Merged General Holocaust denial discussion thread

[LemmyCaution]

Lies, lies, and more lies.

Prove one lie in Nick's post. That is: prove. Not claim, not ask questions, not rant from ignorance. Prove just a single lie in what Nick wrote. Using sources and evidence.

 

[Nick Terry]

Personally, I'm waiting for the other broken record (Saggy) to pop back up and ask me for ONE SINGLE WITNESS to 43 different killing/cremation sites.

 

[MG1962]

Personally, I'm waiting for the other broken record (Saggy) to pop back up and ask me for ONE SINGLE WITNESS to 43 different killing/cremation sites.

He might feel moved to comment on the North Korean death camps, but somehow I doubt it

 

[Dogzilla]

.
But instead, you offered another historical event for which (unlike the Holocaust) the sum total of the supporting evidence is a single document by an unknown author written decades if not centuries after the events described and whose other events demonstrate a singular unreliability. Same standard -- different amounts and quality of evidence.

If you had this other historical event held to a different standard (as opposed to the same standard leading to a different conclusion because of the differences in available evidence), why have you TO DATE not offered it?

Here, let me make it brain-numbingly easy for you:

You have a maths exam with a single question, offered on a pass fail basis.

Student A answers the question correctly and passes.
Student B answers the question incorrectly and fails.

Query: were A and B both held to the same standard?
Answer: why yes, yes they were.

Query: how to account for the different outcomes?
Answer: one student had the answer and the other did not.


Now you have two series of historical events, which are either accpted or not by historians.

Query: is one series of events, let's say the Holocaust held to the same historical standards as other series of historical events, let's say the Exodus?
Answer: why yes, yes it is.

Query: how to account for the differences in the outcomes of the application of this standard, vis à vis their overall acceptance by historians?
Answer: one series of events has mountains of reliable supporting evidence of a variety of types, and the other does not.


One standard, applied in the same way to two very different sets of evidence in both cases.

What is the one standard that is being applied to two very different sets of evidence?

Your "perfect example" only works if one assumes that those sets of evidence are the same.

They are not, which leads to different levels of acceptance.




See how that works now?
.

OK. thank you. THAT was actually helpful in explaining how your mind works. The problem is, first of all, that the sets of evidence for different events are never going to be the same. Every historical event is different so proving the truth of two different events is necessarily going to require different sets of evidence. The sets of evidence for different events don't need to be identical or comparable or equal.

To say that two events are true we merely need to have enough evidence for both of them. Having overwhelming evidence that one event, like the holocaust, is true doesn't make it "more true" than another event, like Exodus, for which we have very little evidence. If evidence is sufficient for both, we accept that both are true.

For our purposes, the question is not how much of what type of evidence we have for the holocaust vs how much evidence of what type of evidence we have for Exodus. The question is whether or not the evidence we have for the holocaust is sufficient and whether or not the evidence we have for Exodus is sufficient.

We have one guy, David Cole, who has reservations about certain aspects of the holocaust. We know he has asked certain questions about the holocaust. From what we saw on the Phil Donohue show we don't know what those questions are exactly. We don't know which aspects of the holocaust those questions address, whether or not there are answers to those questions, what evidence is used to support the answers or if the questions themselves have any validity at all. All we know, and all that is important for our discussion is that David Cole doesn't believe there is sufficient evidence for parts of the holocaust.

Challenging David Cole we have Michael Shermer. We know that Michael Shermer does believe there is sufficient evidence for certain aspects of the holocaust. But again, we don't know which aspects of the holocaust they are talking about or whether or not there really is sufficient evidence to prove those aspects. We're not even sure if they are both talking about the exact same aspects of the holocaust but that's a problem inherent in talking about "the holocaust" as a whole.

All that's important is that David Cole doesn't believe there is sufficient evidence for the holocaust. Michael Shermer believes there is.

On the show, Michael Shermer acknowledged that David Cole asked some important questions about the holocaust and that it would be good to have answers to those questions. Shermer said that he talked to some of his fellow holocaust scholars and that they are actually working on answering some of those questions. I'll repeat yet again, we don't know what those questions are, whether or not there really are answers to them, whether or not holocaust scholars are actually working on answering the questions, whether or not those answers are actually sufficient or whether or not the questions themselves have any validity. Fortunately, those points don't matter for our discussion.

What matters is that Michael Shermer acknowledges that:

1) David Cole has asked some questions about the holocaust.
2) At least some of those questions are important.
3) It would be good to have answers to those questions.
4) At least some of those important questions have not been answered.

David Cole presumably agrees with Michael Shermer about these four points. But where David Cole sees insufficient evidence for the holocaust, Michael Shermer sees sufficient evidence because absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Absence of evidence just means that there are certain things that need to be explained.

Because this is the point where your not understanding me, let me repeat: we're talking about "evidence" and the "holocaust" without knowing precisely what evidence we're talking about and what aspect of the holocaust we're talking about. We have DC saying that evidence for the holocaust is missing so therefore we don't have sufficient evidence to prove the holocaust. We have MS saying that although evidence for the holocaust may be missing, the evidence we have is sufficient to support the holocaust because the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

Then we turn to the Penn and Teller episode, where we have Michael Shermer and Penn Gillette telling us that the Biblical story of Exodus is not supported by any evidence outside of the Bible. Michael Shermer says there is no archeological or other type of evidence of the Jews wandering about the desert for forty years. Whether or not there actually is any evidence supporting the literal truth of the Exodus story is not important. What's important is that Michael Shermer doesn't believe there is any evidence outside of the Bible to prove the Biblical story of Exodus. Because of this lack of corroborating evidence, he concludes that the evidence supporting the literal truth of the Exodus story is insufficient.

On the same show, Michael Shermer is countered by Dr. Paul Meyer, Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University. Dr. Meyer does not argue that Michael Shermer is wrong about the lack of archeological or other type of evidence that proves the Biblical story of Exodus. He evidently agrees that the Bible is the only evidence we have of the story of Exodus. But he reminds us that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So despite the lack of corroborating evidence, he concludes that the evidence supporting the story of Exodus is sufficient.

Of course, Michael Shermer dismisses that argument by saying that you can't use that kind of reasoning in science.

So we have one example of David Cole saying that the evidence that would support the holocaust story that is lacking and so, ergo, the evidence supporting the holocaust story is insufficient.

Michael Shermer agrees that there is evidence that would support the holocaust story that is lacking but that the evidence we do have is sufficient because an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

In the other example we have Michael Shermer saying that there is evidence that would support the Exodus story that is lacking and so, ergo, the evidence supporting the literal truth of the Exodus story is insufficient.

Dr. Meyers agrees that there is evidence that would support the Exodus story that is lacking but that the evidence we do have is sufficient because an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Michael Shermer responds by saying that that form of reasoning is unacceptable.

Michael Shermer could have saved all of us alot of time by applying the maxim "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" equally and said that the Biblical story of Exodus is true and that the unanswered questions about Exodus are merely things that need to be explained.

He could have also said that David Cole has asked some questions but the answers to those questions might be interesting but that the evidence supporting the holocaust is sufficient without answers to those questions. But he didn't. Instead, he said that there is evidence for the holocaust that is absent but that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

But, "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" is just a way of saying that anything and everything is true as long you don't have any evidence it isn't. Nobody accepts that line of reasoning except for Michael Shermer and Deborah Lipstadt and only when they're talking about the holocaust.

Do you understand now? My guess is not.

 

[Dogzilla]

So Dogzilla whats your opinion of the death camps in North Korea

I don't anything about death camps in North Korea. But I believe on principle that death camps anywhere are never a good thing.

 

[Dogzilla]

I see you dodged uke2se calling you out on your bracket substitution.

The quote I mined had brackets. The quote he mined didn't.

In any case, was Vladek a real person or not? Does his son Art have documentation of what his father experienced, in the form of first person interviews, or not? I see you keep attacking Maus and not Vladek's actual story.

Yes and yes.

 

[uke2se]

The quote I mined had brackets. The quote he mined didn't.

You mean, the quote I posted. I went to the original source. Something you should probably learn.

Do you think the brackets added anything? Do you think they altered the meaning of his statement?

 

[MG1962]

I don't anything about death camps in North Korea. But I believe on principle that death camps anywhere are never a good thing.

I am interested if you believe they exist

 

[abaddon]

So Clayton whats your thoughts on the North Korean death camps. 3.5 million victims, I thought you would have some interest

English?

Looks to be a straightforward query in English to me.

Do you suffer from comprehension issues?

 

[LemmyCaution]

The quote I mined had brackets. . . .

so that's what you do? I kind of figured.

The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1]
Arguments based on this fallacy typically take two forms. As a straw man argument, which is frequently found in politics, it involves quoting an opponent out of context in order to misrepresent their position (typically to make it seem more simplistic or extreme) in order to make it easier to refute. As an appeal to authority, it involves quoting an authority on the subject out of context, in order to misrepresent that authority as supporting some position . . . .

 

[Matthew Ellard]

You ever had a loaded gun pointed at your head, Clayton?

I think your question should be, "Why doesn't Clayton load his head before firing away"?

 

[Dogzilla]

There is't as much evidence for that as there is for the Nazi policy of exterminating Jews.



Utter BS. The evidence is indeed overwhelming.



Nor did the holocaust. You'll remember you've been schooled on this before. Your incredulity means absolutely nothing.

As does your gullability.

Nor is our knowledge about the holocaust based on such things. As you've no doubt learned reading through this thread, evidence for the holocaust comes in many forms. That you ignore it all shows how dishonest you are.

Take away all the perpetrator confessions relied upon by holocaust scholars today that were given by the perpetrator freely of their own volition without any potential benefits or disbenefits attached to anything they might say. For any confessions gather prior to 1950, disregard any that were given by a perpetrator to a person or persons who was a citizen of a country that had been at war with Nazi Germany. This includes free form confessions as well as interpretation of documents. Tell me what you have left.

How characteristically cowardly.

I don't want to waste my time only to be told my comparison isn't valid. I'm not really "afraid" of wasting my time. I just don't want to do it.

Indeed. This is a question we should seriously consider.

Please do.

It's two of the things that makes you ridiculed. Your inability to research history, and your blatant dishonesty.

Meaningless piffle requiring no response......

No, but it seems you are trying to. Nowhere in the original challenge was the word "comparable" mentioned. It is of course expected of you to compare two separate events, but nobody asked you to find another holocaust to compare the Jewish holocaust to. Just another contemporary genocide.

If you say the challenge never contained the word 'comparable' I'll take your word for it. Each one of you has a slight variation on the challenge that changes slightly each time you throw it down. Sometimes it's a contemporary genocide. Sometimes it's a genocide. Sometimes it's a mass murder. Sometimes it's a mass murder or a genocide. It might have even been merely a crime at one time.

Now it's a "contemporary" genocide. I take that to mean the big name genocides of the twentieth century. Armenia. Bosnia, Rwanda, or Darfur. The extermination of the Inca, Mayan, or North American native tribes probably wouldn't count because they're too old. Same with Australia and New Zealand. Ethnic Germans and Palestinians in the 1940s wouldn't count because an ethnic cleansing doesn't count as genocide if the victims were in the way and deserved what they got, right? So we have Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda, or Darfur. Or Cambodia. Does Cambodia count? Does it have to be a contemporary genocide that everybody agrees is a genocide? There's no point in comparing the holocaust to another contemporary genocide if somebody can dismiss the whole exercise by saying that "the X genocide isn't considered a genocide because the X-men don't call it a genocide."

So that's why I asked one of you guys for a genocide or a crime or a mass murder that is contemporary or not contemporary that is or isn't comparable to the holocaust to compare. No matter what I would choose, somebody isn't going to like it from the get-go and everybody is going to hate it when it proves my point. So give me a genocide to compare to the holocaust. It has to be somewhat similar to the holocaust in that it involves a bunch of people who are all part of one group and it has to be a genocide that is universally agreed to be a genocide or one where it is universally agreed that the only reason a person would deny it was a genocide is because of irrational bigotry, hatred, and/or prejudice toward the victim.

I wonder how you got the idea that stories from the bible were comparable to the holocaust, though. Methinks you're being dishonest again.

I can't compare the holocaust to another genocide or whatever and show that the standard of evidence for the holocaust is different for the reasons I just mentioned. So I decided to show how the standards are different for the holocaust and for another historical event. The problem here is that, just like I can't ring up a holocaust scholar and ask him to say something stupid, I can't ring up a holocaust scholar and ask him to give me an example of a specific standard that is applied one way to the holocaust and another way to another specific historical event. Holocaust scholars might not be the sharpest blades in the drawer but very few of them are stupid enough to specifically enumerate how their standards of evidence are different than other historical event. Some of them might not even be aware that their standards are different.

So I have to catch them in the wild. I can't listen to everything every holocaust scholar says 24/7. I can't read everything they all write either. I suppose I could attend their lectures and ask questions designed to trip them up but I'm too lazy to do that.

So I have to take what I can get. "Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" was merely an idiotic thing for a somebody claiming to be a holocaust scholar to say. When the same person said that same maxim was not valid when talking about another historical event, it became a double standard. One of you guys at one time asked me for one example of the holocaust being held to a different standard than other historical events. So I took the one I had.

But then I found another holocaust scholar saying the same idiotic thing about the absence of evidence. This doesn't prove that all holocaust scholars hold this double standard regarding evidence but it just might be that holocaust scholars are prone to saying stupid things.

I'll have to wait see what else pops up in the future.

Email them and ask.

Actually, what I should do is email Lipstadt and tell her I'm writing a master's thesis on the US policy of exterminating the Japanese during WWII. I'll tell her that I have all these train manifests proving that Americans of Japanese descent were being "evacuated to the East" but I don't have any record of what happened to them after that. I'll say I don't have evidence they were murdered but I have pictures of them getting onto trains. I have pictures of them in cattle cars. I have pictures of the horse stables at the Santa Anita racetrack where they were temporarily housed before they were exterminated. I have pictures of old people walking along dirt roads. If she thinks my evidence isn't sufficient, I'll remind her that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. I'll also ask her why she hates Japanese Americans and what she thinks happened to them if they weren't murdered.

I wonder if she'll think I'm an idiot? Nah. No way. Not unless there's some sort of double standard at play.

 

[uke2se]

As does your gullability.

What gullibility is that? Accepting overwhelming evidence and not denying reality?

Take away all the perpetrator confessions relied upon by holocaust scholars today that were given by the perpetrator freely of their own volition without any potential benefits or disbenefits attached to anything they might say. For any confessions gather prior to 1950, disregard any that were given by a perpetrator to a person or persons who was a citizen of a country that had been at war with Nazi Germany. This includes free form confessions as well as interpretation of documents. Tell me what you have left.

Why should I do that? Unless you can prove (that is, with evidence) that the confessions were not only coerced, but also that they were wrong (backed up as they are with corroborating evidence), there is no scientific benefit from ignoring evidence.

I don't want to waste my time only to be told my comparison isn't valid. I'm not really "afraid" of wasting my time. I just don't want to do it.

No, you can't do it, so you run away. That much is obvious.

Meaningless piffle requiring no response......

No, in fact what I said is quite true.

If you say the challenge never contained the word 'comparable' I'll take your word for it. Each one of you has a slight variation on the challenge that changes slightly each time you throw it down. Sometimes it's a contemporary genocide. Sometimes it's a genocide. Sometimes it's a mass murder. Sometimes it's a mass murder or a genocide. It might have even been merely a crime at one time.

It would probably help you if you actually read the challenge, quoted above by Nick Terry. If you are unable to read for comprehension, perhaps you could get someone to read it for you and tell you what it says.

Now it's a "contemporary" genocide. I take that to mean the big name genocides of the twentieth century. Armenia. Bosnia, Rwanda, or Darfur.

It was always a contemporary genocie.

The extermination of the Inca, Mayan, or North American native tribes probably wouldn't count because they're too old.

If you feel you could present a good case for your point of view with those, I'm sure nobody would object.

Same with Australia and New Zealand. Ethnic Germans and Palestinians in the 1940s wouldn't count because an ethnic cleansing doesn't count as genocide if the victims were in the way and deserved what they got, right?

Are you having trouble with the definition of the word "genocide"? Let me help you:

"the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group"

"Destruction" would imply the death of the victims.

So we have Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda, or Darfur. Or Cambodia. Does Cambodia count? Does it have to be a contemporary genocide that everybody agrees is a genocide?

Again, if you feel you could make a good case for yourself with Cambodia, go right ahead.

There's no point in comparing the holocaust to another contemporary genocide if somebody can dismiss the whole exercise by saying that "the X genocide isn't considered a genocide because the X-men don't call it a genocide."

You're really grasping at excuses to run away from this challenge, aren't you?

So that's why I asked one of you guys for a genocide or a crime or a mass murder that is contemporary or not contemporary that is or isn't comparable to the holocaust to compare.

And you were given one.

No matter what I would choose, somebody isn't going to like it from the get-go and everybody is going to hate it when it proves my point.

I don't think anybody is worried that anything you chose would prove your point, but go right ahead and try.

So give me a genocide to compare to the holocaust. It has to be somewhat similar to the holocaust in that it involves a bunch of people who are all part of one group and it has to be a genocide that is universally agreed to be a genocide or one where it is universally agreed that the only reason a person would deny it was a genocide is because of irrational bigotry, hatred, and/or prejudice toward the victim.

You were given one before: The Armenian genocide.

I can't compare the holocaust to another genocide or whatever and show that the standard of evidence for the holocaust is different for the reasons I just mentioned.

We know that you can't, but it's nice that you admit as much.

So I decided to show how the standards are different for the holocaust and for another historical event.

And you failed miserably even there.

The problem here is that, just like I can't ring up a holocaust scholar and ask him to say something stupid, I can't ring up a holocaust scholar and ask him to give me an example of a specific standard that is applied one way to the holocaust and another way to another specific historical event. Holocaust scholars might not be the sharpest blades in the drawer but very few of them are stupid enough to specifically enumerate how their standards of evidence are different than other historical event. Some of them might not even be aware that their standards are different.

Speaking of not being the sharpest blade in the drawer...

So I have to catch them in the wild. I can't listen to everything every holocaust scholar says 24/7. I can't read everything they all write either. I suppose I could attend their lectures and ask questions designed to trip them up but I'm too lazy to do that.

So just try to prove your point. You have spent so much energy trying to run away from having to prove your point that you could probably have read several actual history books about the holocaust by now, making you slightly more knowledgeable in the area.

So I have to take what I can get. "Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" was merely an idiotic thing for a somebody claiming to be a holocaust scholar to say.

And, as you have been shown repeatedly, nobody claiming to be a holocaust scholar said that. Shermer and the webmaster for Deborah Lipstadt's webpage did.

When the same person said that same maxim was not valid when talking about another historical event, it became a double standard.
One of you guys at one time asked me for one example of the holocaust being held to a different standard than other historical events. So I took the one I had.

And it was a bad example that did nothing to further your case.

But then I found another holocaust scholar saying the same idiotic thing about the absence of evidence.

Where? You haven't shown any such examples yet.

This doesn't prove that all holocaust scholars hold this double standard regarding evidence but it just might be that holocaust scholars are prone to saying stupid things.

Who? Do you still think Michael Shermer is a holocaust scholar?

I'll have to wait see what else pops up in the future.

My guess is that you will keep dodging this challenge until such a time that you're banned from this forum or everyone wises up and puts you on ignore for the waste of time you are.

Actually, what I should do is email Lipstadt and tell her I'm writing a master's thesis on the US policy of exterminating the Japanese during WWII. I'll tell her that I have all these train manifests proving that Americans of Japanese descent were being "evacuated to the East" but I don't have any record of what happened to them after that. I'll say I don't have evidence they were murdered but I have pictures of them getting onto trains. I have pictures of them in cattle cars. I have pictures of the horse stables at the Santa Anita racetrack where they were temporarily housed before they were exterminated. I have pictures of old people walking along dirt roads. If she thinks my evidence isn't sufficient, I'll remind her that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. I'll also ask her why she hates Japanese Americans and what she thinks happened to them if they weren't murdered.

Go right ahead and embarass yourself.

I wonder if she'll think I'm an idiot?

That would just make one more person who thinks you're an idiot.

Nah. No way. Not unless there's some sort of double standard at play.

Or unless you've lost the plot completely.

 

[Nick Terry]

If you say the challenge never contained the word 'comparable' I'll take your word for it. Each one of you has a slight variation on the challenge that changes slightly each time you throw it down. Sometimes it's a contemporary genocide. Sometimes it's a genocide. Sometimes it's a mass murder. Sometimes it's a mass murder or a genocide. It might have even been merely a crime at one time.

TSR's challenge was perfectly clear:

Perhaps you'd like to offer us an example of this separate standard (remembering not to make statements like "there is no physical evidence") regarding any other mass murder in contemporary history

There was no use of the word 'comparable', the word 'genocide' wasn't even used, all that was referred to was 'any other mass murder in contemporary history'.

Your original claim, to remind you yet again, was that the Holocaust is held to a different standard of evidence to other events. That statement wasn't in fact saying anything about a comparison of the events, or identifying an exact match or close to an exact match among other atrocities. It isn't even about weighing up the total volume of evidence and declaring one to be more and another to be less. If your original claim means anything, it is to claim that supposedly, other events are judged by a more rigorous standard of evidence while the Holocaust is given a free pass or treated more leniently.

Unfortunately that claim can hardly be sustained no matter what you try and compare the Holocaust with in the modern era.

1. All the major mass murders and genocides became commonly accepted on the basis of indirect evidence at best - newspaper reports, and a few survivor accounts from refugees or defectors, and perhaps some open-source publications like censuses. This applies to the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, Stalin's terror and GULag, the Nazis' other crimes, the Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, Cambodia and Rwanda.

2. In several cases, there was no 'moment of liberation', as we see with the Armenian genocide, Stalinism and the Great Leap Forward, where liberators were able to survey the scenes of the crimes, take photos and conduct forensics. In two cases at least we still cannot do so very easily if at all (Armenian genocide, Great Leap Forward).

3. The precise death tolls are uncertain in almost every single case. The only cases where we have something close to documented certainty are certain crimes of the Stalinist regime like the Terror and GULag, but we don't have and never will have absolute certainty for the Holodomor, and there are fuzzy bits with the Terror and GULag all the same. It took more than 55 years to get access to the most accurate data for the Terror, and that's only one of several crimes committed by the Stalinist regime. The Armenian genocide, Heimatvertreibungen, Great Leap Forward, Cambodia, Rwanda, Nazi crimes and the Holocaust are all subject to a certain amount of statistical uncertainty, with the Holocaust coming off best out of any of them with a very narrow band of 5-6 million, while estimates for the Great Leap Forward vary across a spread of thirty million.

4. The uncertainty over numbers reflects a wide variation in the quality and precision of evidence; simply put, states that commit mass murder don't always keep perfect records (very clear from the Great Leap Forward), and many tend to cover up their tracks (Ottoman empire, Nazi Germany) or prevent access to them (Turkey, China today). There are also issues with poor quality censuses (Armenian genocide) or fudging of statistics and census data (China, to a very limited extent, the Soviet Union) which may not apply in other cases like the Holocaust.

5. Due to the limitations imposed by point #2 above, "physical evidence" has been disregarded in the majority of cases as a means of verifying the overall numbers or even as a source of evidence full stop. Physical evidence exists for Cambodia, Stalinism, to a limited extent for the Heimatvertreibugnen, Nazi crimes and the Holocaust, but hardly exists in a meaningful sense for the Armenian genocide or the Great Leap Forward. Forensics has been applied to more contemporary genocides and mass murders in Cambodia and Bosnia, but less so in Rwanda. The fact that the majority of the mass murders took place in underdeveloped regions is not without significance here.

6. Trials have been used to inquire into the causes and course of the mass murders in many cases (Armenian genocide, abortive; Nazi crimes; the Holocaust; Cambodia; Bosnia; Rwanda) but not in others (Stalinism, Heimavertreibungen, the Great Leap Forward).

7. There is no ban on using eyewitness testimonies as a source of evidence. For several cases all we had for a very long period of time was, essentially, eyewitness evidence. That was the case for Stalinism from the 1930s to the 1990s, for the Heimatvertreibungen from the 1940s to the 1990s, and for the Great Leap Forward from the 1960s to, really, the 2000s. The opening of archives has not provided a 100% complete documentation of any mass murder. Historians continue to use eyewitness evidence alongside other sources irrespective of the crime in question, just as they continue to use eyewitness evidence to write about wars.

8. The use of eyewitness evidence and oral history can be considered a hallmark of so-called 'contemporary history' (Zeitgeschichte) in general, as distinguished form classical history, since such sources are usually copiously available for 20th Century events. The Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte specifically argued for the rigorous evaluation of eyewitness accounts of the Heimatvertreibungen when it embarked on its first major research project to "document" the expulsions of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe using.... eyewitness testimonies! They operated in the same spirit as Jewish historical commissions after WWII who gathered eyewitness testimonies for posterity, and the after-action interviewing conducted by the US Army under the auspices of S.L.A. Marshall. One might add things like the many commissions of inquiry into Pearl Harbor and the subsequent oral histories, which become prime source bases for most histories of Pearl Harbor. The later gathering of Holocaust video testimonies is no different to the gathering of oral history testimonies of WWI which began to be done by authors on a large scale in the 1960s. Whole libraries of books consist of historical accounts of 20th and 21st Century events composed virtually entirely of eyewitness testimonies.

9. Due to the availability of other forms of evidence, in certain cases historians continue to rely on contemporary 'bystander' reports as a primary source type, this applies especially to the Armenian genocide, which came to light because of the reports of foreign diplomats and missionaries, and continues to be written about using those reports, alongside other source types such as Ottoman state documents and eyewitness accounts. The study of the Holocaust is now making greater use of contemporary 'bystander' accounts, as can be seen in the Verfolgung und Ermordung der europaeischen Juden documentary collection series, which consists entirely of contemporary documents of Nazi, Axis, Jewish, Allied, neutral and Soviet provenance. In neither case are 'perpetrator documents' ignored, however.

10. Due to the early capture of Nazi documents by comparison to the much later release of archival materials from the former Soviet Union, East Bloc or China (relevant for the Holodomor, Terror, GULag, Heimatvertreibungen, Great Leap Forward), or by comparison to the limited access granted to some scholars regarding the Armenian genocide, writing about the Nazi crimes and the Holocaust has rested from a much earlier stage on 'hard documents' generated by the perpetrator state. Those 'hard documents' included explicit documentation of all the methods used in Nazi crimes and the Holocaust.


That covers pretty much everything that can possibly be advanced regarding 'standards of evidence'. Your problem, Dogzilla, is that you don't know very much about any of the above events and seemingly haven't read anything on them. If you had, then you might realise how stupid your original statement was.

 

[TSR]

What is the one standard that is being applied to two very different sets of evidence?

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As anyone beyond a sixth-grade level of reading comprehension could tell you, in the first case the standard is "answering a single specific question correctly", and in the second "contemporary historical methodology".
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OK. thank you. THAT was actually helpful in explaining how your mind works. The problem is, first of all, that the sets of evidence for different events are never going to be the same. Every historical event is different so proving the truth of two different events is necessarily going to require different sets of evidence.

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Okay, my bad: I should have said "comparable" so that you could not weasel about it.
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The sets of evidence for different events don't need to be identical or comparable or equal.

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If one is stating that contemporary historical methodology has been applied differently (understood to be your original claim, please feel free to clarify that claim if this is incorrect), then the obvious logical next step leads to the way in which the different sets of evidence were handled.

Please feel free to expand on why this is not the case.
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To say that two events are true we merely need to have enough evidence for both of them. Having overwhelming evidence that one event, like the holocaust, is true doesn't make it "more true" than another event, like Exodus, for which we have very little evidence.

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Nor has anyone expect *you* tried to draw a "more true" or "less true" distinction. At least, that is the most rational point you could be attempting with your 'different standards' whine: that should the Holocaust have been held to the standards of other historical events it would become obvious that it is less true than we have been lead to believe.

Again, if you'd clarify this point should it not be what you were trying to express, we could all, I'm sure, use the chuckle.
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If evidence is sufficient for both, we accept that both are true.

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So, we *are* considering evidence, then.
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For our purposes, the question is not how much of what type of evidence we have for the holocaust vs how much evidence of what type of evidence we have for Exodus. The question is whether or not the evidence we have for the holocaust is sufficient and whether or not the evidence we have for Exodus is sufficient.

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Which, again, can only be determined by evaluating that evidence to a standard of some sort. Please note the singular there.
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We have one guy, David Cole, who has reservations about certain aspects of the holocaust.

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But only "certain aspects", from a person whose evidence he has specifically renounced.
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We know he has asked certain questions about the holocaust. From what we saw on the Phil Donohue show we don't know what those questions are exactly. We don't know which aspects of the holocaust those questions address, whether or not there are answers to those questions, what evidence is used to support the answers or if the questions themselves have any validity at all. All we know, and all that is important for our discussion is that David Cole doesn't believe there is sufficient evidence for parts of the holocaust.

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No, all we know is that Cole has questions. We cannot know the sufficiency of his evidence (other than the fact that, again, he has recanted the whole thing). His questions could the be result of ignorance of that evidence -- you know, like your fantasy in a subsequent post regarding the Japanese internees. Because *you*, not having done a lick of research on the matter, believe that no evidence exists for the post-camp fate of those internees does not mean that none such exists.
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Challenging David Cole we have Michael Shermer. We know that Michael Shermer does believe there is sufficient evidence for certain aspects of the holocaust. But again, we don't know which aspects of the holocaust they are talking about or whether or not there really is sufficient evidence to prove those aspects. We're not even sure if they are both talking about the exact same aspects of the holocaust but that's a problem inherent in talking about "the holocaust" as a whole.

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No, it's only a 'problem' when one generalizes that specific unanswered questions which are not specified (based on an unevaluated amount of research into an unknown set of evidence) are, in the opinion of one man, 'interesting' mean that our understanding of the Holocaust ***as a whole*** is less valid.

My middle female offspring has recently become fascinated with the precise chemical reactions which cause rocket fuel to be able to produce X amount of thrust for Y amount of fuel. We have been unable to locate a specific reference where these reactions are broken down micro by micro.

These questions are interesting from an academic standpoint, and even important from a developmental one, and while I am sure that such a resource could be located, if only in the head of someone in that field, we have yet to encounter it.

And yet neither of us generalizes from this lack of evidence on this specific topic a general belief that such an amount of thrust could not be obtained, meaning that rockets cannot take off.

Even should Cole and Shermer have been talking about the Holocaust as a whole (something you have posited not to be the case), my response would be that they are both mistaken, since far too many other historians have evaluated the available evidence and come to a conflicting conclusion -- with all of the pesky unknowns from Cole spelled out in exhaustingly detailed, well, detail.
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All that's important is that David Cole doesn't believe there is sufficient evidence for the holocaust. Michael Shermer believes there is.

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All that's important to *you*, certainly.

Come back and talk to us when you know specifically what his questions were, how he went about researching them, and which of those specific questions call into doubt the Holocaust as whole.
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On the show, Michael Shermer acknowledged that David Cole asked some important questions about the holocaust and that it would be good to have answers to those questions. Shermer said that he talked to some of his fellow holocaust scholars and that they are actually working on answering some of those questions. I'll repeat yet again, we don't know what those questions are, whether or not there really are answers to them, whether or not holocaust scholars are actually working on answering the questions, whether or not those answers are actually sufficient or whether or not the questions themselves have any validity. Fortunately, those points don't matter for our discussion.

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And yet, the largest single topic for your post is these questions that you say are unimportant, exzpcet for when they are...
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What matters is that Michael Shermer acknowledges that:

1) David Cole has asked some questions about the holocaust.
2) At least some of those questions are important.
3) It would be good to have answers to those questions.
4) At least some of those important questions have not been answered.

David Cole presumably agrees with Michael Shermer about these four points. But where David Cole sees insufficient evidence for the holocaust, Michael Shermer sees sufficient evidence because absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

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I would say "roughly correct" until the last point. Shermer sees sufficient evidence to support the normative understanding of the Holocaust as a whole because there *is* sufficient evidence to support the normative understanding of the Holocaust as a whole, as other historians applying contemporary historical methodology have demonstrated time and again.
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Absence of evidence just means that there are certain things that need to be explained.

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Which does not support your whine that a different standard is used to evaluate our understanding of the Holocaust.

And I would point out that "it would be good to have answers" != "the answers are needful to validate the big picture".
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Because this is the point where your not understanding me, let me repeat: we're talking about "evidence" and the "holocaust" without knowing precisely what evidence we're talking about and what aspect of the holocaust we're talking about. We have DC saying that evidence for the holocaust is missing

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No, you made it quite clear you were referring to specific questions, not the Holocaust as a whole.

Except when it suits your whine to do the opposite.
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so therefore we don't have sufficient evidence to prove the holocaust.

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And he is inarguable wrong in that conclusion.

As you are.
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We have MS saying that although evidence for the holocaust may be missing, the evidence we have is sufficient to support the holocaust because the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

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Nope. The evidence we have is sufficient because generations of historians have openly researched the matter and and as more evidence came to light altered our understanding of these events, in ways ranging from the trivial to the profound.
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Then we turn to the Penn and Teller episode, where we have Michael Shermer and Penn Gillette telling us that the Biblical story of Exodus is not supported by any evidence outside of the Bible. Michael Shermer says there is no archeological or other type of evidence of the Jews wandering about the desert for forty years. Whether or not there actually is any evidence supporting the literal truth of the Exodus story is not important.

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Unless one is attempting to show that this evidence was held to a different standard that that which supports the Holocaust.

That*was* your original claim, was it not?
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What's important is that Michael Shermer doesn't believe there is any evidence outside of the Bible to prove the Biblical story of Exodus.

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It's not a question of belief. It's a simple historical fact, subject to change as new evidence comes to light.

Just like all historical facts, including those of the Holocaust.
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Because of this lack of corroborating evidence, he concludes that the evidence supporting the literal truth of the Exodus story is insufficient.

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Note that he does not do so arbitrarily, but by evaluating that evidence to contemporary historical standards.

The ones you're try to show are different for the Holocaust.
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On the same show, Michael Shermer is countered by Dr. Paul Meyer, Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University. Dr. Meyer does not argue that Michael Shermer is wrong about the lack of archeological or other type of evidence that proves the Biblical story of Exodus. He evidently agrees that the Bible is the only evidence we have of the story of Exodus. But he reminds us that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

So despite the lack of corroborating evidence,

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It should be noted here that there is no such lack of corroborating evidence supporting our understanding of the Holocaust...
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he concludes that the evidence supporting the story of Exodus is sufficient.

Of course, Michael Shermer dismisses that argument by saying that you can't use that kind of reasoning in science.

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Which is a good guideline, keeping in mind that "lack of evidence about specific yet unspecified questions regarding specific yet unspecified issues with the normative understanding" != "lack of evidence of any type for any aspect of the normative understanding".
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So we have one example of David Cole saying that the evidence that would support the holocaust story that is lacking

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An unsupportable conclusion, refuted by generations of historians...
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and so, ergo, the evidence supporting the holocaust story is insufficient.

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Here's where you both trip up. That conclusion does not logically follow from the premise.

Not knowing the statistical likelihood of a clear and sunny day in the Pacific Northwest therefore calling into question the common impression that it tends to be overcast there a lot more than the rest of the US does not mean that the sky doesn't exist.
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Michael Shermer agrees that there is evidence that would support the holocaust story that is lacking but that the evidence we do have is sufficient because an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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That is never stated as his reason for accepting the existence and current understanding of those mountain of evidence that do exist, but do feel free to keep posting that lie.


And I'll keep pointing it out.
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In the other example we have Michael Shermer saying that there is evidence that would support the Exodus story that is lacking and so, ergo, the evidence supporting the literal truth of the Exodus story is insufficient.

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No, we have Shermer saying that there is not a single piece of extra-Biblical evidence to support it, so there is (for historians) insufficient evidence that that story is anything but a myth.
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Dr. Meyers agrees that there is evidence that would support the Exodus story that is lacking but that the evidence we do have is sufficient because an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Michael Shermer responds by saying that that form of reasoning is unacceptable.

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No, the form of reasoning which says no evidence at all is sufficient evidence is unacceptable.
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Michael Shermer could have saved all of us alot of time by applying the maxim "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" equally and said that the Biblical story of Exodus is true and that the unanswered questions about Exodus are merely things that need to be explained.

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It *was* applied equally. Its application just resulted in a different conclusion due to the differences in the evidence which *does* exist.
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He could have also said that David Cole has asked some questions but the answers to those questions might be interesting but that the evidence supporting the holocaust is sufficient without answers to those questions.

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He could also have said that the academic consensus is that water is wet.
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But he didn't. Instead, he said that there is evidence for the holocaust that is absent but that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

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No, he didn't.

He said that evidence is (apparently) absent for specific yet unspecified questions about specific yet unspecified aspects of our overall understanding.

He said nothing at all to impeach that understanding or the evidence which does have existence, unless one is going to completely ignore the latter.

As you prefer to do, that being the only way to even try to claim that the standard itself is different.
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But, "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" is just a way of saying that anything and everything is true as long you don't have any evidence it isn't.

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No, it's not.
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Nobody accepts that line of reasoning except for Michael Shermer and Deborah Lipstadt and only when they're talking about the holocaust.

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Wrong and wrong
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Do you understand now? My guess is not.

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I understand that you really really want the standard to be different, and that the only way that you can do so is by ignoring the existing evidence to which the whole "lack of evidence" thing does not apply due to a simple lack of, you know, lack.

But I'll give you this: you have the ignorance thing down pat. Too bad reality doesn't agree.

Here, I'll make it even more simple for you: Do we have any extra-Biblical
evidence at all which supports the proposition that the Holocaust as a whole happened?

Do we have any extra-Biblical evidence at all which supports the proposition that the Exodus as a whole happened?
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[Border Reiver]

Take away all the perpetrator confessions relied upon by holocaust scholars today that were given by the perpetrator freely of their own volition without any potential benefits or disbenefits attached to anything they might say. For any confessions gather prior to 1950, disregard any that were given by a perpetrator to a person or persons who was a citizen of a country that had been at war with Nazi Germany. This includes free form confessions as well as interpretation of documents. Tell me what you have left.

You'd still have enough confessions to substantiate the matter.

However, I suspect that you intended to mean that we should disregard confessions where some form of coercion WAS present. And the type and nature of the coercion would need to be taken into accout when weighing the testimony. This is what both historians (in the long term) and criminal lawyers/police (in the short term) do when you have a statement concerning a crime.

Unless of course you actually mean what you're saying and are implying that, unless coercion is present statements cannot be trusted. In which case then, let me express a desire that you do not perform interviews or interogations of any sort.

 

[Saggy]

You'd still have enough confessions to substantiate the matter.

It is not that the 'confessions' fail to substantiate the hoax and are therefore useless. Not at all. The 'confessions' are the hoax, they are direct evidence of the hoax. And, it is not necessary to know or speculate about the conditions when the 'confession' was given, all that is necessary is the text of the 'confession' itself.

Thus, for example, Hoess's 'confession' that he gassed two million is direct evidence of a hoax. Why? Because it is the hoax, it is an absurd lie as everyone now agrees. Not even the USHMM hoax museum contends that this 'confession' is anything but an absurd lie.

Blobel's 'confession' that he witnessed the cremations of the bodies at Babi Yar is direct evidence of the hoax. Why? Because it is absurd, he says the bodies were disappeared by uncovering the graves, pouring on petrol, and burning them. It is obviously that this is an absurd lie.

False 'confessions' like the above are direct evidence of a hoax.

 

[Border Reiver]

Saggy, you live in a strange world with really interesting standards of proof:

a. Confessions are evidence of a hoax (if Saggy thinks they are absurd);
b. Physical evidence is evidence of a hoax;
c. Documentary evidence is evidence of a hoax.

I realize that you aren't going to accept anything less as evidence than Herren Shickelgruber and Himmler walking up to you and saying "We ordered it, it was done. But it wasn't complete." However the rest of us have looked at the evidence, and found that it substantiates the allegation that the Holocaust happened.

 

[Cyrix686]

And this

Saggy

"Thus, for example, Hoess's 'confession' that he gassed two million is direct evidence of a hoax. Why? Because it is the hoax, it is an absurd lie as everyone now agrees. Not even the USHMM hoax museum contends that this 'confession' is anything but an absurd lie."

Please demonstrate anywhere where the USHMM says anything even remotely close to calling Hoess estimate, "a lie."


Also, everyone agrees with it being a lie. Um, who exactly is, "everyone?"

As far as I recall the estimated figure at A-B was revised, to be somewhere within the region of 1.1 million, as most of us know here. Nothing to do with lies.

Or dividing zero by zero and coming up with zero and shouting "absurd".

Interesting assertion Saggy

Something is part of a hoax (in this case Hoess) because it is a hoax.

"Blobel, blobel, blobel."

Change the record, it's stuck again...

 

[Dogzilla]

You ever had a loaded gun pointed at your head, Clayton?

And again, how many people were holding how many loaded guns to how many heads for how long?