{"id":289447,"date":"2023-12-01T16:35:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T15:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=289447"},"modified":"2023-12-01T16:35:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T15:35:52","slug":"the-single-bullet-theory-is-like-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=289447","title":{"rendered":"The Single Bullet Theory is like\u00a0Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Climate Scepticism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY\u00a0MIKE DOMBROSKI<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The single bullet theory and evolution may not have all that much to do with climate, but they\u2019re absolutely related to skepticism and offer some analogies. When I say the single bullet theory is like evolution, I mean that they are both facts that many (probably most) people don\u2019t believe and they both require science to explain. They also both elicit strong polarizing reactions in people even today just like that other subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination. This year will also mark the 30th anniversary of the book, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK<\/a><\/em> published in 1993 on the 30th anniversary of the assassination. I read a lot of non-fiction books and this is one of the best books I\u2019ve ever read. I first ran across it from watching its author, Gerald Posner, as a guest on Dick Cavett\u2019s cable TV show (it\u2019s almost surely buried in my deteriorating VHS collection somewhere). What really caught my attention was Posner showing some new state of the art computer graphics showing the single bullet going through Kennedy\u2019s neck, then tumbling, hitting Governor Connally\u2019s back sideways, exiting his chest, hitting his wrist and then lodging in his thigh. He also showed two cones that start from Kennedy\u2019s neck and head that lead up to circles that almost center on the South window on the 5th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Cavett\u2019s reaction was: \u201cConvinces me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to go a little bit into Gerald Posner\u2019s career because it has a real nice parallel into the climate issue. I read Case Closed a couple of times since it was so good and became a little bit of a JFK buff. I read some other JFK books and some of Posner\u2019s books on other subjects. He attracted a lot of attention and did a lot of interviews because of Case Closed. He was lauded by many prominent public intellectuals. IMO he single handedly crippled the JFK assassination industry. Because of this he was vilified by conspiracy theory authors and even accosted while out in public by angry conspiracy buffs. But his enemies finally got in a dig<\/a> in 2010. A writer named Jack Shafer found some plagiarized passages<\/a> in a book on Miami and in The Daily Beast<\/em>. Posner apologized, gave his explanations and resigned a position at The Daily Beast<\/em>. This does not negate a very long string of widely acclaimed books on such varied topics as political assassinations, the Holocaust, Ross Perot, 9\/11, the recording industry and more. Jack Shafer is a writer known for exposing lax standards in journalism (or perhaps being a busy body, depending on your point of view). The only thing I can find of his on the JFK assassination is a long rant<\/a> about how there\u2019s so much rehashing on the 50th freak\u2019n anniversary! The last of the four paragraphs of his short Wikipedia page is about Posner. I can\u2019t find any books on Amazon that look like they were written by him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For hockey stick and Climategate buffs, this should remind one of the Wegman Report<\/a>. Edward Wegman was, of course, the renowned statistician who did a study that validated the work of Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick in evaluating the utterly discredited, famous hockey stick paper by Michael Mann. A computer scientist and entrepreneur named John Mashey wrote a report<\/a> that made charges of plagiarism in the reference material of the Wegman report. Cliscep contributor, Tom Fuller wrote of it at WUWT<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And we\u2019ve all read recently about Mashey\u2019s attack on Edward Wegman, accusing him of plagiarism in a 250 page document that is straight out of the movie Conspiracy Theory, with color-coded themes and memes, and an outrageous accusation that Steve McIntyre was recruited, trained and funded by the George Marshall Institute\u2013something I hope Mashey can back up.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These charges consist of phrases cut and pasted from Wikipedia and paraphrasing without attribution stuff listed in the bibliography. I see the charges against Posner as being along a similar line. He\u2019s an incredibly busy writer and it\u2019s easy to see him getting notes mixed up and forgetting attributions. One of the great things about his writing is that it is full of interesting detail and copiously supported with footnotes. He did make a blog post<\/a> about these charges that can be found in the Wayback Machine. He accepts full responsibility for mistakes and attributes them to the change from the world of book writing to the fast paced world of online reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a few things to say about the head shot, because I want to use a bit of this information in some bullet points later. A great many people think this shot was made from the front because they can clearly see Kennedy\u2019s head move back and to the left as famously reiterated by Kevin Costner in the movie\u00a0JFK<\/em>. Enhancements of the Zapruder film actually show Kennedy\u2019s head jerk forward a little before it moves back. The bullet entered the back of Kennedy\u2019s head and exploded out the right side. X-rays and autopsy photos show this. A detailed, photorealistic drawing made from an autopsy photo shows the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy\u2019s head. There is a flap of scalp and bone on the right side of his head hanging forward. There\u2019s also a drawing of the entrance wound on his right upper back. Why does his head move back? Neuro-muscular reaction may have played a part, but there is also a phenomenon of physics called the jet effect. All the energy released when the head explodes out the side can cause the material that is sprayed out to have more momentum than the bullet going in. In order for total momentum to be conserved, the head has to gain momentum going backwards. Momentum is mass times velocity. Energy is one half mass times velocity squared. While momentum is proportional to velocity, kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared. That is that it exponentially increases with the speed of the high powered rifle bullet. In the Zapruder film, the material coming out of Kennedy\u2019s head goes mostly up, forward and to the right, all with a vector component of forward momentum plus some rightward vector component. If this total forward vector is more than that of the bullet moving forward, then to end up with the same total momentum Kennedy\u2019s head goes .. back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left. .. This 10 minute YouTube video has the best succinct graphic explanation of the two shots:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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