Request for Nessie - Primer on these "witness studies"

[Nessie]

Revisionists know little to nothing about witnesses. Their sole aim is to dispute anything that a witness says that they do not agree with, even when that witness claim is corroborated. Revisionists are unique in the way they analyse witness testimony, failed to separate hearsay from eyewitnesses and ignoring common witness and memory failings, resulting in the highly unlikely 100% of them have lied, from the earliest reports during the war, to the present day.

A generalization with no facts. When a detective arrests someone on probable cause, they already think a person is guilty, in probability. They will try and catch out the suspect during interrogation, even though their disconfirming statements may be corroborated; perhaps an alibi. The detectives will then investigate this scenario, checking if the alibi or whatever, adds to some truth. The issue is that with very historical cases, facts from observation and hearsay become blurred.

There was a quote from some israeli politician once who said something like 'we don't need evidence, we have witnesses'.

That is an odd quote, since witnesses are a form of evidence. It may be in relation to all the Nazi destruction of physical and other evidence, leaving witnesses as the main source of evidence.

The problem with extreme believers like you know who is that they think that if 1000s say something happened then it must be true. But at the same time ignoring that all flying saucer claims seem to be identical as do alien descriptions.

It is significant that Nazis, German and Ukrainian, civilian Germans and Poles and Jews from multiple nations all agree, when they worked at places such as the Kremas, they saw gas chambers and/or gassings. For such a disparate group, who would not normally cooperate and where there was no opportunity for collusion, to all agree. It is significant that not one single witness who worked in a Krema, or AR camp, states there were no gassings and what happened instead.

Unlike witnesses to flying saucers and aliens, there is evidence to corroborate the gas chambers. Furthermore, alien visits are not physically possible, but Germans building gas chambers are.

They also ignore the fact that almost every person who claimed there were gas chambers in the camps also when questioned admitted they didn't actually see one in use and heard about it third hand or worse. Kitty Hart Moxon and her mates all claim this that and the other while eating from poop bowls and swallowing diamonds yet want to be believed about something they never saw.

That is the difference between hearsay and eyewitness evidence. Historians and the trials used eyewitnesses as their primary source of evidence for gas chambers.

Jews lie and love to tell stories, they live in make believe land where if someone says something it is real (in their mind) but never deal with the harsh reality, scientific fact and evidence. The evidence doesn't suit their claims and subsequent world power and influence. One only has to see the obscene slaughter of innocent women and children currently going on in Gaza to realise these people are animals yet they keep pushing the claim that Hamas is among the population and as such everyone is a fair target. Only yesterday in Lebanon two men on an otherwise deserted beach were fishing calmly and doing nothing wrong to anyone. An israeli drone comes over and obliterates them both. How is that in any way the action of a decent and believable, credible nation?

That is an expression of your bias and motive to believe in Holocaust Denial.

[Archie]

Just to go back to this, there are three main problems with the "Nessie" approach to evaluating witnesses

1) It essentially says that we should overlook errors and contradictions. We are to treat these as neutral to the value of the testimony when they are not. Common sense would tell you that the more inaccurate and contradictory the testimony, the less value it has.

2) It is very prone to Type II error, i.e., the Nessie approach is incapable of detecting false witnesses.* The objective in evaluating witnesses is to accept true witnesses and reject false witnesses. You want to avoid committing errors in both directions. If you grant infinite latitude for errors, this is too skewed toward believing witnesses. It becomes impossible to reject false witnesses and you are setting yourself for lots of type II errors (i.e., believing BS).

3) A secondary implication of this "errors are normal" idea is that witnesses are often not that reliable due to faulty memory, etc. But if this is pushed too far, Nessie is just shooting himself in the foot since the Holocaust depends so heavily on postwar witness statements.

*On this point, I already know what Nessie will say, so let me just go ahead and preempt him. He will say that he uses "corroboration" to determine truthfulness. But in fact he doesn't because if you show him something in a testimony that is demonstrably false (i.e., something that FAILS CORROBORATION under the ordinary meaning of that word) he will say the error is "normal" and so it still passes corroboration! Thus we see that his supposed corroboration/truthfulness test is rigged in favor of accepting the witness (at least whenever it's convenient.)

[Nessie]

Just to go back to this, there are three main problems with the "Nessie" approach to evaluating witnesses

It is not my approach, it is what I was taught at university and in the police and what I argue is supported by multiple studies of witness evidence, memory and recollection.

1) It essentially says that we should overlook errors and contradictions. We are to treat these as neutral to the value of the testimony when they are not. Common sense would tell you that the more inaccurate and contradictory the testimony, the less value it has.

Wrong, do not overlook errors and contradictions, instead investigate and understand why they have happened and how that affects the testimony. Are those issues within the normal range of what is to be expected from witnesses, and is the witness corroborated?

Errors and contradictions are not neutral to the value of the testimony, they reduce its accuracy and credibility, resulting in evidence that has less value. That does not therefore mean it is evidence with no value and can all be dismissed as lies.

2) It is very prone to Type II error, i.e., the Nessie approach is incapable of detecting false witnesses.* The objective in evaluating witnesses is to accept true witnesses and reject false witnesses. You want to avoid committing errors in both directions. If you grant infinite latitude for errors, this is too skewed toward believing witnesses. It becomes impossible to reject false witnesses and you are setting yourself for lots of type II errors (i.e., believing BS).

Assessment of what the witness said, in terms of credibility alone, which is what revisionists do, is incapable of detecting which witnesses are truthful, accurate, mistaken, or are lying. A witness can be credible and a complete liar and vice versa.

Corroboration, which is evidence that is independent of the witness, determines truthfulness. My "approach" as in the method taught at university and in the police, is to listen to what the witness is claiming and then look to see if there is other pertinent evidence and if that evidence fits with, or contradicts the claim. False witnesses to the Holocaust are detected that way. Their claims do not fit other evidence and then evidence is found to prove they were not where they claimed to have been.

Taking opinion on credibility out of the examination of the witness and instead using other evidence to determine truthfulness, the result is a far more accurate assessment of that witness. Revisionists do not like that, because it results in witnesses who they do not want to believe.

3) A secondary implication of this "errors are normal" idea is that witnesses are often not that reliable due to faulty memory, etc. But if this is pushed too far, Nessie is just shooting himself in the foot since the Holocaust depends so heavily on postwar witness statements.

I have not pushed anything too far. I can name witnesses who gave testimony about gassings, who are not reliable and why that is. It is you who has pushed too far, resulting in the claim which you even tried to deny, that 100% of witnesses to gassings are liars and you cannot produce a single witness who was at those places, who you say is telling the truth.

*On this point, I already know what Nessie will say, so let me just go ahead and preempt him. He will say that he uses "corroboration" to determine truthfulness. But in fact he doesn't because if you show him something in a testimony that is demonstrably false (i.e., something that FAILS CORROBORATION under the ordinary meaning of that word) he will say the error is "normal" and so it still passes corroboration! Thus we see that his supposed corroboration/truthfulness test is rigged in favor of accepting the witness (at least whenever it's convenient.)

Can you give an example of that, with a quoted and linked to witness?

If a witness states something that is demonstrably false, such as how many people can fit inside a gas chamber of a certain dimension, that does not fail corroboration, when that witness is corroborated by other witnesses who describe people being crammed inside that gas chamber.

What revisionists are unable to do, is find a witness who states he was at the same place, at the same time, and no one was crammed inside to be gassed, and it was only ever used to store corpses, or as a bomb shelter. If that was the case, then the original witness would not be corroborated and there would be evidence they lied about gassings.