I have absolutely no interest in bringing this subject back up. It's essentially irrelevant now. One would only hope that future state officials be more thorough in their vetting of political candidates before allowing them to show up on the ballot for certain offices.
But as for the credibility of Snopes the question of whether questions about the birth certificate have actually been debunked, that is very relevant.
There are two significant problems with how Snopes addressed this issue. Both have to do with the question of whether the document shown online was an actual copy or a digital creation.
1. Snopes uses an Adobe expert as what appears to be their primary source in declaring the question debunked. Not a computer scientist with established expertise in the fine details of digital image creation and duplication, and pretty clearly not an expert in how computers deal with the transmission, storage, and presentation of micro-data. That is unless one considers an expert in one particular piece of software and the scope of its interaction of all the above, as limited as that may be, to be a sufficient expert. Doing that would be comparable to getting a micro-scope expert to debunk a micro-biologist. While possible, one certainly needs a bit more set up than just that being the software or instrument being used by most involved. There needs to be a logical presentation that makes it clear the added expertise of another expert can't effectively contradict the technician's point.
Snopes does present one more source to corroborate their Adobe expert, an actual computer scientist by degree, John Woodman. He wrote a book on the subject of Obama's certificate of live birth and made a series of YouTube videos to explain why the nine links and layers found in it don't point in any conclusive way to it being a forgery. One must wonder why they didn't lead their debunking effort with him instead of the technician.
Especially after watching all of his videos and hearing him repeatedly state that the effort in making such a sloppy forgery just doesn't make sense for human beings to have done. Why would human beings not be smart enough to make a flat file of their forgery that would be much easier to make and much more difficult to detect? Why indeed? Why would human beings site a technician before an actual computer scientist? Woodman apparently makes at least a small error in delving out of his field into human behavior. His conclusion is that is more likely the layers are due to an optimization process designed to minimize the computer space taken up by the image file.
His analysis presents a couple unanswered questions. First, if a smart forger should be expected to have made a flat file and thus eliminate the suspicious layers, wouldn't a smart optimization process have done the same? He actually says in passing that he wouldn't have created or carried out an optimization process with results like that found in the suspected forgery, but he leaves it at that leaving one to wonder. And the second question is why doesn't this expert have credentials beyond just being essentially another technician with a computer science degree (why not someone with a doctorate or at least a professorship)?
Is this the level of expertise Snopes regularly depends on? A software trainer and someone who happens to have written a book? With source discernment like that one wonders what they'd make of ancient space aliens. After all there are several people who have witten books and even a few folks with relevant doctorates that would be happy to confirm that stuff for them.
2. The second error Snopes makes in their addressing of this is what they wrote about the results of an official investigation led by Mike Zullo.
"The March "cold Case Posse" investigation of Barack Obama's birth certificate conducted by Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio produced no new evidence demonstrating that document to be a forgery; that entity's report by Mara Zebest simply recycled old arguments that had long since been thoroughly debunked in detail. Likewise, a July 2012 announcement from Sheriff Arpaio repeated more rumors that had already been debunked."
The mention of Mara Zebest is a bit of a red herring as is the failure to mention Mike Zullo, in my opinion. That aside, the real problem here is the use of the word "debunked" twice. In context of Mara Zebest it's a bunny trail but in the context of the entire work of the "Cold Case Posse" and their conclusions it's an application of circular reasoning, perhaps twisted into complex figure eights. Something is debunked because we said it is and any attempt to question our conclusion is just bringing up stuff we already debunked.
The problem is that they haven't debunked it. I'm not saying they reached an incorrect conclusion or that "Cold Case Posse" reached a wrong conclusion. Snopes problem is that if this is in fact debunkible they need to actually do it. Computer imaging and computer forensics are not so new that they can't find more definitive experts than what they've presented thus far. Experts in Adobe like Mara Zebest and Snopes first cited expert don't cut it on either side and as for Mr. Woodman, he would have been a better place to start but he left a lot of pieces on the floor and used a lot psychology that would have been better left to experts in yet other areas.
Snopes and I should both be happy that I have taken this long to notice and address this. By doing so it is no longer timely that Snopes fix this, and I don't have to endure being labeled a birther just because I have an obsession for the proper application of critical thinking.
If I were still teaching I would give the Snopes crew a C grade on this. Only passable because one can't expect every student who takes a class to really have their heart in it. Snopes however should.
But as for the credibility of Snopes the question of whether questions about the birth certificate have actually been debunked, that is very relevant.
There are two significant problems with how Snopes addressed this issue. Both have to do with the question of whether the document shown online was an actual copy or a digital creation.
1. Snopes uses an Adobe expert as what appears to be their primary source in declaring the question debunked. Not a computer scientist with established expertise in the fine details of digital image creation and duplication, and pretty clearly not an expert in how computers deal with the transmission, storage, and presentation of micro-data. That is unless one considers an expert in one particular piece of software and the scope of its interaction of all the above, as limited as that may be, to be a sufficient expert. Doing that would be comparable to getting a micro-scope expert to debunk a micro-biologist. While possible, one certainly needs a bit more set up than just that being the software or instrument being used by most involved. There needs to be a logical presentation that makes it clear the added expertise of another expert can't effectively contradict the technician's point.
Snopes does present one more source to corroborate their Adobe expert, an actual computer scientist by degree, John Woodman. He wrote a book on the subject of Obama's certificate of live birth and made a series of YouTube videos to explain why the nine links and layers found in it don't point in any conclusive way to it being a forgery. One must wonder why they didn't lead their debunking effort with him instead of the technician.
Especially after watching all of his videos and hearing him repeatedly state that the effort in making such a sloppy forgery just doesn't make sense for human beings to have done. Why would human beings not be smart enough to make a flat file of their forgery that would be much easier to make and much more difficult to detect? Why indeed? Why would human beings site a technician before an actual computer scientist? Woodman apparently makes at least a small error in delving out of his field into human behavior. His conclusion is that is more likely the layers are due to an optimization process designed to minimize the computer space taken up by the image file.
His analysis presents a couple unanswered questions. First, if a smart forger should be expected to have made a flat file and thus eliminate the suspicious layers, wouldn't a smart optimization process have done the same? He actually says in passing that he wouldn't have created or carried out an optimization process with results like that found in the suspected forgery, but he leaves it at that leaving one to wonder. And the second question is why doesn't this expert have credentials beyond just being essentially another technician with a computer science degree (why not someone with a doctorate or at least a professorship)?
Is this the level of expertise Snopes regularly depends on? A software trainer and someone who happens to have written a book? With source discernment like that one wonders what they'd make of ancient space aliens. After all there are several people who have witten books and even a few folks with relevant doctorates that would be happy to confirm that stuff for them.
2. The second error Snopes makes in their addressing of this is what they wrote about the results of an official investigation led by Mike Zullo.
"The March "cold Case Posse" investigation of Barack Obama's birth certificate conducted by Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio produced no new evidence demonstrating that document to be a forgery; that entity's report by Mara Zebest simply recycled old arguments that had long since been thoroughly debunked in detail. Likewise, a July 2012 announcement from Sheriff Arpaio repeated more rumors that had already been debunked."
The mention of Mara Zebest is a bit of a red herring as is the failure to mention Mike Zullo, in my opinion. That aside, the real problem here is the use of the word "debunked" twice. In context of Mara Zebest it's a bunny trail but in the context of the entire work of the "Cold Case Posse" and their conclusions it's an application of circular reasoning, perhaps twisted into complex figure eights. Something is debunked because we said it is and any attempt to question our conclusion is just bringing up stuff we already debunked.
The problem is that they haven't debunked it. I'm not saying they reached an incorrect conclusion or that "Cold Case Posse" reached a wrong conclusion. Snopes problem is that if this is in fact debunkible they need to actually do it. Computer imaging and computer forensics are not so new that they can't find more definitive experts than what they've presented thus far. Experts in Adobe like Mara Zebest and Snopes first cited expert don't cut it on either side and as for Mr. Woodman, he would have been a better place to start but he left a lot of pieces on the floor and used a lot psychology that would have been better left to experts in yet other areas.
Snopes and I should both be happy that I have taken this long to notice and address this. By doing so it is no longer timely that Snopes fix this, and I don't have to endure being labeled a birther just because I have an obsession for the proper application of critical thinking.
If I were still teaching I would give the Snopes crew a C grade on this. Only passable because one can't expect every student who takes a class to really have their heart in it. Snopes however should.
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