Assassination Research And The Pathology Of Knowledge
Dennis Ford, Ph.D.
3247 Kennedy Blvd., Jersey City, NJ 07306
The Third Decade, Volume 8, #5, July 1992, pages 1–6
At the end of the 48 Hours documentary on the JFK assassination,
Oliver Stone took Dan Rather to task for the malign neglect of the Kennedy
assassination exhibited by CBS News and by other national news organizations.
Rather’s mealy-mouthed reply confirmed that many of the advances in the study
of the assassination have come through the hard work of individual citizens.
Almost no thanks is owed to the national media, whether television or print, in
advancing our understanding of the events in Dallas; to the contrary, some of
the national media have labored to confuse our understanding of events.[1]
That said, it is the contention of this
paper that the quality of critical research in our field is in desperate need of
improvement—now more than ever, since media giants have directed their efforts
not to solve the murder of President Kennedy but to attack assassination
researchers.[2]
This paper treats assassination research
as if it were scientific research and hypotheses about the motivation and modus
operandi of the assassination as if they were scientific hypotheses. (The terms
“theory” and “hypothesis” are not pejorative; they simply mean
statements that can be tested.) Several criteria in scientific theory-building
will be offered and several flaws in assassination research relevant to these
criteria will be noted. General prescriptions will be offered about avoiding
such flaws. A final section will suggest that the current state of inquiry in
the research community is perilously close to exhibiting pathological traits.
Throughout the paper, psychological aspects of research will be emphasized.
The approach made in this paper is
advanced because the author is an experimental psychologist and a teacher of
psychology and because he believes that the logic of proof demanded in science
is the strictest available. It is incumbent on the community of assassination
researchers to maintain the most rigorous standards. Popularizations of
assassination research, such as High Treason[3]
and Crossfire,[4]
ought to maintain the highest standards since they serve for many as the
introduction to our field. We cannot expect people unfamiliar with the
particulars of our research to be generous in their judgments, or to pursue
research on their own, if their first contact involves confused and flawed
presentations.
An important gain in the treatment of
assassination research as scientific research is the analysis of evidence as the
sole criterion of “truth.” Reliance on a more logically based and precise
methodology may free the research community from the proliferation of theories
and, what is better, provide a means of eliminating theories. Finally, a
scientific orientation may reduce the insidious effects of sloppy arguments and
flawed data; unwitting commission of such flaws in hypothesis-testing retards
progress in our field, as it does in all fields.
Testability. The first criterion of
scientific research is that hypotheses about the assassination must be, or
become, testable. (Given our present state of knowledge, many of our hypotheses
are not currently testable; some will probably never be.) Researchers ought to
specify in advance the kind of evidence which, if it existed, would verify their
hypotheses. More importantly, researchers ought to specify in advance the kind
of evidence which, if it existed, would falsify their hypotheses. It may
be a considerable burden to ask researchers to refute their hypotheses, but it
is refutation and not verification which determines the empirical value of a
hypothesis.[5]
The operative logical principle is:
—if a theory implies certain empirical observations,
—and if these observations do not occur,
—then the theory is false.
For example, the documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy[6]
presents the hypothesis that Corsican mobsters shot the President. In support of
this hypothesis, the filmmakers rely on the experiences of Gordon Arnold, who
stood near the picket fence on the knoll and was approached by men posing as
police. The hypothesis is intriguing: Arnold was there; he appears plausible,
even compelling, as he is presented with photographic evidence of Badgeman’s
existence. However, no direct standards of proof are offered by the filmmakers
connecting Corsican mobsters with the men who approached Arnold.
The hypothesis is testable, and quite
simply. Since these men were Corsican, they had to speak with accents. If these
“policemen” spoke with foreign accents, the hypothesis is verified. If they
did not speak with accents, the hypothesis is refuted and Corsican mobsters are
eliminated as suspects. (Thanks to Richard Buckley for this example.)
The reliance on the principle of
falsification, which has proven valuable in other fields,[7]
may serve: first, as an objective means of separating among hypotheses (which
can be tested, which not?); and secondly, as an equally objective means of
eliminating hypotheses. Refutation is especially important in a field where
fabricated evidence may exist, and it may free the research community from the
enormous dangers of “plausibility.” Merely because certain events (or
certain scenarios) are plausible does not make them true. In the same way that
Lou Costello was able to prove that 2 + 2 = 5 on the walls of Sidney Field’s
rooming house, so a person who is good with words and has a command of the
evidence can “prove” any hypothesis.
Parsimony. An issue related to
falsification is parsimony, an important criterion in scientific research which
suggests simply that “less is more” and “small is better.” Precise
hypotheses are to be preferred to complicated and vague hypotheses, even at the
cost of losing explanatory power. (Since the empirical content of a hypothesis
increases as a function of the degree to which it can be refuted, precise
hypotheses are preferred since they are more easily falsified.) “Large”
hypotheses about the assassination, such as those offered by Groden and
Livingstone, Marrs, and by Oliver Stone in his movie, are often irrefutable and
thereby unprovable. If a hypothesis cannot be falsified, or withstand fair
attempts at falsification, it cannot be verified.[8]
Researchers must acknowledge that not every piece of evidence can be
incorporated in a theory about the assassination; if a theory accounts for all
the evidence, it cannot be refuted, nor can it be proven. Researchers must also
be careful not to salvage refuted hypotheses by engaging in retrospective
analyses. Once a hypothesis is refuted it is, or ought to be, permanently
removed from consideration.
To return to the Gordon Arnold example:
since Arnold, who comes across in the film as a “good old boy,” makes no
mention of the “policemen” speaking with accents, and if we do not presume
that Corsican mobsters spoke unaccented English, we may suggest that the
hypothesis underlying this portion of the documentary is refuted. A researcher
has two options at this point. He or she may opt for the former
possibility—Corsican mobsters did not shoot President Kennedy—or he or she
may choose to salvage the hypothesis in an ad hoc and unparsimonious manner by
entertaining the possibility that the policemen who approached Gordon Arnold
were American lookouts for Corsican assassins. If the latter possibility is
entertained, the researcher now has two hypotheses to prove rather than one, and
one (it might be added) refuted in an expeditious manner.
Correlation. A pervasive flaw
demonstrated by many researchers is an excessive reliance on correlational data.
(Such data is often referred to as “associations” or “links.”) This
reliance, which has often produced many worthy leads, can become a grave error
when it interferes with a causal analysis of events leading up to and occurring
in Dallas. Put simply, correlations cannot establish causation.[9]
If we consider motivation and modus operandi to be independent variables and the
murder of President Kennedy to be the dependent variable, we are faced with a
situation where we have a plethora of independent variables, many of which are
multiply correlated, which is another serious problem, and most of which have not
been shown to have a causal connection to the shooting of the President.
Correlational analyses present us with
other problems. They are often expressed as character analysis (or
assassination)—which can take the researchers far afield from Dallas, given
that the events on Nov. 22 are the beginning and end of our researches.
Correlational analyses often involve slanderous accusations made against men
many citizens find worthy of respect.[10]
Often, there is a backward reading of the evidence which implies guilt by
association. Such post hoc reasoning falsely assumes a causal connection merely
because one event precedes another.
An example from one of my interests may
demonstrate this flaw. Consider the following chain of connections in the names
of assassination-related persons: the elderly “missionary” who accompanied
Oswald to Mexico City was John Bowen, aka Albert Osborne; Oswald worked for a
John Bowen (real name John DiGrassi) at Jaggers; the elderly tramp was Albert
Alexander Osborne, aka Howard Bowen (unless his name was Gus Abrams or Fred
Chrisman or Chauncey Holt); there was an “Officer Alexander” who visited
Oswald at the rooming house; there was Assistant DA William Alexander; there was
a Laurence Howard who volunteered himself as one of the visitors to the Odio
house; there was a Mack Osborne who served with Oswald in Japan; there was a Dr.
David Osborne present during the autopsy; Oswald used the alias “Osborne” to
order FPCC leaflets; finally, and by no means last, there was Howard Osborne,
chief of the CIA Office of Security.[11]
However many Osbornes there are, these correlations do not add up to proof; none
of them, perhaps not even Oswald, has been linked in a causal way with the
murder of President Kennedy. Suspicious, yes. Proof, no. Coincidence? Probably
not, but more needs to be done linking each Osborne with Dallas—and then
attempting to refute such links.
Eyewitnesses. Researchers would not
presume to build theories in defiance of modern physics or chemistry, but they
seem to disregard the findings of experimental psychology, which has moved
beyond the somewhat antiquated psychology concerning eyewitnesses presented in
books on the assassination. Failure to consider these issues will result in
critical abuse of assassination critics by defenders of the Warren Commission
myth.
The first factor often disregarded by
researchers is that of selection of eyewitnesses. It is a fact that the
population of eyewitnesses to the assassination is finite and probably not
random. Researchers rarely consider the possibility of bias among the witnesses
who’ve come forward. It is unknown, and perhaps permanently unknowable, how
similar the testimony of identified eyewitnesses would be with the testimony of
witnesses who’ve not come forward. This issue is not moot, given the often
irreconcilable differences in the testimonies of the identified witnesses.
Another factor rarely considered is the
psychological assessment of the witnesses who’ve come forward. What were their
powers of observation? What were their motives in coming forward? Why have some
witnesses remained in the public spotlight for years? These are important
questions, considering the psychological finding that volunteer subjects differ
in motivation and personality from subjects who are reluctant to volunteer.[12]
Consideration that the unidentified witnesses may offer different versions of
the assassination than what is now known presents the chilling possibility that
there is a third “myth” waiting to be discovered.
Another factor rarely considered is the
effect of interviewer bias. It has been demonstrated in psychological
research[13]
that interviewers exert subtle influence on their subjects. The stories provided
by eyewitnesses derive partly from the recall of events and partly from
interpersonal effects occurring during the interview in which they report their
observations. Interviewer bias has been shown to occur in police work,[14]
in everyday interactions,[15]
and in clinical fields.[16]
Assassination research is not exempt.
An example of interviewer bias may have
been exhibited during The Third Decade conference in June, 1991, when
Harrison Livingstone described how he obtained different information after
reinterviewing the autopsy witnesses previously interviewed by David Lifton (and
others). It is probably unknowable which version of these interviews is correct.
What is more certain is that the interviewees were responding to different
questions, different interviewer styles and different nonverbal expressions, in
addition to recalling autopsy events. (The autopsy witnesses favored by
researchers also reflect serious selection bias.)
Another factor rarely considered by
researchers is the possibility of fraud committed by an “eyewitness” who,
for whatever reason, comes forward and passes fictions off as truth. There is
enough known about events in Dallas for a person so inclined to dupe a
psychologically naïve researcher. Paul Ekman has shown that the identification
of liars is exceedingly difficult, even by trained law enforcement agents.[17]
Since the motivation is high to “crack the case,” researchers may be at
great risk of deception perpetrated by unscrupulous or abnormal individuals
feigning special knowledge of the assassination.
Memory. Researchers do not give
enough consideration to memory factors. Often, there is a naïve belief that
witnesses saw what they saw, pure and simple. If skepticism is applied to
eyewitness accounts, it is only to dissenting witnesses. Yet, memory research
has shown that memory is not a copy of an event but a reconstruction.[18]
Eyewitness reports are unreliable; contrary to common sense, stress constricts
the focus of attention and reduces memory.[19]
People remember what they want. People remember what is plausible. People
remember a blend of observation and conversation about the observation. People
remember what interviewers put in their heads.
Events happen and begin the fragile course
of the human memory system from short-term memory to long-term memory to later
retrieval. The encoding of events and their retrieval may be interfered with at
any stage. Scenes of Dealey Plaza after the assassination show witnesses crying,
conversing, and running about. Such human responses to tragedy may have
prevented the accurate encoding of the assassination; such responses may also
have distorted original memories, a process technically called “retroactive
interference.”[20]
Consider the case of Jeanne Hill, an often
quoted eyewitness. No doubt, she witnessed important events; she is also
subject, on paper at least, to considerable memory distortion. She saw the
President murdered, the event to be encoded. She then chased after suspicious
characters and had scary encounters with police. She was taken to an upstairs
room and interrogated; there, lawmen suggested she change her story. (It’s
almost as if the lawmen were trying to induce retroactive interference.) Over
the years she has told her story probably to hundreds of interviewers. An
industrious researcher might track her story and chart how it changed over the
years; this researcher might also conclude that her original report was the most
accurate, a conclusion which is not automatically correct (above and beyond what
the lawmen succeeded in distorting). Whether it’s the first recounting or the
hundredth, memory is subject to similar kinds of distortion.
Perhaps greater care should be taken with
regard to the testimonies of witnesses whose stories have not changed over the
years, an unlikely situation given the experimental study of memory. That
certain witness accounts have not changed demonstrates to a memory psychologist
that the person wrote down and memorized what he or she believed to have
happened—which may or may not be the case. Researchers should become aware
that eyewitnesses may combine accurate, original observations with what
they’ve read in books or been told, more or less directly, by interviewers.
The latter possibility is not unusual, but can be experimentally induced in
laboratory studies of memory.[21]
Similar care must be exercised with the
reports of sightings of Ruby and Oswald before the assassination. (Some
sightings predate the assassination by years.) It is unlikely that a person
would have, or could have, retained specific memories, such as pieces of
conversation, about Ruby or Oswald unless there was an extenuating circumstance
to make such encounters memorable. People simply do not store, and usually do
not need, such specific memories. Furthermore, memory is not an automatic
process but requires effortful processing. It is unlikely that witnesses would
have had reason to memorize specific deeds or statements about men who were not
then famous; it is also unlikely that witnesses would have written down their
memories of such encounters.
The Pathology of Knowledge.
Researchers have lately revealed a well-earned tendency toward
self-congratulation; at long last one’s life work is receiving public
appreciation. Researchers have also revealed a less desirable tendency
originally described, embarrassingly enough, in a psychological context by the
philosopher and psychologist Sigmund Koch.[22]
This tendency, which Koch calls “the
pathology of knowledge,” arises when groups of researchers become isolated
from the mainstream of scientific investigation. This isolation, which
frequently arises as a defense against criticism, causes the group to make
epistemological errors. The combination of the intellectual isolation and flawed
research leads to serious distortions in the pursuit of whatever knowledge the
group is seeking. Perhaps most seriously, such a combination also leads to the
group’s failure to appreciate anything is wrong. In fact, the reverse happens:
the group becomes ever more impressed with its correctness and ever more defiant
in its conclusions.[23]
Some of the characteristics of the
“pathology of knowledge” include: a preoccupation with certain unchallenged
leading ideas; a reluctance to consider alternative explanations; an
unwillingness to submit hypotheses to fair tests; a reliance on ad hoc
explanations; a reliance on authority figures who decide what is and is not the
case; and a reluctance to accept criticism.
One of the themes of this paper has been
that progress in assassination research will best occur within a scientific
context. The scientific endeavor requires the free and open exchange of
information; it demands the endless testing of ideas and a thorough allegiance
to empirical investigation. Whatever its origin, criticism must be accepted;
criticism must lead not to entrenchment, which fosters the pathology of
knowledge, but to a deeper analysis and to the search for better evidence.
Researchers much recognize that not every critic of the assassination community
is a dupe of the Warren Commission. (It shows how near the research community is
to the pathology of knowledge when critics within the community must make an act
of faith up front that they do not believe in the Warren Commission.) There are
kooks among researchers, as there are in every field. There are researchers who
hold unconcealed political agendas; often, these agendas extend backward in time
from the current administration to Dallas, 1963, and beyond. There are also
researchers who are less interested in truth than in the almighty dollar. Not
every critic of assassination research is deviously motivated; nor is the reach
community universally blameless. Such ad hominem attacks to and fro indicate
that a line of inquiry has reached a dead end. Criticism must not be met with
verbal abuse but with harder and better research.
However pessimistic this assessment of
assassination research has been, there is cause for hope. There are incredibly
talented and dedicated people working to solve this case. Adjustments need only
be of degree, corrections only of focus. There is so much to work with, and new
methodologies become available at an increased rate.[24]
Failure to solve this case cannot be held
against the research community; government agencies failed, if indeed they
tried. What can be held against the community is entrenchment and isolation, and
confused and flawed investigations. At all costs, the community must prevent
sliding into the pathology of knowledge. Failure to prevent this slide will
cause assassination research to resemble astrology or psychoanalysis—an
endless Talmudic study barren of practical results.
[1] Robert Hennelly and Jerry
Policoff, “JFK: How the Media Assassinated the Real Story,” Village
Voice, March 31, 1992, pp. 33–39.
[2] Arnold Harris, “The Mass Media, JFK and the 28th
Anniversary of the Assassination,” The Third Decade 8 #2,3,
January–March, 1992.
[3] Robert Groden and Harrison Livingstone, High Treason
(Baltimore: Conservatory Press, 1989).
[4] Jim Marrs, Crossfire (New York: Carroll and Graf,
1989).
[5] Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (New York:
Basic Books, 1959)
[6] The Men Who Killed Kennedy (London: BCTV, 1988),
television documentary which aired in America on A&E Network.
[7] Paul E. Meehl, “Theoretical Risks and Tabular Asterisks:
Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the Slow Progress of Soft Psychology,” Journal
of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46 #4, 1978.
[8] Popper, Conjectures and Refutations.
[9] David G. Myers, Psychology (New York: Worth, 1992),
pp. 622–636.
[10] Craig I. Zirbel, The Texas Connection (Scottsdale AZ:
Wright & Co., 1991).
[11] Groden and Livingstone, High Treason, p. 155.
[12] Robert Rosenthal and Ralph L. Rosnow, The Volunteer
Subject (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975).
[13] T.X. Barber, Pitfalls in Human Research: Ten Pivotal
Points (Elmsford NY: Pergamon Press, 1976)
[14] E.F. Loftus and G.R. Loftus, “On the Permanence of Stored
Information in the Human Brain,” American Psychologist, pp.
546–574.
[15] Myers, Psychology, pp. 546–574.
[16] Harry Stack Sullivan, The Psychiatric Interview (New
York: Norton, 1954).
[17] Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sullivan, “Who Can Catch a
Liar?” American Psychologist, 46 #9, 1991.
[18] John P. Houston, Fundamentals of Learning and Memory
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991).
[19] Kenneth A. Deffenbacher, “Eyewitness Research: The Next
Ten Years,” in M.M. Gruneberg, P.E. Morris and R.N. Sykes, Practical
Aspects of Memory: Current Research and Issues (New York: John Wiley
& Sons, 1988), pp. 20–27.
[20] Houston, Fundamentals of Learning and Memory.
[21] Myers, Psychology, pp. 253–285.
[22] Sigmund Koch, “The Nature and Limits of Psychological
Knowledge,” American Psychologist, 36 #3, 1981.
[23] Koch further suggests that the isolated research community
gradually assumes the nature of a cult. It gains its holy books, its clergy,
its novices, and its heretics; I hesitate to add its martyred President.
[24] Martin Shackelford, “Report From Dallas: The AS Symposium,
November 14–16, 1991,” The Third Decade 8 #2,3 January–March,
1992, pp. 2–3.