Masonic Ritual Murders! Not!

Appeal to misleading authority	This entire paper is based on movies and books written by others. The author's main source is one Stephen Knight who wrote "Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution". This book is a legitimate source because there was a movie based off of it. The entire paper is based off of this book and the movies that preceded it. Uri Dowbenko relies strictly on this one authority to base his theory.          He also uses movies as evidence. Obviously if it happened in a movie then it must be true. Of course if movies portray the masons as evil and cruel people then they must have had a hand in the ripper murders. Also if the royals can’t afford another scandal then of course they did it.
Bandwagon	So Uri Dowbenko is a major bandwagoner! He basically read this book and then watched this movie, loved the idea, decided they were right and he was going to write an article about it! He has no legitimate proof to support his argument. It is not even his own argument. There is no original thought in the article. He only uses hasty generalizations made by others to make it appear as if he has a case, which he does not!
Hasty Generalization	So Uri states that sense the Ripper case could not be solved it must have been a cover up and since it was a cover up then it must have been the royals! This is a load of trash. Just because the cops either were not smart enough or didn’t care enough about five dead hookers to catch the killer does not mean that it was a cover up and a royal one at that
Appeal to Ignorance	He also goes on to explain how these crimes were covered up but he has no facts to basis his assumptions on. He simply just starts rambling off explanations.

Jacob Levy

Jacob Levy

Cum Hoc	·         On 15 August 1890 Jacob Levy was delivered to the City of London lunatic asylum, Stone, in Kent, as an insane person. ·         …Jacob Levy having been arrested on 10 March 1886 for the theft of a weight of meat…he was found guilty of the charge on 6 April 1886 and sentenced to twelve months at Holloway Prison.
Unrepresentative Sample	·         Jacob Levy was employed as a butcher. -Dr. Fredrick Gordon Brown, surgeon to the City of London Police, and who was present at Eddowes’ post mortem at the Golden Lane mortuary, had opinionate that the miscreant’s knowledge of anatomy may be possessed by someone in the habit of cutting animals…he again believed that the cuts inflicted upon Catherine Eddowes were suggestive of a butcher.
Appeal to Ignorance	·         …Jacob finally died at the asylum from General Paralysis of the Insane brought on by the serious sexually transmitted disease syphilis, therefore indicating a possibility of liaisons wit with the Adelgate/Whitechapel prostitutes. ·         Jacob very well have blamed prostitutes for the cause of his illness together with the impending failure of his once successful family butchering business, and he may have also have believed, or assumed, that his children were now syphillic.
Hasty  Generalization	·         Moreover, Godfrey Lushington, a civil servant to the Home Office, had made it his opinion that the murder of both Stride and Eddowes was the work of a Jew. ·         …witness George Hutchison had reported that he had seen a man of Jewish appearance accompanying Mary Jane Kelly on the night of theMillers Court murder, and who he thought as seeing once again a short time later in Jacob’s street of residence-Middlesex Street!

Where We Are with Bury - Fallacy Analyis by Mason Allenger

Fallacy	Quote	Analysis
Poisoning the Well (Red Herrings)	“No one in 1988 would have doubted that the perpetrator was a sexual serial killer carrying out his own perverted agenda.Since 1888 we have learnt much about this type of killer, their damaged childhoods, misfit adulthoods and psychopathic alienation from the human race. One man who embodied all these dire characteristics was William Henry Bury.”	This is an example of poisoning the well because, since W.H. Bury was never actually proven to be a serial killer, the comparison that is made here is irrelevant.
Texas Sharpshooter (False Cause)	“Aside from the fact that Ellen's throat was not cut - in the circumstances it was unnecessary - this was a Ripper crime, the mutilations to the genital area his 'signature'. It is when we directly compare the post mortem report on Ellen to that of Catherine Eddowes and the inquest testimonies on 'Polly' Nichols and Annie Chapman's injuries that we can see that they were all the work of the same man.”	The author dismisses Ellen’s throat being cut and focuses on everything else. A slashed throat was a trait of the Ripper’s murders.
Post Hoc (False Cause)	“The Scotland Yard detectives told James Bury: "We are quite satisfied that you have hanged Jack the Ripper. There will be no more Whitechapel crimes". And there weren't. The dread figure with the knife vanishes with William Bury's execution and crossed the Stygian into Hades.”	There is no evidence to actually support the notion that: because Bury was hanged, the murders ceased.
Cum Hoc (False Cause)	“It is interesting that the ground floor of 29, Hanbury Street was a cat's meat shop; also that 'Polly' Nichols was wearing a jacket with a man leading a horse emblazoned on it. A Horse caused the accident which killed Bury's father.”	The author insists that Nichols was murdered because she was wearing a jacket with a horse emblazoned on it. There’s no proof to support that relationship being causal. There’s not even any proof that W.H. Bury murdered anyone other than his wife.

James Maybrick- Fallacies, Sarah Neill

Fallacy	Description
Black or White	“If it can be proved that [James Maybrick] was definitely not the Ripper…  None of the other suspects is remotely convincing” Rubinstein makes is clear that it is either James Maybrick or unknown because he spends most of the article refuting other suspects. The only way it is not Maybrick would be with “irrefutable proof”.
Appeal to ignorance	“none of the other suspects is remotely convincing” (I still can’t believe he put “is” and not “are”) Here we see that because we don’t know if it isn’t him, it is. Basically because there is no proof against Maybrick, he is the most obvious choice.
Texas sharpshooter	All the murders happened on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Workmen were paid on Thursday. People would go to the suburbs on the weekend after work. Because Maybrick fits all these categories, he is the Ripper.
Wishful thinking	“I am personally more than 90 per cent sure that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper.” Rubinstein clearly states that only Maybrick could be the Ripper because he wants Maybrick to be. He ignores the fact of the diary “forged” by Michael Barrett.

Francis Thompson- Emily Solis

Hasty Generalization/Misleading Authority

"One possible motive for The Ripper to  have killed these five women, and sent letters to the press, was that he thought  that he had been chosen by God. Perhaps by killing these five women he would be inflicting five wounds upon society's church, government, science, literature, and people."

Accident

"Perhaps Jack the Ripper percieved himself as a ‘messiah’ who, by killing within a religious site in Londons east upon the feast days of  martyred saints, could sin and be forgiven.  These saints were all eastern crusaders,  and parton saints of Innocence, Butchers,  Soldiers, Doctors, and Scholars. The Ripper may have attempted to simulate the key concepts of the original crucifixtion. Perhaps by killing five percieved ‘sinners’  Jack the Ripper was attempting to project   the five wounds of Christ’s crucifixion onto  a stigmata of immediate social impact. And thus, as a crusading knight, Jack the  Ripper could elect himself a key player in an apocalypse and be forgiven of his sins."

Texas Sharpshooter

"The first reports of a suspect in the Whitechapel murders gave the desription as someone owning a  leather apron. Francis Thompson later claimed that he owned a leather apron during his homelessness during 1888."

Samantha Lopez- Mary Pearcey (Jack the Ripper)

Family	Fallacy	Examples	Analysis
	Appeal to Ignorance	“It’s possible, but we do know this sample is likely to be a female sample. Maybe Jill the ripper?”	There is no evidence showing that it might be a girl. The only thing that shows is a guess from a detective stating that the person was wearing women’s clothing.
	Slippery Slope	“We take the DNA and add a number of genetic markers to the DNA. The genetic markers create a DNA profile. What we do is we take those genetic markers and effectively multiply, photocopy the very specific DNA fragments.”	This is showing how to get the results of the DNA. Ian is one of the people who wanted to find the DNA of Jack the Ripper. This shows how the DNA goes in order of how to find the results in the DNA test.
	Accident	“So it would be incredible to think that these blood stains either belonged to the Ripper himself or to one of the victims.”	This quote shows how the blood is the fact that someone killed someone but the part of who killed who is the question and it was the Jack the Ripper. This part is the no exception because it was just someone that it was.
Red Herring	Red Herring	“Well, we’re right in Mitre Square now.”	This section was talking about the DNA and it had nothing to do with the Mitre Square.
		“Yeah I think here you’ve got the real feel of the East End.”	This section was talking about how Jack the Ripper was killing his victims. Then it switched about the East End, which had no relevance to DNA.
	Straw Man	“Well I can just imagine this with some fog swirling, gaslights, flickering lights.”	This states how his beliefs about how people might be killed in a dark alley.
		“And turning the corner and seeing a body just lying in the corner.”	This is their belief that someone might be killed and where their body might turn up at.
Weak Analogy	Unrepresentative Sample	“It’s not a full profile, it’s a partial profile, which means it’s not sufficient to identity an individual and not good enough for forensic purposes but it is a partial profile. But, Jack the Ripper is not going to jail on this evidence.”	This was just a conclusion drawn up due to the lack of evidence found on the DNA letters. Meaning that there was not enough results found in the DNA test that could make it Jack the Ripper.
		“Ian’s partial profile was taken from the Openshaw letter, one of the most likely to have been sent by the Ripper.”	There are making the conclusion that it was Jack the Ripper because Ian was basing his conclusion of what they found of the detective.
False Cause	Cum Hoc	“A new DNA profiling case has been developed and the creator has travelled to London to take samples from letters believed to have been written by Jack himself.”	The two things that happened was the DNA case developing and the creator traveling which causes the samples of the letter of Jack the Ripper.
		“It was just this brief period of horrendous brutal murders that really captured the public gaze. The newspapers loved it, they gave it huge publicity. And when the name Jack the Ripper emerged it seemed to seal the whole thing. They had a name to focus on and a name to frighten people with. And of course he became the universal bogey man.”	The two things that happened was the belief of the brutal murders and then it was the public gaze. Then it was the name that gave people fright over the bogeyman.

Aaron Kosminski Reconsidered - Arthur Munoz

Appeal to ignorance	By the time Aaron is an adolescent, there is widespread anti-semitism in Russia. It is important to consider the effect that this would have had on a young boy. It is likely that at this time Aaron would have began to develop a sense of resentment towards the world at large.
Appeal to ignorance	Aaron was raised in an environment of poverty, rising anti-semitism, and crowded living conditions. As a teen he would have witnessed attacks and quite possibly sexually violent assaults and rape on his neighbors and maybe even his own family.
Texas Sharpshooter	Some will argue that profiling is not an effective tool for apprehending criminals, and indeed, profiling has been shown in many cases to be inaccurate and fallible. That being said however, it is generally acknowledged that sexually motivated serial killers have many common characteristics, and often share similar backgrounds, etc. Thus we may look at what is known or suspected about Aaron Kosminski, and see if he fits into the profile of a sexual killer.

Greg Nelson - Jack the Ripper Fallacies - Nikolay Vasiliev