Post by cityofchill on Jul 24, 2016 4:28:04 GMT
This thread attempts to sell readers on the idea that the EAR/ONS began as a young kid. Known teenage offenders are used for that purpose. It's a kind of lighthearted premise that I have no objection to. But then ...
The discussion turns to BMX bikes. And cityofchill writes:
I personally have never seen an older guy cruising the streets on a BMX.
Neither have I ... With BMX starting in the very early 70's, the math indeed does not work unless he [EAR] was a teenager in '76.
And that presumed fact morphs into another leap that, (2) because the perp preferred BMX bikes, therefore, logic dictates that he must be young.
And so, we're off and running with the false conclusion that casual readers may never notice. Yet, the conclusion by Any of N and cityofchill is clear ... the perp began as a kid, and we know that because we have special or personal knowledge of BMX bikes, which the perp preferred. You're telling the reader: "I have personal knowledge that proves the guy was a teenager".
In the first place, we have no evidence that all of the bikes the perp used were BMX bikes. In the second place, even if they were all BMX bikes, there's no proof that he actually preferred them, since you have already stated that there were so many BMX's just lying around there was no shortage of them for the perp to choose from. And third, logic goes out the window when you further jump to the conclusion that the guy must have been a teenager because an adult would not be able to ride a BMX bike. How would you know? Provide documentation that it's impossible for an adult to ride a BMX bike.
You want the guy to be a teenager, so you reach for conclusions that reinforce your youngish preference. All of this reeks of confirmation bias.
If this thread were private, I wouldn't mind. But it's a public thread that attempts to portray the perp according to your personal preferences.
I try to give posters a lot of leeway in their logic, or lack of logic. But this business of using personal or esoteric knowledge about BMX bikes to show that the perp had to be a teenager crosses the boundary into trickery and deception.
You can continue the thread. And there is no penalty for your dreadful BMX conclusions about the guy's age. I have made my point and I see no reason to respond to any follow up comments you may have. Such comments will not change my mind about the trickery used above. But you must steer clear of using personal or esoteric knowledge to infer facts that are not facts at all.
Drifter
Drifter, I could respond to your post in detail, but I really don't have the energy or desire to.
All i will state is that I was not "selling" anything. I constantly used qualifying phrases like: possibly, in (from) my own experience, personally, leads me to believe, I believe it is possible, etc. I never said a BMX is impossible to ride for adults. I said it was an unlikely choice and I cited my own "esoteric" knowledge of why. And your use of the word "esoteric" is very tendentious and rhetorical. Again, i can cite dozens of examples of people using "esoteric" knowledge (by your definition) to arrive at conclusions on this board without using any qualifying phrases as I always do, because I have never held an opinion about this case I wasn't willing to reconsider based on other arguments or information. There is a poster right now in the main section of the forum using highly speculative opinions and leaps of logic not grounded in any fact in an attempt to link almost every serial murder in California from that period to EAR/ONS, but I didn't notice you reminding him of the board's rules and guidelines. That is just one off-hand example.
Is it that you object to the notion of the perp being a teen when he began offending?