Despite seven years of espionage and a $25 million reward for his capture, FBI's most wanted terrorist - Osama bin Laden - is still at large. So if all that money and all those spies can't find him, what makes two professors from UCLA think that they can?
They don't say that he is absolutely where they speculate he might be but they use very specific scientific techniques and tools, used on a regular basis by Geographers along with some new Web-tools like Google Earth, to paint a picture of where he might be.
In an interview on MSNBC, Dr. Thomas Gillespie explained:
(Osama bin Laden) is 6‘4”. Obviously, we have to look for buildings over 6‘4”. He needs electricity for (a kidney) dialysis machine. We selected buildings within Parachinar that had electricity. We looked at things like protective structures so you can see on this one, there is a wall around it. You can actually see turrets on this one." "And then, we looked to other things like privacy," Gillespie added. "And in general, finally, we looked for - you know, there has to be a tree. Because if he goes outside, I‘m sure his positive that people can look down on him. So when you apply these life history characteristics for every building in the city of Parachinar, three popped out as being, you know, places where, hypothetically, he could be. And this proposes a hypothesis that can be tested and rejected."
In response to screaming headlines about this since the study was released this week, Noah Shachtman of the Wired Network Blog, released a scathing response titled: Did UCLA Profs Just Find Osama? Only if He’s an Idiot!
Shachtman's principle beef is that the paper suffers from the Garbage in Garbage Out syndrome and relies on myths and urban legends about Bin Laden, some of which have been debunked.
Gillespie's study was published by the MIT International Review and is available here (pdf).
The Examiner
Economic Times
They don't say that he is absolutely where they speculate he might be but they use very specific scientific techniques and tools, used on a regular basis by Geographers along with some new Web-tools like Google Earth, to paint a picture of where he might be.
In an interview on MSNBC, Dr. Thomas Gillespie explained:
(Osama bin Laden) is 6‘4”. Obviously, we have to look for buildings over 6‘4”. He needs electricity for (a kidney) dialysis machine. We selected buildings within Parachinar that had electricity. We looked at things like protective structures so you can see on this one, there is a wall around it. You can actually see turrets on this one." "And then, we looked to other things like privacy," Gillespie added. "And in general, finally, we looked for - you know, there has to be a tree. Because if he goes outside, I‘m sure his positive that people can look down on him. So when you apply these life history characteristics for every building in the city of Parachinar, three popped out as being, you know, places where, hypothetically, he could be. And this proposes a hypothesis that can be tested and rejected."
In response to screaming headlines about this since the study was released this week, Noah Shachtman of the Wired Network Blog, released a scathing response titled: Did UCLA Profs Just Find Osama? Only if He’s an Idiot!
Shachtman's principle beef is that the paper suffers from the Garbage in Garbage Out syndrome and relies on myths and urban legends about Bin Laden, some of which have been debunked.
Gillespie's study was published by the MIT International Review and is available here (pdf).
The Examiner
Economic Times
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