Because a lot of the time, the warrant is

    1) not revealed, only assumed; and

    2) not necessarily true. 

 

Recently, the mystery writer Patricia Cornwell published a book called Portrait of a Killer:  Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed.  The book's central claim is that Jack the Ripper was really Walter Richard Sickert, a relatively well-known English painter of the late Nineteenth Century.   Here are some of the data that Cornwell uses to back this claim up.  Assuming the data are true, what are the problems with the claim?

 

1.  DATUM: One of the letters that purported to be from Jack the Ripper was written on the same brand of stationery as a letter from Sickert.

CLAIM:  Sickert was Jack the Ripper.

WARRANT:  ?????

 

2.  DATA: Sickert painted a picture in 1908 called "Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom," described by an art historian as being "very dark and disturbing."  Sickert often painted scenes of violence against women. 

CLAIM:  Sickert was Jack the Ripper.

WARRANT:  ?????

 

3.  DATA:  Sickert had an operation as a child that left him impotent.  We know today that many serial killers are impotent.

CLAIM:  Sickert was Jack the Ripper.

WARRANT:  ?????

 

Continue to Warrants #2

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