Re: A Better Way to Think About Conspiracy Theories

On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 11:41:54 PM UTC-5, John Corbett wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 4:14:04 PM UTC-5, Steve M. Galbraith wrote: 
> > One of the best columnists in America, Ross Douthat, on conspiracy 
> > thinking and how to distinguish between legitimate conspiracy views - 
> > since conspiacies do occur - and illegitimate ones. 
> > 
> > A key point about questioning the "official story": 
> > 
> > "And this points to an excellent rule for anyone who looks at an official 
> > narrative and thinks that something seems suspicious: In following your 
> > suspicions, never leap to a malignant conspiracy to explain something that 
> > can be explained by incompetence and self-protection first." 
> > 
> > The rest here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/opinion/misinformation-conspiracy-theories.html
> I couldn't agree more. I believe the biggest error in the entire handling 
> of the investigation was allowing Jackie to select who would do the 
> autopsy. The result was it was conducted by pathologists who were used to 
> doing autopsies on people who died of cancer or heart disease, not gunshot 
> wounds. They had no experience doing medico-legal autopsies which require 
> a special type of expertise. I don't blame those who decided to take the 
> body back to Washington because that was a prudent move from a security 
> standpoint. Once they got to Washington, there were plenty of qualified 
> forensic medical examiners in the DC area to do the job right. Had that 
> been done, it would have quashed some of the nonsense. Not all of it of 
> course, but it would have given the conspiracy hobbyists one less thing to 
> talk about.

Well, Finck was very well qualified in the area of "wound ballistics." He 
testified that he had done hundreds of autopsies including ones where the 
victim died of gunshots. Granted, he assisted the autopsy and maybe should 
have been put in charge. Or had a larger role. But Jackie's wish to have 
the autopsy done at Bethesda Naval Hospital meant that any autopsy doctor 
would likely have little acquaintance with gunshot wounds.

Their biggest mistake was not dissecting that back wound. And Humes should 
have called Perry during the autopsy and not the next day. Take away those 
two errors and a lot of this nonsense would have been avoided.

Manchester has a great section on the chaos and confusion that ensued the 
assassination. Nobody was thinking clearly, everyone was panicking and 
confused and didn't know what was going on. Of course conspiracists will 
just say they were all acting; they knew what happened - they were just 
pretending to be confused. You know the routine.