Tweet
Originally posted by Fisherman
View Post
Having read this thread extensively for quite some time now, I am going to abstain from attacking some of the posters who I believe are making a very deplorable impression out here. I will name no names and make no criticism against these posters.
What I will instead do, is to take you back number of years, and describe what happened on Casebook then. Some will remember it, but to other it will be news.
Back then, there was a very popular suspect named George Hutchinson doing the rounds out here. He is well known to most of us as a witness in the Mary Kelly case. And among a number of posters, me included, an idea was formed that one of the signatures on the police report signed by the witness George Hutchinson was incredibly similar to the signature of George William Topping Hutchinson, a plumber who had raised a son by the name of Reg, who was to state in an interview that his father was the witness of Ripper fame.
That idea did not go down well with the ones in favour of George Hutchinson being the Ripper.
Amongst those who fought the idea that the witness had been identified was foremost a guy who has not posted out here for quite some years now. We can call him B. He was very much the leader of the criticism against the idea of an identification of the witness as Topping. He was well read up on the case, quite intelligent and eloquent. He had a lot of things going for him, but accepting possibly being wrong was not one of them.
As the debate went on, I contacted the leading forensic document examiner in Sweden, Frank Leander of the SKL (Sveriges Kriminaltekniska Laboratorium, The Laboratory of Criminal Technique of Sweden) and supplied him with the one of the three witness statement signatures that I thought was a very close match to that of Topping Hutchinson, plus, of course, Topping own signature/s. And Leander was able to confirm what I suspected - the signatures were quite likely by the same hand, as far as he was able to tell.
What Frank Leander made clear was that for him to be able to make a definitive match that could stand up in court, he would have needed ten samples of both mens signatures. Until that happens, all there can be is an indication. This indication can of course be weak or strong, and what Leander said was that he fully anticipated that any forthcoming more signatures would go to confirm his take of a similar originator of the signatures.
Foolishly, I thought that this material should be enough to clear up the matter - obviously, George Hutchinson the witness and George Hutchinson the plumber were one and the same man, just as Reg Hutchinson had said.
That was when something very similar to what is going on on this thread erupted. B questioned everything that Leander had said, and claimed that I had misunderstood him totally. Plus I had gone about things in the totally wrong manner. And there was no lack of ingenuity on B:s behalf when it came to thinking up alternative interpretations of what Leander had said. Some of them were outright preposterous, just as is the case here, but the thing is, I could not prove them wrong. Some times preposterous suggestions are proven true, against all odds.
If we had come no further that time, it would have been a case of a twin matter, compared to the one on this thread. But luckily, I contacted Frank Leander, and he was just as outraged by how B twisted what he had said as I was, and he accordingly agreed to comment further on the matter, dismantling everything B had claimed. And he dubbed B :s posts ”malicious” in the process.
Eventually, we were able to back B into a corner from which there was no escape. No more alternative suggestions for what Leander meant could be made, since Leander himself had quashed them all.
Now, guess what B did at this stage? Accept that he had been wrong all along? Oh no; he said ”No, Leander does not agree with you at all, he has simply grown tired of you pestering him and he is now fobbing you off by feigning an agreement with your claims!”
This, and its latter day ugly offspring, resurfacing again and again, is by and large why I avoid Casebook. When somebody contributes to our joint knowledge by contacting experts and gaining valuable insight and information from them, it should arguably be met by enthusiasm. It should not be met by obfuscation, wriggling and malevolent misinterpretations. I can fully understand why experts who have come into contact with ripperology and its students will not touch it with a ten foot pole afterwards. Which is, for example, why I am not contacting Thiblin again to ask him if what he said was actually what he meant. He had given a clear and valuable piece of information, and he really does not need to be questioned about it any more.
Now that I have written about this and made my picture clear, I anticipate to have it confirmed by a line of posters who chime in and go:
”He cannot defend his rotten ideas, that is why he flies like a coward.”
”Of course Ben was correct, anybody would be worn down by Fisherman and want to get rid off him!”
”Just listen - he is happy about experts that seem to endorse him, but he scuffs at Biggs!”
”He is an expert when it comes to misleading experts!!”
And
”He is trying to use a case that has nothing to do with this one for a comparison, thats what happens when he knows he cannot win the debate!”
Let it be known that I have seen all of this before, and that I have no problems recognizing it. And let it be known that I find it an utter waste of time spending pages on end in a useless effort to make my point, knowing that no argument I make and no expert I quote, regardless of his or her status, will be listened to. And let it be known that this is why I normally avoid posting here nowadays.
Many thanks to those who have battled on in such a great and composed style, piling logical points on each other - to no avail at all. Never believe that you cannot win, because you already did. It is the acceptance of this you are deprived of, not the win itself.
All the best to everybody - and I really, really mean that.
Now you will not see me out here for quite some time, and that’s a promise.
What I will instead do, is to take you back number of years, and describe what happened on Casebook then. Some will remember it, but to other it will be news.
Back then, there was a very popular suspect named George Hutchinson doing the rounds out here. He is well known to most of us as a witness in the Mary Kelly case. And among a number of posters, me included, an idea was formed that one of the signatures on the police report signed by the witness George Hutchinson was incredibly similar to the signature of George William Topping Hutchinson, a plumber who had raised a son by the name of Reg, who was to state in an interview that his father was the witness of Ripper fame.
That idea did not go down well with the ones in favour of George Hutchinson being the Ripper.
Amongst those who fought the idea that the witness had been identified was foremost a guy who has not posted out here for quite some years now. We can call him B. He was very much the leader of the criticism against the idea of an identification of the witness as Topping. He was well read up on the case, quite intelligent and eloquent. He had a lot of things going for him, but accepting possibly being wrong was not one of them.
As the debate went on, I contacted the leading forensic document examiner in Sweden, Frank Leander of the SKL (Sveriges Kriminaltekniska Laboratorium, The Laboratory of Criminal Technique of Sweden) and supplied him with the one of the three witness statement signatures that I thought was a very close match to that of Topping Hutchinson, plus, of course, Topping own signature/s. And Leander was able to confirm what I suspected - the signatures were quite likely by the same hand, as far as he was able to tell.
What Frank Leander made clear was that for him to be able to make a definitive match that could stand up in court, he would have needed ten samples of both mens signatures. Until that happens, all there can be is an indication. This indication can of course be weak or strong, and what Leander said was that he fully anticipated that any forthcoming more signatures would go to confirm his take of a similar originator of the signatures.
Foolishly, I thought that this material should be enough to clear up the matter - obviously, George Hutchinson the witness and George Hutchinson the plumber were one and the same man, just as Reg Hutchinson had said.
That was when something very similar to what is going on on this thread erupted. B questioned everything that Leander had said, and claimed that I had misunderstood him totally. Plus I had gone about things in the totally wrong manner. And there was no lack of ingenuity on B:s behalf when it came to thinking up alternative interpretations of what Leander had said. Some of them were outright preposterous, just as is the case here, but the thing is, I could not prove them wrong. Some times preposterous suggestions are proven true, against all odds.
If we had come no further that time, it would have been a case of a twin matter, compared to the one on this thread. But luckily, I contacted Frank Leander, and he was just as outraged by how B twisted what he had said as I was, and he accordingly agreed to comment further on the matter, dismantling everything B had claimed. And he dubbed B :s posts ”malicious” in the process.
Eventually, we were able to back B into a corner from which there was no escape. No more alternative suggestions for what Leander meant could be made, since Leander himself had quashed them all.
Now, guess what B did at this stage? Accept that he had been wrong all along? Oh no; he said ”No, Leander does not agree with you at all, he has simply grown tired of you pestering him and he is now fobbing you off by feigning an agreement with your claims!”
This, and its latter day ugly offspring, resurfacing again and again, is by and large why I avoid Casebook. When somebody contributes to our joint knowledge by contacting experts and gaining valuable insight and information from them, it should arguably be met by enthusiasm. It should not be met by obfuscation, wriggling and malevolent misinterpretations. I can fully understand why experts who have come into contact with ripperology and its students will not touch it with a ten foot pole afterwards. Which is, for example, why I am not contacting Thiblin again to ask him if what he said was actually what he meant. He had given a clear and valuable piece of information, and he really does not need to be questioned about it any more.
Now that I have written about this and made my picture clear, I anticipate to have it confirmed by a line of posters who chime in and go:
”He cannot defend his rotten ideas, that is why he flies like a coward.”
”Of course Ben was correct, anybody would be worn down by Fisherman and want to get rid off him!”
”Just listen - he is happy about experts that seem to endorse him, but he scuffs at Biggs!”
”He is an expert when it comes to misleading experts!!”
And
”He is trying to use a case that has nothing to do with this one for a comparison, thats what happens when he knows he cannot win the debate!”
Let it be known that I have seen all of this before, and that I have no problems recognizing it. And let it be known that I find it an utter waste of time spending pages on end in a useless effort to make my point, knowing that no argument I make and no expert I quote, regardless of his or her status, will be listened to. And let it be known that this is why I normally avoid posting here nowadays.
Many thanks to those who have battled on in such a great and composed style, piling logical points on each other - to no avail at all. Never believe that you cannot win, because you already did. It is the acceptance of this you are deprived of, not the win itself.
All the best to everybody - and I really, really mean that.
Now you will not see me out here for quite some time, and that’s a promise.
There are very few of us who approach the discussion thinking: all possible scenarios have obstacles, but which of the scenarios requires the least in terms of leap of faith, and from there forming a conclusion as to which one is most likely while not being anywhere near a foregone conclusion.
Comment