Wednesday, August 24, 2016

"Assassination Science" and Dr. James H. Fetzer


My step-mother was a librarian, and her library received weekly lists of newly published books. She knew of my interest in the JFK assassination, and one year, for Christmas, she and my father gave me a book called "Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death of JFK."

I've always known she was ahead of the curve, but I didn't realize how far ahead she was, until just a few days ago, when I gave my copy of "Assassination Science" a close examination.

Inside the front cover, there's a handwritten inscription which says, among other things, "12/25/97."

But on the back of the title page, before the Library of Congress information, the copyright says, "1998 by James H. Fetzer, PhD." And the very next line says, "First printing 1998."

So apparently, according to these dates, I was reading "Assassination Science" at least a week before it was first printed.

As I learned by reading it, "Assassination Science" is the result of a group effort, facilitated and edited by Dr. James Fetzer, whose research efforts I have been following ever since.

After Dr. Fetzer earned his PhD. in Philosophy from the University of Indiana, he served for four years as an officer in the Marine Corps before embarking on a teaching career, in which he offered courses in science and related topics: the history of science, the philosophy of science, cognitive development, artificial intelligence, and so on.

His loud, fast and assertive nature couldn't have hurt him as an officer. His remarkable memory couldn't have hurt him as a professor. And these qualities certainly shape all his presentations.

Normally, when he enumerates the relevant facts of a case he has studied, Dr. Fetzer doesn't simply repeat the claims of other researchers. He identifies those researchers, and explains what they said and why they said so. Rather than simply referring to a declassified document, for example, he will talk about when that document was obtained and by whom, when and where it was published, and so on. So, even if you disagree with Dr. Fetzer's conclusions, as I sometimes do, it's difficult to deny that his approach is a thorough one.

He's smart enough to recognize that he doesn't know everything, and modest enough to admit it, so his preferred research mode involves assembling a team of experts and facilitating their collaboration. In my view, this approach has produced some important results.

But then again, I might be delusional.

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