Project Tricia Griffith rebuttal: forumsforjustice and Gary Olivia

this is trasha griffith


trasha pictured below is an example of an anti-science denialist



this is what she claims

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?76520-Patsy-Ramsey/page92

tricia griffith wrote:
Anti-K, this whole forum has example after example after example that an intruder did not commit this crime.

No one can show one scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

As owner, I do my best to stay out of actual discussions about a crime.

The JBR case is the one expection.

Websleuths is a leader in true crime information as well as discussion. People come here to get information. It is imperative we deal with the facts. Not fantasy.

All I ask for are facts and a logical connecting of the dots. Logic and facts.

When I get time I will be going through the forum to make sure the JonBenet Ramsey forum is being held up to the high standards just like all our other forums on Websleuths.

The days of allowing anyone to post anything because it's part of their "theory" are gone. Facts and logic. Very simple.

this is her qualifications

Host Tricia Griffith is a veteran radio disc jockey and owner of Websleuths.com and owner of Forums for Justice.org.

in other words she has ZERO qualifications in forensic science. she has no training in forensic fiber, trace evidence, DNA yet she claims

tricia griffith wrote:
Anti-K, this whole forum has example after example after example that an intruder did not commit this crime.

No one can show one scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

this is Gary Oliva



this is why he's in the news,

One-time person of interest in JonBenet Ramsey case held in Boulder on child porn charges
Gary Oliva has a history of sexually abusing minors and lived blocks from the Ramseys at the time of the murder

By Tom McGhee | tmcghee@denverpost.com
PUBLISHED: June 22, 2016 at 2:50 pm | UPDATED: June 23, 2016 at 3:58 pm

Tricia Griffin's claim is there is not a scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

apparenlty Tricia does not know what "evidence" actually is.

let's review thought experiment

irst let's discuss what a thought experiment is, from wikipedia

A thought experiment considers some hypothesis, theory,[1] or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. Given the structure of the experiment, it may or may not be possible to actually perform it, and if it can be performed, there need be no intention of any kind to actually perform the experiment in question.

The common goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of the principle in question: "A thought experiment is a device with which one performs an intentional, structured process of intellectual deliberation in order to speculate, within a specifiable problem domain, about potential consequents (or antecedents) for a designated antecedent (or consequent)" (Yeates, 2004, p. 150).

Uses

Thought experiments, which are well-structured, well-defined hypothetical questions that employ subjunctive reasoning (irrealis moods) – "What might happen (or, what might have happened) if . . . " – have been used to pose questions in philosophy at least since Greek antiquity, some pre-dating Socrates (see Rescher 1991). In physics and other sciences many famous thought experiments date from the 19th and especially the 20th Century, but examples can be found at least as early as Galileo.

In thought experiments we gain new information by rearranging or reorganizing already known empirical data in a new way and drawing new (a priori) inferences from them or by looking at these data from a different and unusual perspective. In Galileo’s thought experiment, for example, the rearrangement of empirical experience consists in the original idea of combining bodies of different weight.[10]

Thought experiments have been used in philosophy (especially ethics), physics, and other fields (such as cognitive psychology, history, political science, economics, social psychology, law, organizational studies, marketing, and epidemiology). In law, the synonym "hypothetical" is frequently used for such experiments.

Regardless of their intended goal, all thought experiments display a patterned way of thinking that is designed to allow us to explain, predict and control events in a better and more productive way.
Theoretical consequences

In terms of their theoretical consequences, thought experiments generally:

challenge (or even refute) a prevailing theory, often involving the device known as reductio ad absurdum, (as in Galileo's original argument, a proof by contradiction),
confirm a prevailing theory,
establish a new theory, or
simultaneously refute a prevailing theory and establish a new theory through a process of mutual exclusion.

Practical applications

Thought experiments can produce some very important and different outlooks on previously unknown or unaccepted theories. However, they may make those theories themselves irrelevant, and could possibly create new problems that are just as difficult, or possibly more difficult to resolve.

In terms of their practical application, thought experiments are generally created in order to:

challenge the prevailing status quo (which includes activities such as correcting misinformation (or misapprehension), identify flaws in the argument(s) presented, to preserve (for the long-term) objectively established fact, and to refute specific assertions that some particular thing is permissible, forbidden, known, believed, possible, or necessary);
extrapolate beyond (or interpolate within) the boundaries of already established fact;
predict and forecast the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable future;
explain the past;
the retrodiction, postdiction and hindcasting of the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable past;
facilitate decision making, choice and strategy selection;
solve problems, and generate ideas;
move current (often insoluble) problems into another, more helpful and more productive problem space (e.g., see functional fixedness);
attribute causation, preventability, blame and responsibility for specific outcomes;
assess culpability and compensatory damages in social and legal contexts;
ensure the repeat of past success; or
examine the extent to which past events might have occurred differently.
ensure the (future) avoidance of past failures.

In science

Scientists tend to use thought experiments in the form of imaginary, "proxy" experiments which they conduct prior to a real, "physical" experiment (Ernst Mach always argued that these gedankenexperiments were "a necessary precondition for physical experiment"). In these cases, the result of the "proxy" experiment will often be so clear that there will be no need to conduct a physical experiment at all.

Scientists also use thought experiments when particular physical experiments are impossible to conduct (Carl Gustav Hempel labeled these sorts of experiment "theoretical experiments-in-imagination"), such as Einstein's thought experiment of chasing a light beam, leading to Special Relativity. This is a unique use of a scientific thought experiment, in that it was never carried out, but led to a successful theory, proven by other empirical means.
Relation to real experiments

The relation to real experiments can be quite complex, as can be seen again from an example going back to Albert Einstein. In 1935, with two coworkers, he published a famous paper on a newly created subject called later the EPR effect (EPR paradox). In this paper, starting from certain philosophical assumptions,[11] on the basis of a rigorous analysis of a certain, complicated, but in the meantime assertedly realizable model, he came to the conclusion that quantum mechanics should be described as "incomplete". Niels Bohr asserted a refutation of Einstein's analysis immediately, and his view prevailed.[12][13][14] After some decades, it was asserted that feasible experiments could prove the error of the EPR paper. These experiments tested the Bell inequalities published in 1964 in a purely theoretical paper. The above-mentioned EPR philosophical starting assumptions were considered to be falsified by empirical fact (e.g. by the optical real experiments of Alain Aspect).

Thus thought experiments belong to a theoretical discipline, usually to theoretical physics, but often to theoretical philosophy. In any case, it must be distinguished from a real experiment, which belongs naturally to the experimental discipline and has "the final decision on true or not true", at least in physics.
Causal reasoning

The first characteristic pattern that thought experiments display is their orientation in time.[15] They are either:

Antefactual speculations: those experiments which speculate about what might have happened prior to a specific, designated event, or
Postfactual speculations: those experiments which speculate about what may happen subsequent to (or consequent upon) a specific, designated event.

The second characteristic pattern is their movement in time in relation to “the present moment standpoint” of the individual performing the experiment; namely, in terms of:

Their temporal direction: are they past-oriented or future-oriented?
Their temporal sense:

(a) in the case of past-oriented thought experiments, are they examining the consequences of temporal “movement” from the present to the past, or from the past to the present? or,
(b) in the case of future-oriented thought experiments, are they examining the consequences of temporal “movement” from the present to the future, or from the future to the present?

Seven types
Temporal representation of a prefactual thought experiment.[16]

Generally speaking, there are seven types of thought experiments in which one reasons from causes to effects, or effects to causes:[17]
Prefactual

Prefactual (before the fact) thought experiments — the term prefactual was coined by Lawrence J. Sanna in 1998[18] — speculate on possible future outcomes, given the present, and ask "What will be the outcome if event E occurs?"
Counterfactual
Temporal representation of a counterfactual thought experiment.[19]

Counterfactual (contrary to established fact) thought experiments — the term counterfactual was coined by Nelson Goodman in 1947,[20] extending Roderick Chisholm's (1946) notion of a "contrary-to-fact conditional"[21] — speculate on the possible outcomes of a different past;[22] and ask "What might have happened if A had happened instead of B?" (e.g., "If Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz had cooperated with each other, what would mathematics look like today?").[23]

The study of counterfactual speculation has increasingly engaged the interest of scholars in a wide range of domains such as philosophy,[24] psychology,[25] cognitive psychology,[26] history,[27] political science,[28] economics,[29] social psychology,[30] law,[31] organizational theory,[32] marketing,[33] and epidemiology.[34]
Semifactual
Temporal representation of a semifactual thought experiment.[35]

Semifactual thought experiments — the term semifactual was coined by Nelson Goodman in 1947[36][37] — speculate on the extent to which things might have remained the same, despite there being a different past; and asks the question Even though X happened instead of E, would Y have still occurred? (e.g., Even if the goalie had moved left, rather than right, could he have intercepted a ball that was traveling at such a speed?).

Semifactual speculations are an important part of clinical medicine.
Prediction
Temporal representation of prediction, forecasting and nowcasting.[38]

The activity of prediction attempts to project the circumstances of the present into the future. According to David Sarewitz and Roger Pielke (1999, p123), scientific prediction takes two forms:

(1) “The elucidation of invariant — and therefore predictive — principles of nature”; and
(2) “[Using] suites of observational data and sophisticated numerical models in an effort to foretell the behavior or evolution of complex phenomena”.[39]

Although they perform different social and scientific functions, the only difference between the qualitatively identical activities of predicting, forecasting, and nowcasting is the distance of the speculated future from the present moment occupied by the user.[40] Whilst the activity of nowcasting, defined as “a detailed description of the current weather along with forecasts obtained by extrapolation up to 2 hours ahead”, is essentially concerned with describing the current state of affairs, it is common practice to extend the term “to cover very-short-range forecasting up to 12 hours ahead” (Browning, 1982, p.ix).[41][42]
Hindcasting
Temporal representation of hindcasting.[43]

The activity of hindcasting involves running a forecast model after an event has happened in order to test whether the model's simulation is valid.

In 2003, Dake Chen and his colleagues “trained” a computer using the data of the surface temperature of the oceans from the last 20 years.[44] Then, using data that had been collected on the surface temperature of the oceans for the period 1857 to 2003, they went through a hindcasting exercise and discovered that their simulation not only accurately predicted every El Niño event for the last 148 years, it also identified the (up to 2 years) looming foreshadow of every single one of those El Niño events.[45]
Retrodiction (or postdiction)
Temporal representation of retrodiction or postdiction.[46]

The activity of retrodiction (or postdiction) involves moving backwards in time, step-by-step, in as many stages as are considered necessary, from the present into the speculated past, in order to establish the ultimate cause of a specific event (e.g., Reverse engineering and Forensics).

Given that retrodiction is a process in which “past observations, events and data are used as evidence to infer the process(es) the produced them” and that diagnosis “involve[s] going from visible effects such as symptoms, signs and the like to their prior causes”,[47] the essential balance between prediction and retrodiction could be characterized as:

retrodiction : diagnosis :: prediction : prognosis

regardless of whether the prognosis is of the course of the disease in the absence of treatment, or of the application of a specific treatment regimen to a specific disorder in a particular patient.[48]
Backcasting
Temporal representation of backcasting.[49]

The activity of backcasting — the term backcasting was coined by John Robinson in 1982[50] — involves establishing the description of a very definite and very specific future situation. It then involves an imaginary moving backwards in time, step-by-step, in as many stages as are considered necessary, from the future to the present, in order to reveal the mechanism through which that particular specified future could be attained from the present.[51]

Backcasting is not concerned with predicting the future:

The major distinguishing characteristic of backcasting analyses is the concern, not with likely energy futures, but with how desirable futures can be attained. It is thus explicitly normative, involving 'working backwards' from a particular future end-point to the present to determine what policy measures would be required to reach that future.[52]

According to Jansen (1994, p. 503:[53]

Within the framework of technological development, “forecasting” concerns the extrapolation of developments towards the future and the exploration of achievements which can be realized through technology in the long term. Conversely, the reasoning behind “backcasting” is: on the basis of an interconnecting picture of demands which technology has to meet in the future — “sustainability criteria” — to direct and determine the process that technology development must take and possibly also the pace at which this development process must be put into effect.
Backcasting [is] both an important aid in determining the direction technology development must take and in specifying the targets to be set for this purpose. As such, backcasting is an ideal search toward determining the nature and scope of the technological challenge which is posed by sustainable development, and it can thus serve to direct the search process toward new — sustainable — technology.

In philosophy

In philosophy, a thought experiment typically presents an imagined scenario with the intention of eliciting an intuitive or reasoned response about the way things are in the thought experiment. (Philosophers might also supplement their thought experiments with theoretical reasoning designed to support the desired intuitive response.) The scenario will typically be designed to target a particular philosophical notion, such as morality, or the nature of the mind or linguistic reference. The response to the imagined scenario is supposed to tell us about the nature of that notion in any scenario, real or imagined.

For example, a thought experiment might present a situation in which an agent intentionally kills an innocent for the benefit of others. Here, the relevant question is not whether the action is moral or not, but more broadly whether a moral theory is correct that says morality is determined solely by an action's consequences (See Consequentialism). John Searle imagines a man in a locked room who receives written sentences in Chinese, and returns written sentences in Chinese, according to a sophisticated instruction manual. Here, the relevant question is not whether or not the man understands Chinese, but more broadly, whether a functionalist theory of mind is correct.


this is Gary Oliva




he was named a suspect in the Jonbenet Ramsey murder

this is the thought experiment

suppose his DNA matched the DNA found on Jonbenet Ramsey as referenced by Mary Lacy.

would a DNA match between Gary Oliva and the DNA found on Jonbenet Ramsey be evidence that Gary Oliva murdered Jonbenet Ramsey? why or why not?

suppose Gary Oliva had in his possession white nylon cord identical to the cord found on Jonbenet Ramsey.

suppose Gary Oliva had in his possession suretape that is identical to the tape found on Jonbenet Ramsey.

Suppose Gary Oliva had a piece of paint brush in his home that is a perfect match to the broken paintbrush found on Jonbenet Ramsey.

Suppose Gary Oliva had a flashlight that had Jonbenet Ramsey's hair skin and DNA on it.

Suppose Gary Oliva had light brown cotton gloves whose fibers are identical to the fibers found on Jonbenet Ramsey.

Suppose fibers identical to fibers from Jonbenet Ramsey's shirt and clothing she wore were found in those gloves

Suppose Gary Oliva's handwriting and linguistics and identical to that found on the Jonbenet Ramsey ransom note.

Suppose Gary Oliver owned hi-tec shoes identical to the print found near Jonbenet's body.

what the above list represent a scintilla of evidence that Gary Oliver murdered Jonbenet Ramsey? Why or why not?



If Gary Oliva's DNA matched the DNA found on Jonbenet Ramsey clothing, would you say that is not a scinilla of evidence Gary Oliva murdered Jonbenet Ramsey, the parents did it?

the intruder theory is also that all other unsourced fiber, hair, shoe print, tape, cord, ransom note, is also the result of the intruder. which in this case would be Gary Oliva. this evidence is a bit more than just a scintilla of evidence troll