[Ben Holmes]

'David Emerling Wrote:Let me get a little philosophical for a moment. Indulge me if you're so inclined. If not, just ignore this.

Is there such a thing as a "subjective fact"? Most people would probably say, no. They would probably state, "How can anything that is subjective be a fact? By definition, anything that is subjective cannot qualify as a fact." And, I guess, there's some truth to that. But that's not how we run our lives. That's not how reality works.

Imagine if the ONLY things we accepted as facts were things that were objective and that we have personally observed or calculated. For instance - how would you answer the question: Do you have a brain? Is it a FACT that you have a brain?

Have you actually ever SEEN your brain? Probably not.

Here are some things that are probably true for you, however.

You've probably read that people have brains. You were probably taught that very early in life. You have even seen a photograph of a brain in a biology textbook. But it wasn't YOUR brain. You may have even seen a TV program/documentary where doctors were performing surgery on somebody's brain. You SEE the brain! But, again, it's not YOUR brain. You probably know about concussions and can intelligently describe what it is - damage to the brain usually caused by a jolt where the brain bounces against the skull. You can look it up on WebMD. Headaches, nausea, blurred vision and even death can result. But, even if you know somebody who has been diagnosed with a concussion /or/ even if YOU have had a concussion /still/ you have never seen YOUR brain.

"But I saw it on x-rays!" That's just an IMAGE, however. Are you a trained radiologist? You may have been told that it was your brain by a radiologist; but, still - you are not actually SEEING your brain.

"A person cannot live without a brain. I'm alive. Therefore, I MUST have a brain," you say. How do you know that's true? And STILL, you have not SEEN your brain despite all this knowledge that you've accumulated.

Silly? Of course it's all silly. But my point should be obvious. We make decisions about the world around us all the time based on nothing more than common sense and the opinions of people who are smarter than us in many areas.

The study of the Kennedy assassination is much like that. I have never claimed to be a medical expert, ballistics expert, handwriting expert, nor am I a forensics expert. I did not witness the Kennedy assassination. But I have availed myself of the OPINIONS of people who are experts in these fields and have read the testimony of those who DID witness the assassination and other events related to the assassination.

"But, Dave - not all experts agree!"

True! But there are common sense methods of resolving such matters. This is a "skill" that most people learn as they go through life when confronted with conflicting conclusions about matters on which they are not an expert. That's why we often get a second opinion on serious medical issues. Experts DO make mistakes. But not often - that's what makes them experts.

There is a thing called the "Baloney Detection Kit" - a catchy (and maybe a bit goofy) title for a very serious matter - derived by Carl Sagan. There actually IS a way of navigating through conflicting conclusions made by experts (especially non-experts).

1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
2. Does the source make similar claims?
3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
4. Does this fit with the way the world works?
5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?

You can take just about any wacky conspiracy belief and run it through the above checklist and, although you may hit on several of the key points, there is invariably one (usually many more) glaring FAIL. Unique to the Kennedy case is that I always ask: Is the person working with the ACTUAL evidence? For instance, is somebody discrediting a photograph/film/recording, claiming that it is altered, and that person is NOT working with a first generation photo/film/recording? Sometimes they ARE. But then there are many OTHER things that have to fit into their alteration theory that usually do NOT fit.

This is how I have always tried to look at the many issues in the Kennedy assassination. I accept many of my beliefs as FACTS. Are they "subjective facts"? Yes! Of course. But that's how the real world works. If we didn't accept "subjective facts" as facts we would go through our lives in a state of confused paralysis, doubting everything ... taking NOTHING as a fact ... never capable of drawing conclusions and BUILDING on those conclusions to create greater understanding.

For instance, I accept the "Single Bullet Theory" as a FACT because it conforms quite nicely with all aspects of the Baloney Test. Alternate theories that account for all of Kennedy's and Connally's wounds fail miserably in many categories. Yet, those wounds DO exist. It happened. There MUST be an explanation. There cannot be numerous explanations. As Dale Myers says quite succinctly, "You can talk about all the theories you want. This thing happened only ONE way ... it's not a magic bullet at all. It's not even a single bullet theory, in my opinion. It's a single bullet FACT."

Multiple shooters as a reasonable and credible explanation doesn't "fail miserably" at all - which probably explains why David was too much the coward to mention it - or try to refute it.