Subject: Re: Why I No Longer Believe in Tink
Date: 9 Oct 1998 03:56:14 -0500
From: Martin Shackelford <mshack@concentric.net>
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
CC: garyag@ix.netcom.com, snyder@slac.stanford.edu, gumshoe@hooked.net,
     clintbrad4d@earthlink.net, dlifton@compuserve.com, drmantik@aol.com,
     debra@jfklancer.com, MilicentCranor@compuserve.com,
     laurel@laurelpubl.com, paulhoch@uclink4.berkeley.edu,
     KFITZ@prodigy.net
Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk,alt.conspiracy.jfk,startext.jfk

          Jim Fetzer "no longer believes" in Tink Thompson. What a shock!
It's
like learning that the attorney for the Easter Bunny has declared that,
sadly,
he no longer believes in the Theory of Evolution. It's completely and
totally
irrelevant to anything resembling reality. But, then, we've come to expect
that from Jim. Reality is a bit out of his line.
          He says that Tink made him an easy target because Mr. Fetzer has
been "formal, exact and thorough." Actually, he made himself an easy target
by
being bombastic, vague and long-winded--did I mention arrogant? He is right
about being pedantic, though--in the worst sense of the word. He is
operating
on a plane that has lost all touch with the real world of evidence.
          Why doesn't he "believe in" Tink Thompson any more? Let's look at
his points:
1) Without much information at all, and contrary to what little he has, he
finds something he dislikes "surely false."
2) He considers it "grossly unfair" that Tink won't provide him with copies
of
private correspondence without the permission of the authors of that
correspondence. He himself has violated such confidences in the past, so he
expects Tink to lower himself to the same level.
3) He misrepresents Tink's statements about what he's read. Because Tink
read
a draft of Dr. Mantik's alteration chapter rather than the final published
version, he denies Tink the right to have a valid opinion on alteration. I
saw
an early version at Lancer 96, and then the final version--the differences
aren't significant. The problem is the serious underlying problems with the
alteration argument, and mountains of trivia, and lists of "anomalies"
without
contextual meaning, don't make the case any stronger. Thus, Mr. Fetzer has
to
rely on rhetoric and meaningless distinctions to make it appear as though
Tink
is in no position to comment. In his words, "discredits his opinion in the
case." He wishes this is so, but it is only another example of how out of
touch he really is.
4) He continues to demand evidence from Tink regarding the Z film's
whereabouts on Friday night, when all of the evidence supports Tink's
statement that it was in Zapruder's hands. Aside from a reference to an
obsolete article by Phil Melanson, obsoleted by the evidence released in the
14 years since it was written, Fetzer offers absolutely no evidence at all
for
his claim that the CIA had the film on Friday night. I have looked for such
evidence and found none. I wonder if he has looked at all. I sometimes think
that he finds evidence limiting, an interference with his will to believe.
5) He says that "those who are not qualified only rarely make
contributions."
Apparently, he is overlooking the lack of qualifications of many of the
contributors to Assassination Science on the topics about which they are
writing. Dr. Mantik, for example, was declaring lists of "anomalies" in the
Zapruder film (an anomaly being something that isn't typical) when he had
never examined another 8mm film, and didn't have a clue what was typical or
not. Later, he looked at some other 8mm films, but this was far from making
him a "world authority" as Mr. Fetzer's fantasies declared him.
6) At no point did Tink "disparage" research credentials; it is Mr. Fetzer,
in
defense of his pseudo-scientific volume, who has had to downplay
credentials,
for the reason just mentioned.
7) Tink didn't "ignore" Dr. Mantik's or Dr. Livingston's work in the medical
evidence. The topic of discussion was Zapruder film alteration--the medical
evidence work wasn't relevant to the discussion at all. This is a gross
example of Mr. Fetzer's strawman diversions.
8) In support of the credentials of his book's contributors, he argues that
a
PhD. qualifies one "to research on many subjects," gliding lightly by the
question of whether the individual has sufficient background IN THE SUBJECT
MATTER about which he writes.
9) "his deference to Marsh"? Tink referred favorably to Marsh's work, with
good reason. Is it Mr. Fetzer's belief that one can never rely on the work
of
those who have studied a particular issue in depth, but must reenact all of
the work himself? If that's true, Mr. Fetzer has a very large amount of work
to do before he talks again about film alteration.
10) Mr. Fetzer attacks Tink again for not violating the confidence of a
correspondent by forwarding a private e-mail to him. I've seen the e-mail.
Tink characterized it accurately. Mr. Fetzer is trying to substitute
innuendo
for argument.
11) Tink didn't "evade" Mr. Fetzer's argument about probability, he
explained
the rank absurdity of it. Mr. Fetzer makes rhetorical use of Elizabeth
Loftus
as he did with Art Snyder, in both cases misrepresenting, or perhaps just
misunderstanding, their work.
12) In another side issue, Mr. Fetzer pretends that what courses Tink taught
as a professor make a difference when it comes to the valid arguments he
makes
against alteration. Another gross example of a strawman.
           He continues to refer to alteration claims as "discoveries," as
though their validity had been established. Of course, the Easter Bunny's
attorney is not going to question where the chocolate eggs really come from,
either.
           The very things which REVEAL the "relative merits" of their
positions, Mr. Fetzer sees as "obscuring" their relative merits. Judging
from
the opening of Mr. Fetzer's message, Gary Aguilar knew better, and warned
Mr.
Fetzer, but he was oblivious. He was too busy characterizing Tink as a
"continental philosopher" (thus unqualified and not to be considered) and
himself as an "analytic philospher" (which, if true, is bad news for
analysis).
           Mr. Fetzer then treads on VERY dangerous ground, questioning
Tink's
qualifications to comment on Zapruder alteration. Mr. Fetzer has built his
ENTIRE CASE on "studies" by people with no relevant qualifications, but he
apparently still doesn't know the evidence well enough to realize it.
           Then we are "treated" to a long discussion of Kierkegaard, so
that
Mr. Fetzer can demonstrate that he's read a book about the subject of an
earlier book by Tink. Nothing in the quoted passages supports Mr. Fetzer's
earlier characterization of Kierkegaard, but he follows the passages by
re-stating his interpretation of them as though it was fact. No one has
accused Mr. Fetzer, of course, of believing in alteration "because it is
absurd." He seems to believe it "despite" its absurdity.
           Stepping into quicksand again, he suggests that Tink is
unreliable
because his subject, Kierkegaard, believed truth was subjective. Mr.
Fetzer's
own highly subjective approach to the JFK assassination evidence may explain
why he doesn't notice himself sinking, even though Dr. Aguilar kindly tried
to
point out that he was up to his neck in it.
            Mr. Fetzer seems to have developed a sudden appreciation for
credentials, though when someone has relevant credentials to talk about the
evidence in this case and 8mm film, and isn't saying what he wants to hear,
his response is to announce that he will no longer read anything the person
(in this case myself) writes on the subject. He feels that his PhD. in
Philosophy qualifies him to speak as an expert on the case, but my
qualifications aren't adequate. What are they?:
1) A Bachelor's Degree in History, and some graduate studies in the field,
from the University of Michigan.
2) More than three decades of experience with 8mm, Super 8mm, and 16mm film,
and video, including experience shooting footage, editing it, doing special
effects, and frame by frame study of multiple films.
3) Extensive reading over the same period on the subject of the technical
and
creative aspects of movie special effects.
4) Twenty-four years of reading and studying the literature and evidence on
the assassination of President Kennedy, with a special emphasis on the
photographic evidence.
I guess it's unfortunate that I haven't bought into Mr. Fetzer's alteration
fantasies--otherwise, he might be touting ME as "a world authority" on
something--like film directing, or something else where I lack real
qualifications.
             Given this "Alice in Wonderland" perspective Mr. Fetzer has on
the case and the evidence (what Jim Garrison characterized as "black is
white
and white is black), it is not surprising to hear that he concludes Josiah
Thompson, who has forgotten more about the case than Mr. Fetzer will ever
really know "was once a force for good" but "has now become an obstacle." An
obstacle to what? To the triumph of Mr. Fetzer's fantasies.
              Of course, Mr. Fetzer knows that his ridiculous diatribe will
be
strongly criticized. In his imaginary world, "this will again reflect the
poverty of reason and logic on their side." No wonder his efforts to
understand Tink have ended in "puzzlement." What is even more puzzling is
that
he doesn't realize that his efforts to understand the assassination have
ended, to date, the same way.

Martin Shackelford

james fetzer wrote:

> Gary,
>
> Your recent suggestion that Tink was doing me damage (handing me my hat,
> as you put it) was appreciated in the cordial spirit in which it was in-
> tended.  Such is the power of rhetoric.  The charge of pomposity is easy
> to make with professors, who tend to be formal, exact, and thorough--in
> a word, pedantic--of which I am obviously guilty as charged.  But those
> traits differ in calibre from those of evasion, falsehood, and deceit.
> An objective analysis of our exchange--that disregards the caricatures,
> the sacrasm and the ridicule--reveals multiple abuses of reason and the
> canons of discourse, which explain why I no longer believe in this man.
>
> Here are a dozen specific examples of what troubled me in our exchange:
>
> (1) his claim that more than half of some 70 posts he had received were
> commentaries on my critique of his reply to Mili, which is surely false;
>
> (2) his unwillingness to share the contents of these posts as though any-
> one could respond to arguments never presented, which is grossly unfair;*
>
> (3) his admission that he has never read the relevant studies of altera-
> tion in ASSASSINATION SCIENCE, which discredits his opinions in the case;
>
> (4) his unequivocal assertion that the film was never in the hands of the
> CIA on Friday night, which he does not support with any evidence at all;
>
> (5) his claim that arguments stand on their own merits, which is true but
> trivial, since those who are not qualified only rarely make contributions;
>
> (6) his disparagement of research credentials, even though those who are
> most likely to make discoveries are those who have appropriate training;
>
> (7) his ignoring the obvious cases of David Mantik's work on the X-rays
> and Bob Livingston's work on the diagrams and photographs of the brain;
>
> (8) his claim that no Ph.D.s are awarded in "assassination research", a
> remark that trades on an ambiguity, since Ph.D.s are research degrees of
> relevance to research on many subjects, including the JFK assassination;
>
> (9) his deference to Marsh on the camera settings, which suggests he is
> not able to field a question basic to his own research for himself even
> after having written his book, which is a rather odd position for him;**
>
> (10) his use of a private post from Art Snyder to rebut my description of
> his work--an understanding of what he had done that was widely shared at
> the time--without sharing the contents of that post (and for Art to not
> respond to my request for a clarification is obviously grossly unfair);
>
> (11) his evasion of my rebuttal to his claim that the .02 probability of
> error in the eyewitness testimony could never be satisfied, which is con-
> trary to the findings of Elizabeth Loftus, whom he cites as his expert,
> a matter that should be pursued in light of David's work on this matter;
>
> (12) when I asked if he had ever taught courses in logic, informal falla-
> cies, or critical thinking, he replied that courses in critical thinking
> were not on the books when he was at Yale and Haverford--which I am sure
> is true, because critical thinking has taken hold as a subject in recent
> years--without admitting that he never taught logic or informal fallacies.
>
> NOTES:
>
>   * and I certainly do not care who wrote these posts, although I have
>     a pretty good idea; I am only interested in hearing the arguments.
>
>  ** and when I suggested I had always assumed that it had been shot in
>     slow motion and that slow motion ran at 48 fps, of course, I meant
>     in light of the discoveries of alternation advanced at Lancer 1996.
>
> These are some examples of the dissembling, distortions, and falsehoods
> an objective analysis discloses in his replies to me.  His repetitious
> and extensive reliance on sarcasm, caricature, and ridicule--which cer-
> tainly obscure the relative merits of our positions--indicates to me he
> was never well-trained in logic, informal fallacies, or critical think-
> ing.  This may sound odd, but the explanation for this is really not so
> surprising (at least would not be to any philosopher).  Tink was what is
> known as a "continental philosopher" preoccupied with Hegel, Nietzsche,
> and existentialism, and students with his orientation have historically
> tended to avoid courses in philosophy of language, the theory of knowl-
> edge, and the philosophy of science, which are areas of great interest
> to "analytic philosophers", which I exemplify.  Our backgrounds and our
> abilities are consequently very different, which I find to be especially
> interesting in relation to my questions about his entry into this case.
>
> This has led me to consider that perhaps the reason he as repeated over
> and over the trivial observation that arguments must stand on their own
> merits regardless of the qualifications of those who advance them might
> have its origin in his own work on the Zapruder film.  It is especially
> striking that his "curiousity" should have led him in this direction in
> light of his earlier interest in Kierkegaard, who was the first existen-
> tialist and did not even believe in objective truth.  When I said some-
> thing about BELIEVING BECAUSE IT IS ABSURD, that is a common interpre-
> tation of Kierkegaard's attitude toward belief in God, which is familiar
> to virtually every student of existentialism.  To illustrate the views
> of the subject of his previous book, here is a description found in an
> excellent history of philosophy by Frank Tilly and Ledger Wood (1957):
>
>    Kierkegaard was not a philosopher in the technical and systematic
>    sense, and any attempt to formalize his philosophy would inevitable
>    falsify his position and do violence to the spirit of his thought.
>    Yet we can bring together the main philosophical themes of his ex-
>    istentialist thinking, by virtue of which he is a fountain-head of
>    contemporary existentialism.  The three principal conceptions of
>    Kierkegaard's philosophy are truth, choice, and God.
>
>    (1) Kierkegaard's conception of the nature of philosophical truth
>    is essential Socratic.  "Truth is not introduced into the individ-
>    ual from without, but was within him all the time".  Kiergkegaard
>    sharply contrasts existentialist thinking with abstract specula-
>    tion:  whereas abstract thinking explores the realm of possibilit-
>    ies by means of logical techniques and achieves only hypothetical
>    knowledge, existentialist thinking achives truth about the actual,
>    concrete individual.  Existentialist truth is a passionate, inner
>    commitment to something which is objectively and therotically un-
>    certain.  Kierkegaard is well aware that truth, according to his
>    definition, is equivalent to faith.
>
>    (2) The central concept of Kierkegaar's philosophy is choice--a
>    concept which is expounded in an early work, EITHER/OR, and per-
>    sists through his entire later philosophy.  In EITHER/OR, choice
>    is presented as a decision between two ways of life:  (a) the es-
>    thetic life, devote to art, music, the drama, and (b) the ethical
>    life, which seeks happiness in marriage, business or a profession.
>    According to Kierkegaard, no adequate psychological description of
>    the phenomenon of choice is possible; it must be experienced in or-
>    der to be understood.  The character of the choice can only be ad-
>    umbrated by such epithets as individual, subjective, momentary,
>    absolute, free, irrevocable.  The choice by an individual of a way
>    of life is a "leap over the abyss".
>
>    (3) The culmination of existentialist thinking is the knowledge of
>    God.  The individual in his inner experience of choice may achieve,
>    at least momentarily, knowledge of the eternal God.  "The eternal",
>    says Kierkegaard, "aims from above at the existing individual, who
>    by existing is in process of movement. . . ."  The coincidence of
>    the individual's momentary existence and God's eternal reality is
>    admittedly paradoxical, but it is a paradox which exists only for
>    the speculative intellect and which can be embraced without diffi-
>    culty as a truth of faith.  Kierkegaard's account of the individ-
>    ual's contact with God is in the tradition of the great Christian
>    mystics.  Kierkegaard is in the precise and literal sense of the
>    term a mystic--he believes in the possibility of the individual's
>    union with God, a union which does not obliterate the individual.
>    The individual, even when he establishes rapport with God, preser-
>    ves his individuality and God remains an "Absolute Other".  Kier-
>    kegaard was a Christian mystic in his conviction that Christ med-
>    iates man's self-transcendence; Christ is descrived as the "In-
>    vitor" who draws the individual man to God.  (pp. 583-584).
>
> My frank opinion is that research of this kind on a Christian mystic
> who believes because it is absurd provides highly inappropriate train-
> ing for undertaking research on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
> When I raised questions about how he became drawn to from the study
> of Kierkegaard to Kennedy (which was quite a "leap of faith") and how
> he connected with LIFE, he replied that he "got into this out of cur-
> iosity" and, through Bernand Geis, made contact with LIFE.  But this
> strikes me as very odd, since he appears to have had no background in
> film or photography--at least, none that he has acknowledged--and his
> studies of Kierkegaard were hardly likely to induce a strong respect
> for truth in these or other matters.  Indeed, as Runes' DICTIONARY OF
> PHILOSOPHY (1983) reports, Kierkegaard regarded truth as subjectivity:
>
>    Truth is subjectivity, the only truth possible for existing ind-
>    dividuals.  Kierkegaard does not deny the possibility of objec-
>    tive truth, but only that human beings may ever know it. (p. 176)
>
> I therefore tend to believe that Tink has been adamant about the sep-
> erability of arguments from the qualifications of those who advance
> them because, in his own case, his background was remote from and in-
> appropriate to his research subject.  His work was no doubt important
> in contributing to the reinvestigation of the case by the HSCA.  In-
> deed, it is fascinating how closely HSCA conclusions approximate the
> conclusions drawn in SIX SECONDS, including three shots from the book
> depository and one from the knoll.  But anyone today who thought that
> his or HSCA conclusions settled the matter would be viewed as a bit
> off his nut, even loony!  The evidence has carried us far beyond his
> position of 1967; in fact, by 1970, the studies of Richard Sprague
> had already superceded those of Josiah Thompson.  As I reluctantly
> concluded in an earlier post, although he was once a force for good
> in understanding of the assassination, he has now become an obstacle.
>
> My efforts to understand Tink end in puzzlement and speculation.  His
> background is weak in logic and critical thinking but strong in ways
> that would promote the use of sarcasm and ridicule.  (Anyone who can
> take Kierkegaard seriously certainly has a stronger tolerance for in-
> consistency and paradox than most rational minds.)  I cannot imagine
> what was going on when LIFE magazine gave someone with his background
> and training access to the Zapruder film.  It makes no sense at all.
> I have no doubt that he and his numerous allies will respond to this
> post with further sarcasm and ridicule, which will again reflect the
> poverty of reason and logic on their side.  For myself, I have no de-
> sire to have any contact with Tink at all.  I hope you can understand
> why I have been forced to this position.  I no longer believe in him.
>
> Jim
>
> James H. Fetzer
> McKnight Professor
> University of Minnesota
> Duluth, MN 55812
> jfetzer@d.umn.edu