Analyzing The Anthrax Attacks - Softcover

Lake, Edward G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0976616300 ISBN 13: 9780976616306

Publisher: Edward G. Lake, 2005

Synopsis

How could so many people be so wrong about the anthrax attacks of 2001? This book explains how.

Using published scientific data confirmed via one-on-one discussions with America's top anthrax experts, this book shows that simple laboratory mistakes made in the first days of the investigation were leaked to the media before they could be corrected and led to wild conspiracy theories which dominated discussion of the case for the next three years. Totally erroneous information has been accepted as "fact", and attempts to correct the errors have become accepted as attempts to cover up a conspiracy.

The book shows example after example of how a careful examination of the available evidence totally disproves popular misconceptions about the case. Plus, errors by the CDC, the FBI, the New York Department of Health, and other govenment agencies have never been publicly corrected and continue to mislead people.

The book provides a careful scientific analysis of the anthrax attacks of 2001. Details about the letters and envelopes are carefully examined. The nature of the anthrax and how it was handled are carefully studied. Bad information is traced to its source, and the effect of the errors are carefully documented step by step. The book lays out detail by detail, fact by fact, as it builds a description of events that is totally at odds with the way the case has been depicted in the media today.

Filled with fascinating details which often boggle the mind, the book is intended to make the reader reconsider all prior thinking about the case.

The book concludes that it is an absolute certainty that the person behind the anthrax attacks of 2001 will be more easily brought to justice if the scientific evidence is carefully examined by more people in the scientific community, instead of simply relying upon rumor, speculation, innuendo and baseless conspiracy theories, as has been the situation to date.

About this title

From the Publisher

The new format you are using for my book is unfair. Most of the so-called "customer reviews" you use are NOT from your customers. Most are from people I know who have other theories about who sent the anthrax letters and who want to prevent anyone from having another opinion. Some of those individuals put more than one hateful review on your site.

Those hateful 1-star reviews are from people who hate me and my book and want to convince people to avoid buying it.

So, to put a grading of Customer Reviews at the very top of the site is unfair.

You are doing what they want you to do, you are putting the book in the worst possible light with the new format.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From the Introduction:

A Working Hypothesis

By late December of 2001 I had enough facts to establish a "working hypothesis" about the anthrax case. My working hypothesis told me who most likely did it and why – the operative words being "most likely". I certainly didn’t "know" who did it. The facts just indicated to me who most likely did it. That’s very different from simply having an opinion.

An opinion is a belief. It doesn’t require facts at all and mainly involves convincing others that you are right in spite of a lack of facts. It’s very different from a theory.

A theory is a thoroughly tested analysis which has stood up under intense scientific and logical scrutiny and has been partially verified by established facts.

A "working hypothesis" isn’t yet a "theory" because it hasn’t yet been thoroughly "tested". It’s just a tentative interpretation of the meaning of known facts.

The purpose of a "working hypothesis" is to get others to challenge it with new facts which either prove or disprove the working hypothesis.

For three years I asked people to show me some solid facts which would prove me totally wrong - or to provide solid facts which would prove my hypothesis to be right.

Mostly what I got was other ideas and possibilities, differing opinions and alternative explanations for facts.

Other possibilities and opinions

As a result, I frequently found myself testing and debunking the suggested possibilities put forth by others. Through it all, my working hypothesis stood solid, virtually unchanged during three years of endless arguments.

Ordinarily that might be enough to turn a "working hypothesis" in to a true theory. But not in this situation, since I know the FBI could have a vast warehouse of critical data about some specific suspect I’ve never even considered. The culprit might not be the person I think most likely did it, but someone very similar who lives in a nearby town.

This book started out to be a summary of everything I’ve learned, an examination of all the relevant facts, and the reporting of the one hypothesis which fits all the facts.

But in the third year of the case it turned into something more. Instead of a book about facts leading toward some person who might possibly be innocent, it became a book about facts leading to the firm conclusion that common beliefs about the case are almost totally wrong.

It’s an analysis of verifiable facts accumulated from the media, directly or indirectly from the FBI and the CDC (some obtained via the Freedom of Information Act), and from my own research into key details.

I’ve learned that key commonly accepted "facts" are not facts at all, but merely mistakes which resulted in rumor and speculation that has been repeated so often that it is accepted as "fact" by thousands of respected journalists and scientists who do not challenge the information because it fits their political beliefs and their view of the world.

Conspiracy theories have become accepted as fact. Facts which clearly disprove the conspiracy theories are considered to be attempts to cover up vast conspiracies.

If the anthrax culprit were arrested today, the biggest question would be: How could so many people could have been so totally wrong about the case?

This book explains how.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edward G. Lake
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0976616300
• ISBN 13: 9780976616306
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272