From: Jasper
Date: 12 Nov 2009
Time: 03:19:24 AM
Rovaan – The validity of any theory rests on the required blanks in it that get filled in by subsequent, independently verifiable events and discoveries. ............... What I mean by “required blanks” are the unknown particulars that have to exist if the theory is valid. With Iago, there were so many of them, most of which appeared to be irrational, improbable or impossible, that the whole theory appeared to be downright silly because of them. Then, of course, there’s the small conspiracy aspect of the theory that invites two usually immutable responses. 1) It can’t be true because there is no way O.J. could have been framed without a massive conspiracy from the top down of an entity with tremendous political power and resources. 2) Conspiracy theorists are nuts. Either way, if the small, bottom up, Iago theory is true, the perpetrators win. ............ As we now know, those apparent “flaws” in the theory are its major operational strengths. In each instance they give a powerful answer to the objections they raise in that they are quickly dismissed with little or no reference to the actual evidence in the case. .............For the seemingly irrational things that have to fill a blank spot in the theory, you get responses like: It makes no sense for anybody to do THAT or to do it THAT WAY when there are so many better, simpler or safer ways to do it. .............The improbable blanks that have to be filled in are normally rejected for that reason. It is not really a logical objection, simply because everyone knows from common experience that the improbable is sometimes true. However, it seems to be logical because logic and common experience also tells us that if we ignore the improbable we are going to be right many more times than not. If all bridge builders approached all of their jobs that way, a lot more bridges would be falling down every day. But homicide cops do exactly that. It’s one of the traits that separate a competent professional from an amateur and why you see that theme so often in the movies. ............”Impossible” is a word you hear often when people are confronted with a problem that they can’t solve and don’t believe that someone else can. In the Simpson-Goldman murder case I got my first good look at how this works with a mass audience looking at things I knew were easy to do and declaring them “impossible.” Frequently the idea that these things could not be done came with a sneer, a chuckle and a condescending explanation that any intelligent person would understand. That’s the advantage of using specialize knowledge and skills that run counter to “common sense.” A common sense answer to what you did in these circumstances leaves you free and clear every time. ........... The Fuhrman foreknowledge of being called objection to the Iago hypothesis is one of those blank spots that require a definitive answer. I was painfully aware of it when I was working it out. Remember, it started as a simple logic problem; a listing of all the things that had to be true IF the evidence pointing to O.J. as the killer was contrived by someone else. If Iago was more than just a theory, a man fitting Fuhrman’s description had to know somehow. Now we know. And we got it from the horse’s mouth. –Jasper