Re: A Better Way to Think About Conspiracy Theories

On Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 11:46:04 PM UTC-5, John Corbett wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 9:18:15 PM UTC-5, Steve M. Galbraith wrote: 
> > 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.
> Finck studied battlefield wounds which is not the same as a medico-legal 
> autopsy. The latter is a requirement for legally establishing cause of 
> death. That wasn't what Finck was doing in the autopsies he performed. 
> While the two are related, there are different requirements. 
> 
> https://www.homeopathy360.com/2020/02/27/medico-legal-autopsy/#:~:text=Medico-legal%20autopsy:%20It%20is%20done%20in%20cases%20of,on%20embalmed%20dead%20bodies%20to%20enhance%20medical%20knowledge.
> > 
> > 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.
> The problem was that since none of them had done a medico-legal autopsy, 
> they didn't know how important that was. A forensic medical examiner would 
> have known the importance of that and insisted it had to be done so as not 
> to jeopardize the prosecution because of a botched autopsy.
> > 
> > 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.
> Even though it was an extraordinary circumstance, that was all the more 
> reason to follow well established proven procedures. When you make it up 
> as you go, you are more prone to make mistakes. JFK should have gotten the 
> same kind of autopsy that a John Doe shooting victim would have gotten.

As you know, for lots of reasons the Kennedys simply didn't want and 
wouldn't permit a full autopsy. Who was going to overrule them? Who had 
the authority to do so? Kennedy was attorney general. LBJ? Katzenbach? 
McNamara? I doubt that any military hospital - Bethesda or Walter Reed - 
had the type of autopsy team that would have been best. There were no 
established procedures to follow in such a situation. Not for a president. 
They needed several days to go over things. Talk to the ER physicians, 
view the films, talk to witnesses. But they were going to bury JFK in a 
day. None of that could be done.