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A wise comment by EnJaySee on derails (post #67)

To be honest, I only really come here to amuse myself with the posts made by the people who still believe there was a conspiracy these days. I actually find their tactics fascinating. The one thing that strikes me is their ability to nitpick and redirect. It's amazing to see it in action. They know they can't win a particular argument or answer a particular question, but they'll divert your attention to something else and people consistently do get dragged away.

deathonacracker wrote:

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Do you read that stuff as well?

Obviously yes, otherwise I wouldn't come across the quotes in this thread. I don't check on the JREF forum every day and am fairly selective about the threads I read in the 9/11 or conspiracy theories forums. The comedy value of the Twoofers trying on their latest gambits, and the mockery they receive in reply, makes it worth following. They even have an award for the most stupid thing written online by a conspiracy theorist every month - the Stundies.

Mark Hoofnagle, one of the guys behind the denialism blog, contributed the following post to a Guardian blog:

It's that time of year again, when the Heartland Institute gathers together climate naysayers to deny the reality of global climate change.

In a previous post on this blog, James Randerson recognised the similarity between creationists and climate change denialists and their tactics of sowing confusion and doubt about established science.

But the similarities are not just with creationists. The same tactics are used by those who deny the link between HIV and Aids and those who subscribe to any number of bizarre conspiracy theories from 9/11 conspiracies to lizard people.

At denialism blog we have identified five routine tactics that should set your pseudo-science alarm bells ringing. Spotting them doesn't guarantee an argument is incorrect - you can argue for true things badly - but when these are the arguments you hear, be on your guard.

• First is the assertion of a conspiracy to suppress the truth. This conspiracy invariably fails to address or explain the data or observation but only generates more unexplained questions.

But let us think about such conspiracies for a moment. Do they stand up to even a cursory evaluation? Is it really possible to make thousands of scientists, from over 100 countries, and every national academy of every country toe the same line, falsify data, and suppress this alleged dissent? I certainly didn't get the memo. At the heart of all denialism are these absurd conspiracy theories that require a superhuman level of control of individuals that simply defies reality.

• The second tactic is selectivity, or cherry-picking the data. Creationists classically would quote scientists out of context to suggest they disagreed with evolution. Global warming denialists similarly engage in this tactic, harping on about long discredited theories and the medieval warming period ad nauseum. But these instances are too numerous and tedious to go into in depth.

• Instead, let's talk about the third tactic, the use of fake experts, where both creationists and global warming denialists truly shine. Creationists have their Dissent from Darwin list of questionable provenance. Similarly, global warming denialist extraordinaire has his list of climate scientists who disagree with global warming.

But don't look too close! Lots of his big names are the same hacks who used to deny that cigarettes cause cancer for the tobacco companies, others are scientists who are wrongly included because they said something that was quoted out of context, others simply have no credibility as experts on climate like TV weathermen. But the desire of denialists to gain legitimacy by the numbers of scientists (or whoever they can find with letters after their name) used remains despite their contempt for the science they disagree with.

• The fourth tactic - moving goalposts or impossible expectations - is the tendency to refuse to accept when denialists' challenges to the science have been addressed. Instead, they just come up with new challenges for you to prove before they say they'll believe the theory. Worse, they just repeat their challenges over and over again ad nauseum.

This may be their most frustrating tactic because every time you think you've satisfied a challenge, they just invent a new one. The joke in evolutionary biology is that every time you find a transitional fossil all you do is create two new gaps on the fossil record, one on either side of the discovery. Similarly with global warming denialism, there is no end to the challenges that denialists claim they need to have satisfied before they'll come on board.

It's important to recognise that you shouldn't play their game. They'll never be satisfied because they simply don't want to believe the science - for ideological reasons. In the US, global warming denialism usually stems from free-market fundamentalism that is terrified of regulation and any suggestion there should be control of business.

• Finally, the fifth tactic is the catch-all of logical fallacies. You know you've heard them. Al Gore is fat! His house uses lots of energy! Evolutionary biologists are mean! God of the gaps, reasoning by analogy, ad hominem, you name it, these arguments, while emotionally appealing, have no impact on the validity of the science.

It is important to filter information so that scientific discourse and debate can stay within the confines of rational argument and reason. Otherwise we get sidetracked and paralysed by denialists who are not honest brokers in a debate. Their goal isn't to promote science, or truth, or human knowledge, but to delay and deny.

What do you know about the science of climate change Nick? You've done this before - linked climate change denial with holocaust denial. Do you think the two positions are similar? Why would you venture into a field of science that you know nothing about. I'm interested to know where you are coming from here.

The similarity is on the level of methods, tactics and rhetoric. Try reading the denialism blog, or a book like Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. Take it up with the science journalists, science bloggers and indeed full-time scientists if you want to debate the actual data.

Right, so you don't have any position on the debate itself - you don't think those that question climate change are cranks, right? - you are just suggesting that the 'methods, tactics, and rhetoric' are similar.

It's not my original suggestion - it's a very common point made by science journalists, science bloggers and scientists.

In other words, the many scientists that question the climate change paradigm might well be right, you just think their methods are poor. By extension, would you allow that the same might be true of Holocaust revisionism?

Before you get carried away, let's remind ourselves what the claims made in Hoofnagle's blog were, vis-a-vis the structural features of denialism:

• claiming a conspiracy to suppress the truth
• selectivity or cherrypicking data
• fake experts
• moving goalposts or impossible expectations
• logical fallacies

Obviously, if any sceptic on any subject under the sun chose to eschew these five tactics, then they'd stand a much better chance of being listened to.

shyster wrote:

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nickterry wrote:

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• a) claiming a conspiracy to suppress the truth
• b) selectivity or cherrypicking data
• c) fake experts
• d) moving goalposts or impossible expectations
• e) logical fallacies

a) deniers driven by a desire to dissemble in order to rehabilitate National Socialism, or by virulent underlying anti-semitism i.e. the claim that deniers are 'conspiring' to distort the truth, in fact to rewrite history for conspiratorial ends.

b) Where do we start? Every witness testimony cherry picked, with anything that doesn't fit the narrative quietly dropped. Recent example: diesel to gasoline, but there are literally dozens more.

c) Ven Pelt, Pressac, Hilberg, Lipstadt etc. In fact where are the experts? No expert reports conducted by experts in the field of forensic science. Empirical examination of the alleged killing zones forbidden by law and underpinned with onerous jail terms.

d) Moving goalposts? 4 million to 1 million. Reich camps no longer death camps. Sobibor death toll 320K to 250K to 150K. Kola Belzec dig made to identify whereabouts of mass graves so as to avoid mass graves, then whole camp covered in crap. Diesel to Petrol as soon as your ridiculous defence of loaded diesel engine CO output hit a brick wall and someone found a new way to view witness statements. Kula columns there one minute and gone the next, always changing form. One day a planned extermination, the next a meeting of minds. Moving goalposts - ha bloody ha. Oh, but of course, these are all strawmen i.e. things political commissars don't want on the political agenda.

Your (a) makes zero sense, the (b) to (d) not much at all.

b) the dataset for the Holocaust consists of a great deal more than witness testimonies, which is why your remark is just another example of denier cherrypicking and selectivity - you only remember the anomalies, never the norm, you engage in evidentiary plate-spinning by focusing now on witnesses, now on documents, now on forensics, never all of them at the same time.

c) nice try but wrong. Historians no matter what the subject are not expected to be forensic scientists. That is left to the contemporary investigators or to archaeologists and other scientists (eg Kola, Markiewicz et al). By contrast, the supposed 'forensic experts' on the denial side also play at being amateur historian, with usually disastrous results.

Incidentally, Lipstadt isn't even a recognised expert on the history of the Holocaust in Europe - her field is postwar memory and US reactions, i.e. she is no different to Peter Novick, who is also not a recognised expert on the history of the Holocaust, in contrast to, say, Browning or Hilberg.

d) you seem not to understand the concept of 'moving goalposts or impossible expectations', as originally outlined by Hoofnagle and as commonly understood by everyone other than loons. The term 'moving goalposts' refers to standards of proof. None of the examples you give relate to this point whatsoever, but are at best examples of revised opinions, which happens in all fields and with all subjects. Otherwise we might as well pretend Stalin never killed anyone because the numbers keep changing, and Conquest argued for a higher total for Kolyma than did Wheatcroft. That's quite aside from the Dresden toll changing all the time...

Here is what Hoofnagle wrote above:

The fourth tactic - moving goalposts or impossible expectations - is the tendency to refuse to accept when denialists' challenges to the science have been addressed. Instead, they just come up with new challenges for you to prove before they say they'll believe the theory. Worse, they just repeat their challenges over and over again ad nauseum.

This may be their most frustrating tactic because every time you think you've satisfied a challenge, they just invent a new one. The joke in evolutionary biology is that every time you find a transitional fossil all you do is create two new gaps on the fossil record, one on either side of the discovery. Similarly with global warming denialism, there is no end to the challenges that denialists claim they need to have satisfied before they'll come on board.

Thus, it is not enough for there to be witnesses to a shooting, there have to be documents, and they have to be genuine. If all these conditions are satisfied, or rather, cannot be refuted by the denier, then the bodies must be produced. If it is pointed out that the bodies of some of the shooting graves were exhumed and incinerated, then this is ignored or provides the excuse to ignore all of the other evidence, without the denier bothering to check the documents, witnesses etc for authenticity.

That's goalpost-moving. It's very much goalpost-moving because once upon a time, revisionists didn't ask 'where are the bodies'. Butz didn't. It's also goalpost-moving because deniers haven't even bothered to look at the contemporary forensic reports - dismissing them out of hand because they are 'Soviet'. Any attempt to repeat the 1940s investigations is dismissed as politically motivated, biased, etc. The simple truth is nothing will satisfy deniers qualitatively or quantitatively. The only thing they claim will satisfy them is an example of impossible expectations - some kind of major reinvestigation involving digging up every possible grave in Eastern Europe. If this were to happen, deniers would be the first to start whining about the waste of public money that would be involved (who would pay? If it wasn't paid for by an absolutely unimpeachable, neutral source, the investigation would be dismissed out of hand anyway), and if there were so much as a single result contrary to the faith-conform position, then naturally the goalposts would be moved again.

Another good example is the asinine challenge by Bradley Smith to 'name one gassing victim'. This can be done many times over. So if anyone ever bothered to respond to that crank, dollars to donuts B.S. or whoever else would simply shift the challenge until they found one that couldn't be answered. Therefore, and given deniers' track record, nobody bothers to respond to B.S., much as almost nobody bothers to respond to Gerdes, as it's an even bigger waste of time than the mildly diverting pastime of responding to the poster formerly known as Peter Gast.

shyster/PG, please try posting material in appropriate threads and not spamming them into entirely different fora. Your post in R&D had absolutely nothing to do with the thread at hand over there, and belonged quite obviously here.

You have one verbal warning (i.e. this post), before the machine-generated ones start, and after three of those you get suspended for 24 hours automatically.