Review of Randich and Grant's article on the NAA
Erik Randich and Patrick Grant published an article in the
the July 2006 issue of Journal of Forensic Sciences that purports to
debunk the claim that the five fragments of lead recovered from the JFK
assassination fell into two clear groups. Their article is entitled "Proper
Assessment of the JFK Assassination Bullet Lead Evidence from Metallurgical and
Statistical Perspectives." Its reference is J. Forensic Sci., July 2006,
Vol. 51, No. 4, pp. 717–728. The previous
claims about the two groups came first from Dr. Vincent P. Guinn in his work for
the HSCA, and more recently in two articles by Larry Sturdivan and me that
appeared in Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, October
2004. This is the review that Randich and Grant's article should have been given
by the journal but obviously wasn't.
The Randich-Grant article (RG) contains two main themes, each
by one of its authors. The metallurgical theme comes from Erik Randich, who is
known for his recent work critiquing the FBI's procedures for relating bullet
fragments from a crime scene to off-scene boxes of bullets possessed by one or
more suspected perpetrators. He and a colleague from the FBI pushed very hard
for the idea that the FBI had been overreaching and claiming chemical matches
where there were none. A 2004 report by the National Research Council supported
this general conclusion, and recommended that the FBI tighten its procedures. In
the face of intense adverse publicity, however, the FBI decided to drop the
procedure altogether. Fresh from what he perceived as a major victory, Dr.
Randich thought he could similarly debunk the conclusions from the JFK
fragments. He failed.
The statistical theme comes mainly from Dr. Grant, who knew Dr. Guinn
while a graduate student at UC Irvine (but was a student of F. Sherwood Rowland). He is proposing that
the effective uncertainties on the elemental concentrations measured in the JFK
bullet fragments are considerably larger than those reported by Dr. Guinn, to
the point that the "groups" can no longer be considered distinct.
This review contains three parts. The first is the
introduction given above. The second part is a review of the article itself,
with the the metallurgical and statistical parts considered separately. The third part deals with comments of the "followers,"
the people on the newsgroups that gloat over certain general statements in the
article but don't understand the lack of support provided for them. I refer
collectively to Randich/Grant and their followers as the "Latter-day NAA
Revisionists," which can be abbreviated as LDNAARs, or pronounced as "Eldenaars."
As always, comments on this review are welcome, particularly
from Eldenaars. I will post
those that I receive. Send E-mail messages to
krahn@uri.edu. (As of 2 October 2006, no comments have been submitted
directly to me.)
For the record, these are my comments, not Larry Sturdivan's.
I alone am responsible for them.
Kenneth A. Rahn
Narragansett, Rhode Island
31 August 2006
Updated 6 July 2007
Review of the article
Review of comments by the followers
Reactions from readers