You stated an opinion and called it a fact. When asked to explain how you reached your conclusion, you started repeating “can’t prove a negative, can’t prove a negative.”
How about you describe the careful research and long hours of reading you spent developing your views on this subject? Or failing that, just admit that you have a gut opinion but nothing to back it up. (It’s not a moral failing to have an opinion. Just call it what it is.)
It’ll never happen, of course. The OP has been answered long ago. All that’s left is Dio huffing and puffing. That’s likely to last a while.
No I didn’t. I made a factual observation.
In your opinion.
That’s up to you guys. You’re the ones trying to pick a fight.
You want another cite besides the fact that profiling has been already demonstrated in this thread to be of no scientific utility? Here’s one - no one here has been able to find a case where it solved a crime.
Show me a cite that voodoo has never solved a crime. That’s basically what you’re asking me to do. I don’t need to cite that the impossible is impossible.
It’s a factual claim. It can be either correct or incorrect, but it can’t be an opinion. As it happens, I am correct, though.
I just want to learn from you. You must have done research before concluding that psychological profiling is the equivalent of voodoo. You must have a background in criminology to know that no case has ever been solved through profiling.
So, please, fill me in on what you learned. Point me to the articles I should read or the scholars who have written the key books.
It doesn’t require a background in criminology, just a basic ability to understand that the statements made by profilers have no probative value. Read Gladwell’s article. It’s linked upthread. Profiling is bunk. Statements like “he’s either never been married, is married or is divorced” is not a statement that imparts any information.
OK. I have a life and I don’t want to be accused of harassing you, so I’ll drop it. But it should be clear to you, as it is to everyone else, that you were given chance after chance to explain your reasoning, point to cites that support you, and define your position by discussing hypotheticals _ but you utterly and completely failed to debate.
Did you read the link to Gladwell’s article in post #5 that Dio is talking about?
The OP was based on an article which is linked in this thread. The basis of my reasoning is contained within that article (well, not just there, I’ve read about the inefficacy of profiling before, but the article pretty clearly explains the reasons for my conclusions).
Then provide a reference.
I provided the reference you asked for within minutes. Why can’t you do the same for me?
Post #5.
In the Virginia Tech Report:
The report goes on to say that in the past 40 years there was no crime where a first shooting was followed by a second shooting on campus.
But it’s wise, calculating, and dangerous to START with a profile - when you’re the profile.
“The profile doesn’t fit the profile!”
Looks like he had a background in criminology. All of us profile (he was a stalker before he was a killer) and I guess he found it a useful skill.
Yes. Why do you ask?
Dio read that article and it inspired him to start a thread asking whether profiling is woo. A few posts later and he is flatly stating that profiling has no value and has never contributed to solving a case. Clearly the article itself isn’t his only reason for that conclusion or he would have said so in the OP.
(Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m defending profiling. I know nothing about it and have no opinion. I’m trying to figure out why Dio suddenly grew so darn certain.)
I know what is influencing my ideas on the subject-the fact that I can’t seem to find a single case of a successful profile, outside of unverified claims of the profilers themselves. I can find untold numbers of stories of profilers either stating the obvious or getting it wrong, but not much in evidence on the other side of the scale.
Is this thread about Dio or is it about the efficacy of criminal profiling? And why shouldn’t Dio be certain? After all, nobody has been able to produce a single case where profiling has led to the capture of a suspect whose identity was unknown.
Odesio
In fact, I think it’s at least very logical. Common sense maybe not, since it’s not so obvious that it would be the first idea to come to your mind, but logical enough for someone involved in the enquiry (and who isn’t a profiler) to envision it.
So your reason for believing that the article is correct when it says that profiling is woo and can’t solve cases, is the same article saying that profiling is woo and can’t solve cases.
:dubious:
And it’s probable that the Virginia Tech killer will be a student at Virginia Tech, even though the initial suspect was a student at Radford University.
It would not have been useless after the double murder at Virginia Tech.