On Edwin Kaiser and Related Topics

[Scott Kaiser]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

I've never liked that statement. I've never agreed with it. It seems to me, extraordinary claims carry the same burden of persuasion as any other claims.

For example, if someone tells me they were held hostage by a goose wielding a Mannlicher-Carcano, the burden is upon that person to persuade me it's true with evidence that a goose can do that.

Once that burden has been met, I need to be persuaded that the event in question actually happened. There s nothing extraordinary at all about the process. It's simple fact-finding.

Anyway, I've always suspected that quote was a cliche. I hear it a lot. So tonight, I Wikied it.

Apparently, a man named Marcello Truzzi is given credit for it. And Carl Sagan popularized it. It may have derived from a much more sensible statement by David Hume,

"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence"

I agree with that. Off the top of my head, it's hard for me to imagine a goose threatening people with a rifle - especially a Mannlicher-Carcano.

I don't know about Scott Kaiser's claim. The evidence I've seen hasn't persuaded me of anything. Even if it did, I wouldn't know what to conclude.

But I think the word extraordinary is subjective. Just show us the facts you have and tell us what you think they add up to.
----
p.s. Truzzi did have some interesting ideas about skepticism that I agree with.
Everybody here will recognize JFK "experts" who are what he called "pseudo-skeptics". ( I don't know Truzzi's own ideas on the assassination though.)

http://skeptopathy.com/wp/?m=201308

• The tendency to deny, rather than doubt
  
• Double standards in the application of criticism
  
• The making of judgments without full inquiry
  
• Tendency to discredit, rather than investigate
  
• Use of ridicule or attacks in lieu of arguments
  
• Pejorative labeling of proponents
  
• Presenting insufficient evidence or proof
  
• Assuming criticism requires no burden of proof
  
• Making unsubstantiated counter-claims
  
• Counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence
  
• Suggesting that unconvincing evidence is grounds for dismissing it
  

Hi Marc,

I agree with what you say when you say, Just show us the facts you have and tell us what you think they add up to.

This is my fact finding material.

1. I have discovered some CIA documents classified as "Secret" titled "Sensitive" which explains my father having the photos. In all the CIA documents I've read over the years I have never seen one document titled Sensitive.

2. I tracked down and located Rudy Junco who tells me that he drove my father to the CIA's Headquarters in Miami where my father presented a fraudulent ID to gain entrance to the building where upon his visit there my father stole the photographs. Rudy witnessed my father having the photo's.

3. I spoke to Nino Diaz who also seen the photo's and remembers my father. I have our conversation on audio recorder.

4. I have spoken to Tony Calatayud who heard that my father had these photos, and knew that Frank Sturgis is on the list for the possible relation to the assassination of President Kennedy, although, Tony does not want to believe it still remains.

5. I have spoken to Luis Posada who says he knew about my father's group which was in his words a very "cloak and dagger" group.

6. My mother who is first hand witness to the photo's my father had, and the tapes he carried says she saw the photo's of the men standing outside a motel in Dallas, I asked her how would she know it was a Dallas motel? She replied in the photo's she saw the sign that said Motel Dallas.

7. Rudy told me the same thing on tape.

8. On the morning of my father's death he woke me up earlier than normal before I went to school, he asked that I go into the bathroom and wash my face, (so I did). I believe he wanted my attention, as he started to talk to me he said, "I want you to know that your uncle Frank is not as nice as you think is". Later that day, my father was killed, the attache briefcase my father always carried around with him was no where to be found after his murder. Frank Sturgis and Richard Poyle picked up my father for work that day. My mother asked the FBI for my father's attache case, she said that everyone kept telling her that they had no idea what she was talking about.

It' not that hard to find out that my father did own an attache briefcase.

9. My father also stole over 180 index cards from U.S. Customs.

10. My father was also stealing classified documents out of officers buildings from different Air Force Bases. My father would impersonate a lieutenant in the U.S. Army to gain access of these bases, my father would soon be under investigation for impersonating an officer, but all charges were dropped.

I could go on, but, I suppose no one would believe me.