Knickerbocker Photo (Update)

[SteveS]

Jonathan, thank you very much for those important contributions and well wishes. De Bost gave me a lot of problems, as at first I thought he was wearing glasses. But after sharpening it up and looking very closely, he's not wearing glasses. His eyes are mostly shut. As with some of the other gentlemen, the blurring of the stereoview and outdoor lighting/shadows make it appear that they have wrinkles where there aren't any. Niebuhr was also very difficult, as he does look younger than the rest. As I said above, I thought at one point that it could be Harry Wright. I can still be convinced of that, but his features match up very well with Niebuhr. In fact, I believe that each of them line up very well when facial features are compared. Here's a side-by-side with an older Doc Adams, which I think is even more convincing.

Corey, I'm glad you were able to see this again after I've researched it further and made it easier to see and get more accurate comparisons. Math is not my forte, but at least the odds are above 50%.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by SteveS

Jonathan, thank you very much for those important contributions and well wishes. De Bost gave me a lot of problems, as at first I thought he was wearing glasses. But after sharpening it up and looking very closely, he's not wearing glasses. His eyes are mostly shut. As with some of the other gentlemen, the blurring of the stereoview and outdoor lighting/shadows make it appear that they have wrinkles where there aren't any. Niebuhr was also very difficult, as he does look younger than the rest. As I said above, I thought at one point that it could be Harry Wright. I can still be convinced of that, but his features match up very well with Niebuhr. In fact, I believe that each of them line up very well when facial features are compared. Here's a side-by-side with an older Doc Adams, which I think is even more convincing.

Corey, I'm glad you were able to see this again after I've researched it further and made it easier to see and get more accurate comparisons. Math is not my forte, but at least the odds are above 50%.

Steve,

For the odds to be greater than 50% by probability theory analysis, the facial recognition analysis you cite must be accurate. I am not familiar with the method you used, and in any event have no experience with that technique. But inasmuch as facial features change over time, unless you used as your comps images of each subject taken at substantially the same point in their lives, which I don't know how one could confidently do that here, I would be very skeptical of the reliability of facial recognition analysis in this instance.

[SteveS]

Corey, as you know, it's difficult to make comparisons when there aren't a whole lot of comparison photos of these guys out there. Another aspect that makes it tough is the 1862 photo, which has the only known pictures of several of the Knicks. You are no doubt far more familiar with that photo than I am, but it's my understanding that it's a composite, and it's unknown how many of them took their picture in that studio or sent in their own picture for the photographer to include. So maybe one or more sent in an older photo. As for the facial-match programs, while the results for all of them are indeed very high using two different programs, I have come to rely less on them and more on my eyes. And there are some unique features that match up extremely well with all of them.

[jpop43]

Steve,

As I don't believe I read it (and forgive me if I missed it), when do you believe the actual image was captured/taken? Do you feel it is contemporary to stereoview technology and the particular mount/design we see here (estimated to maybe 1857 at earliest), OR do you feel it was captured earlier and copied to the stereoview later on? If its the latter, how early does your research date it to?

Thanks,
Jon

[SteveS]

Hi Jon. I can't give a definitive answer to that, but I can provide an educated guess based on my research. Albumen photography started becoming more widespread about 1855. Also in 1855, Walter Avery, who had moved to California, realized that he wasn't going to strike it rich in the Gold Rush and moved back to New York and rejoined the Knickerbockers. So somewhere around there would be a reasonable guess, and would not eliminate the possibility that it went directly to a stereoview, especially if Anthony took it. But I also know that even older pictures were made into stereoviews years (or decades) after they were taken. I suppose I should do some reading up on anatomy to see how long it would take Avery and Birney to go bald based on their degree of hair loss and attempts at a comb-over.

[rhettyeakley]

Nice stereoview of “six learned gents”

Almost 0% chance this image is what you are saying it is. The facial recognition you are attempting is not scientific in the least. Not trying to be mean, I just have no idea where you are even coming from with this entire claim. I am not seeing the similarities in the faces that you or any of the others in this thread that have agreed with you are seeing. I am not a novice with facial identifications.

There must be some other context that you haven’t shared with the rest of us because I have no idea how you are making the assumptions that you are. Did this piece originate from the area of the country where these people were at the time the photo was supposed to have been taken? Did it come from the estate of someone related to one of the original Knickerbockers? Do we know the setting of the photo?

Again, not trying to be mean. I just have no idea why/how this is getting any support at all. The burden of proof is on you to prove your claim but all I see is wishful thinking and non-scientific facial “identifications”

[bgar3]

For me, I have no problem with you believing the identification is “irrefutable “, and keeping it in your collection . I would have a problem with you attempting to do something with it . I would be very surprised if the market place agreed with you without an astonishing amount of additional information that supports your view, which I do not believe is highly probable.

[sphere and ash]

There are statements made above that the probability of a match is so high that one may be “100% convinced,” or that the match shown for all six subjects may be as high as “99.9999%” or even “84-97%.” All of these estimates reflect a misunderstanding of probability, which I will attempt to explain below. But let me declare my bias from the outset: I am not convinced the stereoview depicts “six learned gents,” let alone the Knickerbocker Club.

All probabilities have a margin of error. Most people are aware of this when they see political polling: when one candidate leads in the polls 51-49, but the polling organization discloses a 3% margin of error, it is understood that the race is a statistical tie.

What we need to know is the margin of error for the facial recognition software used. The problem is that the software maker determines a margin of error using the same photographic process and type (say, a mug shot or passport photograph), similar lighting, contemporaneous images, etc. And what we have here are different photographic processes (salt, albumen, and, I believe, a silver gelatin copy photograph), with very different lighting (outdoor versus studio), taken many years apart, with limited visual information (these are group photographs taken from a distance where the ears are not visible, etc.), and where the original poster has altered the shadows in the photographs using another software program prior to analysis.

To give you some idea of how high the margin of error may be in this case, consider that a Google search shows estimates for facial recognition for African-American women may be higher than 35%. And that is with all the commonalities and without the difficulties cited above. I would be stunned if the margin of error here were not much higher. One can’t speak of meaningful probabilities in the presence of such a high margin of error. You’re asking the software to do something for which it was not designed and not tested.

[GaryPassamonte]

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

There are statements made above that the probability of a match is so high that one may be “100% convinced,” or that the match shown for all six subjects may be as high as “99.9999%” or even “84-97%.” All of these estimates reflect a misunderstanding of probability, which I will attempt to explain below. But let me declare my bias from the outset: I am not convinced the stereoview depicts “six learned gents,” let alone the Knickerbocker Club.

All probabilities have a margin of error. Most people are aware of this when they see political polling: when one candidate leads in the polls 51-49, but the polling organization discloses a 3% margin of error, it is understood that the race is a statistical tie.

What we need to know is the margin of error for the facial recognition software used. The problem is that the software maker determines a margin of error using the same photographic process and type (say, a mug shot or passport photograph), similar lighting, contemporaneous images, etc. And what we have here are different photographic processes (salt, albumen, and, I believe, a silver gelatin copy photograph), with very different lighting (outdoor versus studio), taken many years apart, with limited visual information (these are group photographs taken from a distance where the ears are not visible, etc.), and where the original poster has altered the shadows in the photographs using another software program prior to analysis.

To give you some idea of how high the margin of error may be in this case, consider that a Google search shows estimates for facial recognition for African-American women may be higher than 35%. And that is with all the commonalities and without the difficulties cited above. I would be stunned if the margin of error here were not much higher. One can’t speak of meaningful probabilities in the presence of such a high margin of error. You’re asking the software to do something for which it was not designed and not tested.

Paul- I didn't even consider this stereoview being a silver gelatin print. It may well be. I can't tell from the posted images. That would push it into the late 1870s, at the earliest?

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

There are statements made above that the probability of a match is so high that one may be “100% convinced,” or that the match shown for all six subjects may be as high as “99.9999%” or even “84-97%.” All of these estimates reflect a misunderstanding of probability, which I will attempt to explain below. But let me declare my bias from the outset: I am not convinced the stereoview depicts “six learned gents,” let alone the Knickerbocker Club.

All probabilities have a margin of error. Most people are aware of this when they see political polling: when one candidate leads in the polls 51-49, but the polling organization discloses a 3% margin of error, it is understood that the race is a statistical tie.

What we need to know is the margin of error for the facial recognition software used. The problem is that the software maker determines a margin of error using the same photographic process and type (say, a mug shot or passport photograph), similar lighting, contemporaneous images, etc. And what we have here are different photographic processes (salt, albumen, and, I believe, a silver gelatin copy photograph), with very different lighting (outdoor versus studio), taken many years apart, with limited visual information (these are group photographs taken from a distance where the ears are not visible, etc.), and where the original poster has altered the shadows in the photographs using another software program prior to analysis.

To give you some idea of how high the margin of error may be in this case, consider that a Google search shows estimates for facial recognition for African-American women may be higher than 35%. And that is with all the commonalities and without the difficulties cited above. I would be stunned if the margin of error here were not much higher. One can’t speak of meaningful probabilities in the presence of such a high margin of error. You’re asking the software to do something for which it was not designed and not tested.

I think you've misunderstood my statement. I am not claiming that there is a 99.9999% chance that this is a photo of the Knickerbockers based on the results of the software matches. If you read my statement carefully, you'll notice there are a couple of key qualifiers in it. Here's what I said:

"if the probability of each person being a "match" is 90% [Note added: this is NOT the same thing as the matching software outputting a "90% match"], then the probability of the group being the Knickerbockers is equivalent to the 1 - (0.1^6) = 0.999999 or 99.9999% chance that this is the Knickerbockers. However, this is based on the assumption that a "90% match" actually means the individuals in two photos are 90% likely to be the same person. I don't know if this assumption holds true, and wouldn't be surprised at all if it didn't."

The last part above highlighted in bold is important. While I don't know how their software is coded, thus I don't know enough about their specific outputs, I do write the same type of algorithms for work, so I have an idea of how I would go about writing my own code for such a task (I'm a data scientist, and facial recognition software is the same field of work). I'm not sure exactly what their "90% match" means in the real world, but I would wager money that it probably does not mean that there is a 90% likelihood of the two people being the same person (which is the mathematical assumption that my above calculation was based upon). I think I chose a poor example to convey my point. My point wasn't that this is a 99.9999% probability of being the Knickerbockers photo. My point was simply to demonstrate that the likelihood of it being a Knickerbockers photo increases as a result of each individual having such high match percentages. This is Bayesian statistics 101 stuff.

As far as having a "misunderstanding of probability" is concerned, I assure you, I do not have a misunderstanding of probability theory. Perhaps I worded my post poorly, but if you read it carefully, paying attention to the qualifiers, you'll find I'm not saying what some people here seem to think I am.

Also, you wrote "all probabilities have a margin of error." This is not true. Probabilities have no such property. The probability of rolling a 2 on a fair die is 1/6. There is no margin of error associated with it. The probability of drawing the Ace of spades from a randomized deck of cards is 1/52. Again, there is no margin of error. Perhaps you meant to say that predictions or estimates have margins of error, not probabilities? That would be true, and if so, I would agree with your point that any actual calculation about the probability of this photo being a Knickerbockers photo would have to be based on the real-world implications of the facial recognition matching model's output. Hence I stated above in my original post that I wouldn't be surprised if a 90% match didn't actually mean a 90% probability of two photos being the same person. Every time I upload a family photo to Facebook, it asks if I would like to tag my wife as her sister. They are not twins. So, I'm guessing the real-world confidence we might have from facial matches is actually quite a bit lower than something like 90%.

[OldOriole]

This is where I'm at....

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

Nice stereoview of “six learned gents”

Almost 0% chance this image is what you are saying it is. The facial recognition you are attempting is not scientific in the least. Not trying to be mean, I just have no idea where you are even coming from with this entire claim. I am not seeing the similarities in the faces that you or any of the others in this thread that have agreed with you are seeing. I am not a novice with facial identifications.

There must be some other context that you haven’t shared with the rest of us because I have no idea how you are making the assumptions that you are. Did this piece originate from the area of the country where these people were at the time the photo was supposed to have been taken? Did it come from the estate of someone related to one of the original Knickerbockers? Do we know the setting of the photo?

Again, not trying to be mean. I just have no idea why/how this is getting any support at all. The burden of proof is on you to prove your claim but all I see is wishful thinking and non-scientific facial “identifications”

[SteveS]

Snowman, thank you so much! You helped remind me that I'm not nuts (well, maybe I am a little bit, but not with this).

OldOriole, thank you for your opinion. Please refer to my reply to Rhett with regard to that. And sorry about your team this year.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

Nice stereoview of “six learned gents”

Almost 0% chance this image is what you are saying it is. The facial recognition you are attempting is not scientific in the least. Not trying to be mean, I just have no idea where you are even coming from with this entire claim. I am not seeing the similarities in the faces that you or any of the others in this thread that have agreed with you are seeing. I am not a novice with facial identifications.

There must be some other context that you haven’t shared with the rest of us because I have no idea how you are making the assumptions that you are. Did this piece originate from the area of the country where these people were at the time the photo was supposed to have been taken? Did it come from the estate of someone related to one of the original Knickerbockers? Do we know the setting of the photo?

Again, not trying to be mean. I just have no idea why/how this is getting any support at all. The burden of proof is on you to prove your claim but all I see is wishful thinking and non-scientific facial “identifications”

Pretty much where I'm at.

I WANT it to be true. I REALLY want this to be a cool new find.

But I'm sorry, I don't see any of the comparisons very convincingly matching up, let alone 6 of them.

That said, maybe the 1862 photo is entirely mis-identified and the "6 learned gents" are the real Knickerbockers. I wouldn't know one guy from the next if I'm being completely honest.

[SteveS]

Dave, thank you for your opinion! The quality of the 1862 photo has been discussed above. But I'll give you a specific example. If you look at Doc Adams (the upper-right comparison here), in the 1862 picture there is a shadow or photographer's enhancement at the top-right of his head which obscures his true hairline. If you blow up that picture you will see it much more clearly and find that the hairlines are a match.

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by SteveS

Jonathan, thank you very much for those important contributions and well wishes. De Bost gave me a lot of problems, as at first I thought he was wearing glasses. But after sharpening it up and looking very closely, he's not wearing glasses. His eyes are mostly shut. As with some of the other gentlemen, the blurring of the stereoview and outdoor lighting/shadows make it appear that they have wrinkles where there aren't any. Niebuhr was also very difficult, as he does look younger than the rest. As I said above, I thought at one point that it could be Harry Wright. I can still be convinced of that, but his features match up very well with Niebuhr. In fact, I believe that each of them line up very well when facial features are compared. Here's a side-by-side with an older Doc Adams, which I think is even more convincing.

Corey, I'm glad you were able to see this again after I've researched it further and made it easier to see and get more accurate comparisons. Math is not my forte, but at least the odds are above 50%.

Guy on the right looks a little like Fidel Castro. Lol

[SteveS]

Snowman, we can't see Avery from behind, so we can't tell how full his hair is. On the front, it definitely looks as though there's some degree of loss and a comb-over going on.
David, perhaps you can point to some specific features that you don't think match up.
Joe, well, Castro was a baseball player in his younger days. But check out the comparison with the older Adams that I posted in this thread.

[Snowman]

Out of curiosity, can you run the facial match software using subjects from your photo against each of the subjects from the 1862 photo? I'm curious to see what match percentages it gives you for the people who are clearly not matches.

[SteveS]

Snowman, ask and ye shall receive. As you can see, Adams comes back at 93% and from the same person. But when compared with Avery he's at 39% and from different persons, and with Niebuhr he gets 35% and from different persons.

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by SteveS

Snowman, ask and ye shall receive. As you can see, Adams comes back at 93% and from the same person. But when compared with Avery he's at 39% and from different persons, and with Niebuhr he gets 35% and from different persons.

Technology is amazing what it can do and from a picture over 150 years old

Wow

[SteveS]

Scott, in the 1862 pic, many of them weren't even on the team anymore. Nobody knows for sure why that particular photo was assembled. I can't say for sure why it would be those six in mine, but I don't think my speculation is unreasonable, as that number is about right for the executives and directors.

Jeff, it sure is!

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by SteveS

Snowman, we can't see Avery from behind, so we can't tell how full his hair is. On the front, it definitely looks as though there's some degree of loss and a comb-over going on.
David, perhaps you can point to some specific features that you don't think match up.
Joe, well, Castro was a baseball player in his younger days. But check out the comparison with the older Adams that I posted in this thread.

I googled Doc Adams photo, there are similarities to the photos I joked about Castro. That’s all I can contribute. Joe