Asking the obvious

[James Wilkinson]

1 hour ago, Mark Ulrik said:

I'm not sure it's such a good example of an argument from incredulity. At least not a fully fledged one. There is a difference between "This doesn't seem plausible to me; does it seem plausible to you?" and "This doesn't seem plausible to me; therefore it MUST be FALSE."

Let's try to imagine that someone, perhaps a CT, would attempt to argue that, surely, ALL these witnesses CAN'T have been wrong about hearing shots from the GK, observing the limo come to a full stop, observing a large BOH defect, etc. Would it be fair to characterize those as arguments from incredulity, in your learned opinion?

Short answer is yes, the way you've constructed those CT arguments, they're also arguments from incredulity. After all, the reverse of those arguments would be just as fallacious: Surely, all those OTHER witnesses can't have been wrong about hearing shots from the TSBD, about observing the limo slow without ever stopping, about there being no large defect in the back of the head, etc.

I'm persuaded by the witness reports of a GK shooter and a back-of-head blowout because they correspond with so many of the other types of evidence, from the film and photo evidence to the Harper fragment. And because those witnesses significantly outnumber those who reported otherwise.

I agree that simply asking others if they find something plausible does indeed fall short of the incredulity-argument standard. But the mockery embedded in Lance's follow ups to his OP went further than that. If it's not an argument from incredulity to assert that (a straw-man version of) your opponent's position strikes you as "self-evidently absurd," then it's hard to imagine what would qualify.

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by James Wilkinson

[Bob Ness]

On 12/21/2022 at 4:59 AM, Lori Spencer said:

Military intelligence agencies handled intelligence gathering and analysis just fine before 1947, and we should return to that. 

Not really. State handled most of it and the Army and Navy did more technical intelligence. It was pretty much a disaster compared to our adversaries (Pearl Harbor for instance). The Russians and Chinese as well as Israel have much more sophisticated intelligence agencies although their tech isn't as good, probably. The Russians have many decades of experience and institutional advantages in intelligence gathering. Pre-1947 analysis was nearly non-existent. The US did not have a need for it until the Second World War and Russia (USSR) practically survived on it. Europeans have always engaged in it.

[Bob Ness]

On 12/21/2022 at 4:59 AM, Lori Spencer said:

Ron Paul is again repeating his long-standing call to abolish these agencies that do nothing good for our Republic (and in my opinion, never did). 

This statement is preposterous. 

I think the zeitgeist is totally different now than it was then and in general the IC attracts a much better brand of people than they did when the majority of employees were battle scarred former soldiers with PTSD. Today the idea of women and minorities in the workforce is totally accepted, prejudice and political influence minimal and the IC still has much to offer the country.

In 1965 (? think that was the year) it was estimated the USSR had 120,000 agents, informers and assets throughout the US. Today China, Russia and many other countries can freely implant assets in the US to do industrial and military espionage and do so regularly. Those countries have extremely repressive policies regarding travel to minimize those risks while we here have people seriously suggesting abolishing the CIA and FBI. That is naive to the enth degree.