Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Thursday, 15 Oct 1992 04:15:00 CDT
From: <U54778@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: Re: JAMA redux

In article <schuck.719034015@sfu.ca>, schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan
Schuck) says:
>
>Fincks above statement claims the bullet entered from the rear and
>exitted from the right side of JFK's head on the basis of bevelling
                                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>they found on bones found in Dealey Plaza. The trouble is, they didn't
>get those bones until after the autopsy was over and JFK's head was
>being reconstructed by the morticians.
>
  While watching the stream of expert witnesses testifying for both sides
in the mock trial staged by the American Bar Assc., I saw a very interesting
display of the fact that forensically beveling does not correspond to what
is commonly thought of as showing which way a bullet passed thru a skull.
A forensic doctor not only testified to his testing but presented the
resulting skull caps to prove that the critical factor in how a bevel
shows up in a bullet skull wound is the thickness of that particular area.
He presented at least three skulls he had tested and seemed to be able to
show even more if time had permitted.  He also presented a skull cap with
a light bulb inside it to show the jury that the thickness of the skull
was not even across its entire body.
  It was quite clear from his presentation that beveling occurs where the
skull is thin (sorry, I might have that reversed---thick?) and that the
angle of the beveling doesn't correspond to whether the bullet exited or
entered at that spot.
  Now I have to say that he could have either been nuts or faking the
results; I have no way of determining this.  I would feel much better if
his test results were written up in an article and critical backup studys
were done by his peers.  This cannot be the last word but it does put
interesting new wrinkles in what is being presented to us as expert
opinion.  It also qualifies as the beginning of professional research
into areas of question.
  And as an example of expert opinion being found to be incorrect by
actual real world testing, I find it very familiar within my own
experience.  I have for many years worked within the field of operating
system development.  I have worked along side software gurus who I wouldn't
hesitate  to defer to as way above me in experience and native talent.
Several times, I have seen them use their vast intellects and deep
awareness of the intrinsic operating system factors to, for example,
calculate the optimum wait time between performance scans.  It was quite
impressive.  The only trouble was when I was put in charge of testing these
settings in the real world of actual business productions systems, I found
that the calculated settings were no where near what actually gave the
best optimum setting.
  When presented with any commonly held belief in any complex disciplne,
I feel much more comfortable with it if it has withstood real world
verification.
  This also reminds me of passages in Kidder's book "The Soul of a New
Machine", in where engineering managers said that they like to use green
kids straight out of school because they were ignorant of what was
commonly thought of as impossible to do by the experienced expert
engineers.  The naive young engineers often created breakthroughs
in new methods and designs, being ignorant of what was impossible.
(BTW, nice critique of the Finck material, John Schuck)
ALAN ROGERS