Lizzie Borden Society Forum

debbiediablo wrote:

Catbooks wrote:i don't mind that most if not all of us currently posting are in or lean strongly towards the lizzie dunnit camp. i think most of us can entertain alternative theories anyway, because it's fun and a good way to exercise our brains.

I totally agree, Catbooks. Awhile back I posted a link to ten incredibly important discoveries that occurred while the researcher was trying to develop something else. That was primarily for PossumPie's scientific consideration... Looking at everything with curiosity and as little a priori judgment as we can is fun if nothing else...and you never know, one of us might actually happen onto something of value about David Anthony or a totally unrelated surprising and important fact. My guess is the police exhausted their search for suspects and evidence about the Borden's about same way Boulder police searched for JonBenet's killer and evidence. Perhaps not much has changed in 100 years.

Agreed. It is hard to start a working theory that can stand up to scrutiny. Most theories other than the Lizzie did it theories have two major problems:

1. They put forth ideas that can be dis-proven if the known evidence is examined. example: "My theory is that Andrew killed Abby, then killed himself" This can be dis-proven b/c his wounds were on the back of his head where he couldn't have swung a hatchet, and... where did the murder weapon go? Often theorists don't see the illogic or contradictions of their theory.

2. The other major problem with many alternative theories is simply that they made the theory up out of whole cloth, and there is absolutely no supporting evidence at all that it happened. "The pope was angry at Andrew, and sent a Cardinal from Rome to Mass. to kill them both" Ok, there is no evidence disproving this-- but the burden of evidence is NEVER on disproving something, but proving it happened. This is sometimes called Russell's Teapot. Bertrand Russell once said that if he believed that there is a teapot orbiting somewhere between the earth and the sun, it can't be dis-proven BUT the burden of proof doesn't lay on you disproving it, but on him proving that it is there.

This is my biggest frustration with Franz. He has a novel theory that Morse coordinated the whole thing. The problem is that he has no evidence whatever that it happened. He left it to us to constantly try to disprove small bits of it, in which case he just offered alternatives to our arguments. He basically said there is a teapot orbiting the earth, now try to prove there isn't one. Of course we couldn't but that doesn't PROVE that his theory is correct. He kept saying that this isn't a forum to prove a theory, just discuss them, and that is correct, but there must be some kind of supporting evidence to start with.