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A comment on Jack the Ripper letters written by the same person, forensic linguist concludes. Parent comment

Re:Jack the Ripper letters written by the same person, foren... by fnord123 on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:20AM (#16272840)
There are absolutely huge problems in medical research regarding statistical strength and p-hacking. But, I get your point.

In this case, copy cats of Jack the Ripper were trying to emulate his (her?) ideolect. So one expects the entire exercise to be hopeless and the conclusion holds no predictive value.

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Re:Jack the Ripper letters written by the same person, foren... by msl on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @07:33AM (#16273358)
> In this case, copy cats of Jack the Ripper were trying to emulate his (her?) ideolect. So one expects the entire exercise to be hopeless and the conclusion holds no predictive value.

The letters in question were sent before the first letter was published. How would a copycat know what to emulate before the first letter's publication? It was also found that the latter letters were not very good at copying the original author's style. This is all in the article.

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