The 2 upside down v's

[mike74]

Does anyone think it's strange how he left 2 upside down v's on CE cheeks?

[Fisherman]

Yes, many people do. Sam Flynn, though, does not. He has written a very good dissertation on the topic, entitled "By accident or by design". You can find it under the dissertations page on these boards, and I thoroughly recommend giving it a read!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Dan Norder]

The theory that the upside down Vs were the result of a single knife wound across the face had been proposed and discussed by other people many years earlier on these boards, and the author of that piece was aware of that but did not credit them for it. Much of the rest of the dissertation is similarly lax in giving acknowledgments to the original sources for the material presented. I would have hoped by know that someone would have updated the page (either on their own or due to prompting) to fix that oversight.

[Sam Flynn]

The theory that the upside down Vs were the result of a single knife wound across the face had been proposed and discussed by other people many years earlier on these boards, and the author of that piece was aware of that but did not credit them for it.

No he emphatically wasn't. It was simply a common-sense conjecture on my part, and I can assure you that I did NOT know at the time of any prior discussion of the idea. If there had been, it possibly wasn't during the time I've been a reader, or member, of Casebook.

I shouldn't be surprised that someone came up with the idea independently before me. After all, it is perfectly possible to arrive at similar conclusions given that we're dealing with the same bony structures under the skin. Big deal.

Of course, none of this will stop the irredeemably smug Dan Norder popping up and sniping at people ages after the event, like one of those disgusting brown missiles that re-surfaces long after you've pulled the chain.

Why he hasn't been banned from this site long before now is one of the great mysteries of the internet. His ad hominem defamations and his pursuit of immature vendettas against well-meaning board members are completely out of order.

[Supe]

Sam,

It's all in the writing, anyway. The melancholy tale of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was around for a long while before Shakespeare took a whack at it. And now no one but a few hopeless pedants are aware of that--and I doubt even they care Will's masterpiece was not entirely original. I just hope you have a lot more such gems in mind for Ripperologist to publish.

Don.

[Sam Flynn]

Thanks, Don.

I hope to write some more, however it'll be a tall order to avoid any ideas about whose existence I don't know. Perhaps someone ought to contact the ghosts of Adams and Leverrier, Wallace and Darwin, or Leibniz and Newton to give them the bollocking they deserved for daring to have come to the same conclusions when presented with similar data.

[Dan Norder]

It isn't a question of independently coming to the same conclusions with similar data... you were aware of the idea as proposed on the Casebook, and you took it without giving credit to the people you got it from and tried to claim it as your own. You can't claim that you weren't aware of it, because you participated in the discussions here about it.

That's a textbook example of plagiarism, and such a clear cut example of it that if you pulled it in an academic institution you'd get suspended, and if you did it at a real publication you'd be fired.

[Admin]

Accusations of plagiarism against another poster either need to be substantiated at the time they are posted or not posted period. It is not sufficient to say that there were discussions that took place and the author was aware of it. If there are such discussions, link them and provide evidence for those accusations. If there is no available evidence that at all supports the accusation, then that accusation needs to be IMMEDIATELY withdrawn, and any accusations in the future that do not have any proof behind them need NOT be made.

If one is going to demand that others proceed within strict ethical guidelines, one would think they would reasonably do likewise.

[Dan Norder]

It is not sufficient to say that there were discussions that took place and the author was aware of it.

Considering that Sam spends more hours on this board than most everyone else put together, of course he was aware of it, and it's bizarre to claim otherwise.

If there are such discussions, link them and provide evidence for those accusations.

I'll go look to see if a link exists, but if they were part of the year of Casebook posts that disappeared forever because of faulty backup files, not being able to link to them in no way means they didn't happen.

[Admin]

Perhaps I was not clear. Your stating that these discussions took place and Sam was aware of them does not constitute proof in the real world.

You have two options for your next post on this thread:

Provide proof or withdraw your comments.

Don't argue. Don't provide excuses, don't attempt to justify making an accusation of this nature without evidence because there is no justification.

Provide proof or withdraw the comment.

[Admin]

Additionally:

It is worth noting that Sam's article was published in Nov. 06. The data loss that occurred affected only the year 2007. All of the posts and threads prior to Sam publishing his article are still in existence. Threads including posts up to Jan 06 are available at www.casebook.org/archive. Posts that are in the bulk of 2006 are available on the CDrom.

[Dan Norder]

I would suggest that your idea of what the "real world"accepts as proof of plagiarism is not quite in line with what I've seen in the real world, but in the end it doesn't matter for the purposes of this board, because you can set any standards you want. I acknowledge that and accept that, because all of us here only use this site thanks to Stephen and Ally's dedication in keeping it running over the years.

I am therefore withdrawing my statement that the article is plagiarism and am now stating instead that it shows an dramatic lack of knowledge on the topic coupled with extremely incompetent research by both the author and editor before publishing the piece. Considering that this was debated by multiple people over the years and included diagrams of the proposed knife action to cause those shapes, it's odd that someone setting out to write an article on the very topic could have both missed it somehow and not discussed the issue with anyone who hadn't already had knowledge of it before assembling an article.

And when I have more time I'll go through the records looking for the threads in question (my Casebook DVD first crashed Windows Vista and then only was giving me up through 2004 before I had to give up for the night -- we have a late party tonight I have to get ready for) to look for the evidence to prove my original statement to the standards set by the Casebook admin account instead of what was used in every academic and professional environment I'm familiar with.

[Howard Brown]

Wasn't it Jon Smyth's position in his work/article/dissertation that the " ^ "' under each eye in the orbitalrim area was caused by the attempt to remove her nose? Therefore,Jon's idea was that they were "collateral damage" wounds with the activity & intent of removing her nose the vehicle which caused the marks.....

I believe Sam steered clear of that concept in reading through his dissertation on these boards. Unless I am mistaken, Sam The Man posited the idea that these marks were unintentionally committed in the general violation of her face prior to the mutilation of her corpse, but excluded the mention or promotion of the concept of an attempt to remove her nose which Jon Smyth did state as being the reason for those two marks.

[Sam Flynn]

Thank you, Howard. I'd like to say right now that I'd not heard of Smyth's ideas, nor even of John Smyth until you mentioned him!

My article makes no statement that the marks were inflicted simultaneously, only that they were produced by a horizontal motion of the knife into the flesh of both cheeks. I didn't even allude to the possibility that they were caused collaterally by an effort to remove the nose. The main thrust of my argument was to scotch the idea that the "V" shapes weren't purposely "drawn" into the skin as "pointers" to Eddowes' eyes - which the opening sentence of the paragraph in question makes clear at the outset.

Furthermore, the proposed mechanism by which I believed the "V" shapes were produced is detailed in only one or two sentences in a much larger body of text, which makes it all the more regrettable that this small section of the article is being singled out as an ostensible attack on my integrity.

[Ally]

Dan,

If you do not have access to the 2006 files, I will be happy to search through them as I have a copy and frankly I do not think it is fitting either of you to just have this hanging out there. It needs to be decided. If you trust of course that if I find anything I will post it.

However, it must be said that I have to call the MAJOR BULLSH*T flag on the following statement:

to look for the evidence to prove my original statement to the standards set by the Casebook admin account instead of what was used in every academic and professional environment I'm familiar with.

Because, being that I am happy to learn I have taken courses past my degree, taking classes that interest me wherever they are being offered, I can say that I have been a student of no less than ten colleges and universities and I have taught at several institutions of academia including colleges. At no academic or professional institution that I know of can you walk into the Deans office and say, "Bob plagiarized his paper." and when asked for the evidence the accuser is allowed to say "well it happened, we all know it happened, I read something really similar several years ago and I know he did too but I can't tell you what it is or where to find it" and it's just accepted.

The idea that accusations of plagiarism are just automatically accepted as true without any proof is absolutely NOT what occurs in any academic institution. No ones word is just good enough for an accusation of that nature to just be accepted.

I am not entirely sure why you seem to feel that providing evidence for a direct and blatant accusation of plagiarism is an unreasonable and highly unusual request?