Probability arguments definitely make sense. Certainly, in this case.
No they don't. Probability arguments are subjective, just like assumptions....
With sufficient probability arguments and assumptions you can arrive at any desired conclusion.
Probability arguments do make sense. For instance, I do not believe that Mr. Brewer heard on his radio in the shop, before he saw Oswald, because it is unlikely. Not absolutely impossible, just improbable.
Oswald arrived at the shoe shop about 21 minutes after the shooting of Officer Tippit. Are there possible ways a commercial broadcast of this news could have taken place before then?
Yes, the police dispatcher could have taken the time to call a local radio statement to let them know that this is happened. It this likely? In my mind, no. The dispatcher was busy calling in ambulances, and policemen to the area of the Officer Tippit shooting. And then coordinated search efforts of police officers in the area to find the shooter. And within the next half hour, he met with success. He successfully directed the search efforts of the other policemen in search of the shooter of his friend, Officer Tippit, who he knew almost immediately had been killed. Helped in no small part by Mr. Brewer, but the dispatcher did his job and did it well. He, nor any other police officer is going stop and take the time to call a radio station. So, it
probably didn’t happen.
But if the dispatcher or some other police officer did take the time, we probably would have heard about it. From that police officer. From some radio announcer who would almost certain have heard of Mr. Brewer’s statement that he heard this broadcast, and would step forward and say “Mr. Brewer, could have heard this, because we got a scoop and broadcast it by 1:30”. But no such claim has ever been made. So, it
probably didn’t happen.
Or another possibility. Let’s say the Mr. Brewer was not listening to police broadcasts, which he never claimed, but some radio station employee was. He did so in the hopes of scooping the other radio stations. He could learn within a few minutes of the officer shooting in the Oak Cliff area and get that report on the air within 21 minutes easily. But again, after 56 years, no one has stepped forward to say this happened, to say that “My initiative allowed us to scoop the other radio stations and broadcast this news 10 minutes after the murder”. So, it
probably didn’t happen.
Question:
Do these ‘probability’ arguments make sense? Am I being logical to conclude that such an early radio broadcast was never made? Now, if my ‘probability’ arguments were directed by reaching a desired conclusion, shouldn’t I have concluded that such a broadcast probably did take place? News stations are very competitive so surely some radio station in the Dallas area would have been prepared to monitor the police radio frequencies so they could scoop the others. But, in my view, this
probably didn’t happen. If I had concluded it probably did, I could not only argue that Mr. Brewer was not only honest, but had an unusually good memory to everything that had happened, at least, if he is interviewed within a couple of weeks.
