rootclaim - Estimating the Probability of Conspiracy vs. LHO Acted Alone

[Bill Fite]

I'm confused. The paraffin test cleared Oswald of shooting a rifle. The FBI buried the evidence that their test shooters all had significant gun powder residue on their cheeks due to the leaky firing chamber of the MC rifle. I don't know what you mean by "the FBI test that failed to discredit NAA" and how that would clear LHO of firing a rifle (did you mean "that discredited" instead?). NAA has been shown to be junk science and since it was one of the key pieces of "evidence" cited by the WC to pin the crime on LHO. What is there to be curious about at this point?

There are other hypotheses that could be estimated:

-- What was LHO's role in the assassination:

1) Member of the conspiracy
2) Government operative that infiltrated the conspiracy and was set up as a patsy
3) No role - he was just a convenient defector who was framed

Well, OK that's worth discussing. I have always thought that the "I'm just a patsy!" remark as well as the look on LHO's face when he was informed that he had, in fact, been charged with the JFK murder strongly implies some knowledge of the plot and the realization that he was set up. My feeling is that choice number 2 is most likely the case and I strongly doubt both 1 and 3.

but even in this case, it might be necessary to have the 4th possibility -- LHO acted alone -- and let the evidence estimate its probability as 0.[/QUOTE

Well, no, its clearly not. Even if you want to disregard the shots from multiple directions argument (I can't imagine what reasonable grounds you would have, but whatever...) there are many lines of well-established evidence that invalidate LHO as the lone assassin (not present at the presumed location the shots were fired from, can't be proved to own the gun in question, the gun in question was defective to the point of being unusable, no evidence that LHO purchased or possessed ammunition for the gun in question, the impossibility of the SBT, etc, etc.)

If you want to waste your time on this nonsense its your business. But I agree with Peter's comment about this being "mental masturbation"

Hi Phil --

Please see the above post for a clarification/example of the paraffin -> NAA -> FBI tests. I hope that clears it up.

I don't want to disregard anything. I would include the LHO Lone Nut hypothesis in an analysis to be able to point to the probabilities and how the evidence moved them to show how unlikely it is that a Lone Nut was responsible.

The well-established lines of evidence would do just that, IMO. As each piece of evidence is entered, the probabilities will factor it in.

Once you have the evidence that you can eliminate LHO as a Lone Nut you can then move on to using the same approach to determine the probabilities of the various groups being part of the conspiracy:

For example -- Using Mr Lateer's Nazi connection the Hypothesis could be:

1) Multiple members of the Nazi Party were involved in the conspiracy to murder JFK
2) Nazi Party members weren't part of the conspiracy

Then enter the evidence of Nazi involvement and update the probabilities.

This could be done for any group -- the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans, right wingers, Castro, the Russians etc.

It might give evidence of where to prioritize research. Then again it might not.