It is unethical to run this experiment with humans, so we must limit ourselves to experiments on animals, like goats.
The movement of the goat is not random at all. Both the left and right half of the body move the same way. Both forelimbs kick forward. Both hindlimbs kick backwards. And the back arches. Just like what we see happen to JFK. Both the goat video and the Zapruder film, are consistent with a spurious signal down the spinal cord telling all muscles to contract, causing the stronger muscle of each pair to move a body part.
This is quack material, downright nutty. But it's all you have because you will not allow yourself to consider the evidence of a shot from the front.
You keep ignoring the point that neuromuscular reactions in humans are not fast enough to cause the movement we see in the Zapruder film. Several scholars have made this point, including Thompson and Mantik, but you keep ignoring it.
You also keep ignoring Dr. Riley's point, reinforced by Dr. Mantik, that goat and human neurobiology and neurophysics are very different.
And are you ever going to deal with Dr. Zacharko's point that the neuromuscular-reaction theory is "simply nonsense"? Let's read his bottom line on this nutty theory:
"Neural damage per se associated with bullet entry will not cause exaggerated head movement of the type you see in the Zapruder film. In fact there are no brain sites that will. This neuromuscular reactivity argument is simply nonsense. . . .
"Actually there is a system which is referred to as the extrapyramidal motor system, which runs from the mesencephalon to the forebrain. It controls voluntary movement. If this system was to discharge, you would effect gross motor output. Such discharge would typically represent the invasion of seizure like activity to motor areas. It would not be coordinated and certainly not of the type evident in the Zapruder film. The bottom line is that the head movements are reactions to the direction of bullet entry. They are not the product of central nervous system damage."
Dr. Alvarez was not a medical doctor but a great Physicist, so it is natural that he would look for the answer to be found in Physics.
Yeah, who needs science when it comes to avoiding conclusions you don't like, right?
So, essentially, we must conclude that the Jet Effect Hypothesis is false because some LNers support the Neuromuscular Spasm Hypotheses. And the Neuromuscular Spasm Hypotheses is false because some LNers support the Jet Effect Hypotheses. We can’t even consider the possibility that some LNers are wrong, while some are right, and that one of these hypotheses is true.
Which is a very long-winded way of dancing around the point that even some of your fellow WC apologists can see that the neuromuscular-reaction theory is "simply nonsense."
But the goat starts to move within 40 ms of being shot through the brain. But, again, you feel that the opinion of armchair experts, who do not study the film of real animals being shot through the brain, should overrule what film actually shows us. And conclude that an animal being shot though the brain cannot react within 55 ms but instead would take several minutes to observe any body movement in either the goat or JFK.
In other words, never mind what we know from science about the speed of
human neuromuscular reactions, and never mind the impossibility of the physics involved with the violent reversal of movement. Nah, forget about all that stuff and instead cling for dear life onto some irrelevant video of a goat being shot in the head with its head secured, and never mind that goats and humans have very different neurobiology and neurophysics.
But this claim is false because the goat in the video beings to move 40 milliseconds after being shot in the head.
Was JFK a goat? Is that your theory but you're just not saying it? Goat, goat, goat, goat. Here, read this carefully: Goats and humans have different neurobiology and neurophysics. JFK was not a goat. Who cares about the reactions of a goat when we know that human neuromuscular reactions are not fast enough to produce the movement we see in the Zapruder film?
While typical animal reflexes do take longer than 40 ms, the neuromuscular spasm is much faster. But rather than accept what the film shows us, you decide that the armchair analysis of a doctor overrules what the film shows.
No, the problem is that rather than accept what science tells us about the speed of human neuromuscular reactions, and rather than accept the fact that humans are not goats, and rather than accept the fact that human and goat neurobiology and neurophysics are different (which most high schoolers would guess just based on common sense), and rather than deal honestly with the impossibility of the physics of the split-second reversal of the movement of JFK's head--rather than accept these facts, you keep citing this ridiculous goat film.
And, we are not talking about one "armchair analysis of a doctor" but of the analyses of several doctors (one of whom is also a physicist), two neuroscientists (Riley and Zacharko), several forensic pathologists (including a former head of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences), and at least three physicists (Alvarez, Snyder, and Chambers).
Well, you dodged all five of my questions. So I will ask them again.
Okay, let's deal with your silly questions.
Question 1:
Can you name a single article, a single book, that argues for the Neuromuscular Spasm as being the cause of JFK’s backward movement, that does not even mention the film of the goat?
The goat film
again?! Given that those who argue for the neuromuscular-reaction theory must ignore a mountain of science to even float the theory, I have no doubt that they throw in the irrelevant goat film to support their claim--apparently, they, like you, just don't care about the differences between goat and human neurobiology and neurophysics, nor about what science tells us about the speed of human neuromuscular reactions.
If not, then this is not an irrelevant fact, but core of the claim of the Neuromuscular Spasm Hypothesis and should have been mentioned to Dr. Zacharko before asking for this opinion, since this might have altered his conclusions.
Let me ask you a serious question in return: Do you think Dr. Zacharko would change his mind, that he would decide that the neuromuscular-reaction theory is not "simply nonsense," if he watched the goat film? Do you?
And you know that Dr. Zacharko was not just basing his answer on my description of the Zapruder film but that he had watched the film himself, right? You know that, right?
If the "core" of the neuromuscular-spasm theory is the irrelevant goat film, that should tell you what a ridiculous, unscientific theory it is. As Dr. Zacharko said, it is "simply nonsense" because science tells us that humans do not move the way JFK does in response to neuromuscular activity. Let's read Dr. Zacharko's point about this again:
"If this system was to discharge, you would effect gross motor output. Such discharge would typically represent the invasion of seizure like activity to motor areas. It would not be coordinated and certainly not of the type evident in the Zapruder film.
"The bottom line is that the head movements are reactions to the direction of bullet entry. They are not the product of central nervous system damage."
Question 2: Should an authority be informed of the main argument, the main piece of evidence, of both sides before being asked for his opinion? Yes or No. Or is it sometimes best to keep him in ignorance.
LOL! So the goat film is the "main piece of evidence" for your nutty neuromuscular-spasm theory?! Actually, I probably did your nutty theory a favor by not mentioning the goat film to Dr. Zacharko. Truth be told, it never occurred to me to mention that irrelevant film. Instead, I carefully described JFK's movements from Z312 onward and quoted two prominent authors on the science and physics of those movements.
Again, do you think Dr. Zacharko would change his mind based on the goat film? Do you think he would conclude that the human extrapyramidal motor system behaves differently than the way he described it, if he saw the goat film? After all, as you can see from his full response, he described in considerable detail the workings of the human extrapyramidal motor system, and also the pons, the medulla, and the cerebellum, and then explained that the extrapyramidal motor system would not cause the movement of JFK's head seen in the Zapruder film.
Question 3: Should the decision to dismiss the main piece of evidence presented by LNers, be made by Dr. Zacharko or Michael Griffith?
I guess it’s time for another review for you: Goats are not humans. Goats and humans have very different neurobiology and neurophysics. The goat film is irrelevant. JFK's movements are a matter of
humanneurobiology and neurophysics, and Dr. Zacharko addressed them on that basis.
Again, do you think the goat film would cause Dr. Zacharko to change his conclusion that the relevant part of human neuroanatomy--the extrapyramidal motor system--would magically behave differently than he described it?
Question 4: In the future, will you tell people that JFK’s head was thrown back violently, or tell them it moved backwards at 2 mph?
Oh. My. Goodness. You are so lost in lone-gunman delusion that you can't see the forest for the huge trees. Anyone not blinded by lone-gunman denial can see with their own eyes that JFK's head and upper body are thrown violently backward and to the left from Z313-323. You are the first WC apologist I have ever personally encountered who describes that movement as “gradual” and who denies that it is violent.
And, again, what makes this movement even more incredible is that it begins a split second after the head moves 2.3 inches forward in 1/18th/second.
Question 5: And the most important question of all. Do you believe a bullet only transfers momentum to a target while it is passing through the target? Or do you believe a bullet can continue to transfer momentum to a target even after it’s left the body. Accounting for the gradual increase of speed of JFK’s backwards from 0 mph to 2 mph over the course of a quarter of a second.
Sigh. . . . Well, first of all, a 190% increase in speed in five frames, going from 0 to 1.9 mph in 5/18th/second, by an object that has just moved 2.3 inches forward (the opposite direction) in 1/18th/second is not "gradual" by any rational analysis. This is the kind of nonsense that you must posit when you are locked into an absurd theory of the shooting and the head movement. Again, anyone can look at the Zapruder film and see with their own eyes that Kennedy's head and upper body are propelled violently backward and to the left.
As for how human bodies respond to bullet strikes, it depends on the type of bullet, the type of rifle, and the action, or lack thereof, by the person just before they are struck. There is war footage that shows prisoners being executed by nearly point-blank gunfire where the prisoners exhibit no violent movements but simply fall down. There is other war footage that shows prisoners' heads moving in the same direction as the bullet that strikes them: forward when shot from behind, and backward when shot from the front. Connally's right shoulder was pushed noticeably downward by the bullet that struck him in the back, and he said it felt like someone hit him hard in the back with their fist. Martin Luther King was knocked backward by the bullet that struck him in the front.
The problem with the Zapruder film, i.e., an indication that it has been altered, is that no bullet would cause JFK's head and upper body to reverse direction so rapidly. The original film showed two noticeable reactions: JFK's head being knocked forward and then JFK's head being knocked backward but not as fiercely as we see in the current film.
