Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[Jeff Leahy]

The shawl is a textbook case of 'do not analyse' item due to contamination.

Roy

Isn't that rather 'Baby' and 'Bathwater" ?

Jeff

[Carol]

Maybe it was found by a citizen some distance from Mitre Square, who subsequently gave it to a policeman some time afterwards -- in this case a MET officer (Simpson).

Thank you, Scott.

Carol

[Carol]

Thought you might like to see this:



'Ladies' magazine of 1801 - Victoria & Albert Museum no. E. 249-1955

Carol

[Patrick S]

Thought you might like to see this:

[ATTACH]16293[/ATTACH]

'Ladies' magazine of 1801 - Victoria & Albert Museum no. E. 249-1955

Carol

Why is that woman wearing a table runner?

[PaulB]

Hey Tom

I didn't name Paul, but I do agree about fraud claims, and I've argued against them several times in this forum. Fraud is a foolish claim to make. It's as wrong to claim fraud without evidence, as it is to claim anything else without evidence.

The real problem here is in the aggressive marketing of the book, in which the author appears all to keen to participate. Now anyone would want their publisher to market aggressively, but not on the basis of falsehoods or partial truths.

There seems to me to be various strands of Ripperology - and here I use UK comparisons.

1. There's the Independent, Guardian, Telegraph (and once upon a time, the Times) approach of Begg, Skinner, Evans, and many more. They try to present the truth as they see it, argue their case from evidence, and, whilst they will sometimes be wrong, the reader can feel assured that they've given it their best shot.

2. Then there's the well-meaning local rag. Under-resourced, unable to afford top journos, etc. Great for reporting a Council meeting or the local cricket, but without the skills, or resources generally, to get to the bottom of a complex story. This may well be RE.

3. Finally there's the Sun, the Mirror, the Mail approach. Who cares whether it's true or not? Sales are everything and if people buy our papers then that's all that counts. Some people may think that RE's book is being sold like that.

Well, I don't think that's the right way to do things. And so, I repeat, we shouldn't be bandying claims like fraud about. But on the other hand, we shouldn't go easy, just because somebody may truly believe in their own unsubstantiated claims.

There's an old saying about heat and kitchens.

Hi Mick
As you say, anyone would want their publisher to market their book aggressively, and Russell Edwards, who isn't an author or a historian or anyone who might be cautious about so boldly expressing conclusions, but is a successful businessman who naturally understands aggressive marketing and sees nothing wrong with selling his product as hard as he can. That's fine, isn't it? The only thing we need concern ourselves with is whether or not he sincerely believes what he is saying, and, as yoou said, there is "bugger all" wrong with expressing a sincerely held belief.

All I am saying is that criticism should be restricted to the content of Russell Edwards book. It's not bandying libels like fraud. It's all the other personal stuff too, like rubbishing his shop for being tacky. Whether it is tacky or not, that has little or no bearing on the book. And, of course, aside from the people rubbishing the book without having read it, when they have had the opportunity to buy and read it, there's the matter of rubbishing the book without having read it in the national press, albeit only the Daily Star, which garners no criticism.

It's the evidence on which Russell Edwards' claim is based that matters - and is pretty much all that matters - and I am grateful to people like you and others, and Mr P over on the other site, who have done their best to provide some elucidation. The evidence is in the court of Dr Jari, not Edwards, and we need to see whether he condoned and condones Russell Edwards aggressively marketed conclusion.

[Daisyhall1]

I think you have to bear in mind it is the publishers job to market the book and offer serial rights to whoever is prepared to pay for them - you can't blame Edwards for that .They are a reputable publisher and have done their job on getting media attention for the book.They will have paid him some upfront money and tbh as a business they have to recoup that and then maybe a deal has been done on sales.As you rightly say,Dr Jari is the one who will validate the science side of it- he works at John Moores in Liverpool and his reputation is at stake when doubts are cast on to the way results are obtained.He can only deduce what is put in front of him.The main question I have is the conclusion is based on an unnamed relatives DNA - that relative will have to be validated.

[anna]

Mr Edwards deserves the personal stuff.

He has discredited a lot of authors who have studied for hours over years on end,and published books on other suspects,simply by stating quite clearly on the Titchmarsh show that Kos was JTR without a doubt 100%. He also deceived the public by doing so.

If it were me,and I had the confidence in what I was pushing,I wouldn't need to be aggressive.

Aggressiveness alienates people..and that is what he has managed to do with the vast majority of the Ripper community.

He seems to use the word "Official" for his tours..which smacks of an "I've arrived,move over" attitude.

This whole affair is bombastic and obnoxious,and the sooner it is over and done with,the better.

[John G]

@theagenes

I wanted to thank you for your careful take on the book. I just got done reading through some of those posts. When the number 7,200 possible people is used, has that been adjusted for coming from a male source? Are the figures really 1 of 7,200 people and 1 of 3,600 males? Or is it 1 in 7,200 males?

HI Ghost,

The figure of 7200 comes from a genealogy site but appears to be based on erroneous data, i.e. the sampling is based upon their own family tree database rather than a wider analysis.

Thus, Kosminski is haplogroup T1a1. Currently, haplogroup T1 makes up about 2,17% of the mtDNAs in England and Wales and 80% of the T1 tree falls within subclade T1a1, leaving us with a concentration of about 1.736%. See:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376494/#!po=64.2857

The most relevant sections are p7 and s2 document, which you can download as an Excel file.

Now if we consider the population of London in 1888 then, based upon these figures, about 94000 Londoners would have shared Kosminski's mtDNA.
Of course, we do not know that the genetic material was deposited by a Londoner or in 1888.

It could also be argued that demographics have changed since 1888 but I would doubt that this would make much difference to the calculations: T1 represents about 2% of overall genetic diversity in Western Europe and around 3% in Eastern Europe and the Near East: see p7.

Hope this helps,

John

[PaulB]

Mr Edwards deserves the personal stuff.

He has discredited a lot of authors who have studied for hours over years on end,and published books on other suspects,simply by stating quite clearly on the Titchmarsh show that Kos was JTR without a doubt 100%. He also deceived the public by doing so.

If it were me,and I had the confidence in what I was pushing,I wouldn't need to be aggressive.

Aggressiveness alienates people..and that is what he has managed to do with the vast majority of the Ripper community.

He seems to use the word "Official" for his tours..which smacks of an "I've arrived,move over" attitude.

This whole affair is bombastic and obnoxious,and the sooner it is over and done with,the better.

Rubbish. He hasn't discredited any authors of Ripper books and he has done no different to any author pushing a suspect. Whether he has expressed his sincerely held belief aggressively or not is neither here nor there, but it doesn'treflect well on Ripperologists if aggressivness can cause them to be unprofessional in their criticism and damn his book publicly and in the press without reading it. It is also utterly immaterial how he describes his tours. It's the content of the book that matters, in particular the science, which isn't Russell Edwards' area.

[mickreed]

Hi Mick
As you say, anyone would want their publisher to market their book aggressively, and Russell Edwards, who isn't an author or a historian or anyone who might be cautious about so boldly expressing conclusions, but is a successful businessman who naturally understands aggressive marketing and sees nothing wrong with selling his product as hard as he can. That's fine, isn't it? The only thing we need concern ourselves with is whether or not he sincerely believes what he is saying, and, as yoou said, there is "bugger all" wrong with expressing a sincerely held belief.

All I am saying is that criticism should be restricted to the content of Russell Edwards book. It's not bandying libels like fraud. It's all the other personal stuff too, like rubbishing his shop for being tacky. Whether it is tacky or not, that has little or no bearing on the book. And, of course, aside from the people rubbishing the book without having read it, when they have had the opportunity to buy and read it, there's the matter of rubbishing the book without having read it in the national press, albeit only the Daily Star, which garners no criticism.

It's the evidence on which Russell Edwards' claim is based that matters - and is pretty much all that matters - and I am grateful to people like you and others, and Mr P over on the other site, who have done their best to provide some elucidation. The evidence is in the court of Dr Jari, not Edwards, and we need to see whether he condoned and condones Russell Edwards aggressively marketed conclusion.

G'day Paul,

It's 2.38 am here and I should be a-kip long since. So I hope I make sense.

My writing style has always been forthright, sometimes ascerbic, but I don't like fraud accusations and I've no idea whether RE's shop is tacky or not, and as you say it's irrelevant. Perhaps we may differ on this, but I worry about certainty, whether it be in religion, politics, or anything else. I think RE's claims are over the top - way over the top. And now that I've read his book, and written a review which I'm floating around a couple of mates first, I think 'over the top' is being kind. The DNA evidence may yet be of great interest, but at the moment, much of it, from my reading, does not come close to supporting RE's contentions.

Anyway Paul, I must hit the hay. Busy day tomorrow.

Thanks anyway.

[mickreed]

HI Ghost,

The figure of 7200 comes from a genealogy site but appears to be based on erroneous data, i.e. the sampling is based upon their own family tree database rather than a wider analysis.

Thus, Kosminski is haplogroup T1a1. Currently, haplogroup T1 makes up about 2,17% of the mtDNAs in England and Wales and 80% of the T1 tree falls within subclade T1a1, leaving us with a concentration of about 1.736%. See:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376494/#!po=64.2857

The most relevant sections are p7 and s2 document, which you can download as an Excel file.

Now if we consider the population of London in 1888 then, based upon these figures, about 94000 Londoners would have shared Kosminski's mtDNA.
Of course, we do not know that the genetic material was deposited by a Londoner or in 1888.

It could also be argued that demographics have changed since 1888 but I would doubt that this would make much difference to the calculations: T1 represents about 2% of overall genetic diversity in Western Europe and around 3% in Eastern Europe and the Near East: see p7.

Hope this helps,

John

That does help, John. Moreover Edwards's claim that T1a1 is 'very typical' of Russo-Polish Jews seems very dubious.

[John G]

That does help, John. Moreover Edwards's claim that T1a1 is 'very typical' of Russo-Polish Jews seems very dubious.

Hi Mick,

Yes, it seems far more widespread than the Russo-Polish Jewish community and not particularly uncommon, even as a subclade.

[Roy Corduroy]

Good morning Jeff,

In response to my comment about contamination you replied -

Isn't that rather 'Baby' and 'Bathwater" ?

Jeff

Yes it is exactly. Contamination can't be measured. It doesn't have to. I'm not accusing anyone of hanky-panky either. Once something is contaminated to the extent of the shawl it's all the same. There is no blame. Only the idea itself of testing the thing is misguided.

Roy

[PaulB]

G'day Paul,

It's 2.38 am here and I should be a-kip long since. So I hope I make sense.

My writing style has always been forthright, sometimes ascerbic, but I don't like fraud accusations and I've no idea whether RE's shop is tacky or not, and as you say it's irrelevant. Perhaps we may differ on this, but I worry about certainty, whether it be in religion, politics, or anything else. I think RE's claims are over the top - way over the top. And now that I've read his book, and written a review which I'm floating around a couple of mates first, I think 'over the top' is being kind. The DNA evidence may yet be of great interest, but at the moment, much of it, from my reading, does not come close to supporting RE's contentions.

Anyway Paul, I must hit the hay. Busy day tomorrow.

Thanks anyway.

You say nothing with which I would disagree, including your reservations about certainty. Russell Edwards claims may well be way over the top. And, unless you have a publication lined up for your review, perhaps you might like to float it in the direction of Ripperologist...

[pinkmoon]

None of this is true because the shawl couldn't have been at any of the murder sites.