a nineteenth-century hand. Much more modern. It's certainly not the same hand as the person who completed the form.

Agreed about the handwriting. It certainly appears to be an addition by another person.

But why?

This is from the 'Net and I'm not saying it's right but it does support what I've just said.

Colored pencils were first developed and made around 1920 by the A.W. Faber company, located in Stein, Germany.

That can't be correct, since Toulouse-Lautrec sometimes used coloured pencils in his work, for example "At the Circus: Entering the Ring" 1899. I can't be sure what type of pencils those were, something like a pastel type, possibly.

Post 1920 is very late for someone to be making emendations to a document about an apparently unremarkable inmate. That would be after his death, too.

Unless, as you say, there are other such additions on other pages. Perhaps someone is going through them after inmates' release or death and "correcting" the data.

The 1920 era date for invention of coloured pencils appears to be the start of industrialised manufacturing of graphite-type coloured art pencils.

Wax-type or grease coloured pencils were around for longer, and their usage included the kind of checking and marking of documents that we see here.

Grease pencils were available in the late 19th C. for these kinds of purposes, IIRC, not intended for artistic usage. I haven't got a source for that, I'm going by memory, so I may well be in error.

However, if I'm right about the annotations being much later, how did they get there? Was it done in the institution, by a policeman trying to justify some sort of case, or a Ripperologist who felt that the record didn't show the real story?

Very good questions.

There appears to be another addition above Aaron Kosminski's name, just to the lower right of the year, but it's not in red. I can't read it.

If this has been added very late, then the image of Kosminski the compulsive masturbator is even less certain, and may have to be completely discarded. I've already noted how masturbation was erroneously viewed during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

If a Ripperologist or someone influenced by the Macnaghten memorandum or the Anderson marginalia wrote these red additions, then it must be very late on in the game, since IIRC those weren't publically known to many researchers until later in the 20th C.

We must really be looking at notes supplied during the rough time frame of Kosminski's incarceration or perhaps around the time of his death.