Revisionism's flawed methodology

[Nessie]

Here are the reasons why revisionism, or Holocaust Denial, is wrong.

Revisionism is not denialism. The fact that you conflate the two is lazily sloppy and clearly shows you are incapable of approaching study of this historic event in a dispassionate, neutral, factual, academic manner.

Revisionism is commonly called Holocaust denial, because revisionists variously deny many of the events commonly associated with the Holocaust, took place. It is not commonly called Holocaust revision, because there is a failure to produce an evidenced, chronological history of what did take place and what happened to the Jews in Nazi captivity during WWII, till liberation. When revisionists do attempt to show what took place in certain key locations, such as the AR camps and A-B Kremas, they cannot agree and they fail to produce contemporaneous evidence, in particular, witnesses, of which there are none.

I switched from using the term denier to revisionist, because some people hated being called a denier and used it as an excuse to increase their abuse of me.

[Nessie]

Regarding Nessie's "argument from incredulity," his confused application of it is so broad that it would include many perfectly sensible arguments.

"Given that there are over a billion Christians in the world, it is unlikely that Santa could deliver presents to so many people in just a few hours. The implied speed is physically and logistically impossible."

This is an "argument from incredulity" fallacy, according to Nessie. He's wrong, of course. It's a perfectly good argument, and the conclusion is correct.

I said on page 1 of this thread (Wed Oct 02, 2024 8:53 am)

"The Santa Claus argument you make, is similar to the retort I have often received, about a boy cycling to the moon. Science can indeed prove it is impossible for Santa to cover the world in one night delivering presents from a sleigh, and that a boy cannot defy gravity and peddle his bike to the moon. Germans modifying a room inside an crematorium by fitting gas tight doors, holes in the roof, a mesh column and improved ventilation, is well within their design and engineering capabilities. Just because revisionists are unhappy with the witness descriptions and documents about those modifications, does not therefore prove no gas chambers. Science does not help your argument like you think it does."

Claims about Santa delivering presents across the world are physically impossible. Germans building gas chambers are not. The revisionist argument that because they do not believe and find incredible, the witness descriptions and other evidence as to how the gas chambers functioned, therefore no gas chambers, is a logically flawed argument.

Just to make sure I understand you. You think incredulity is okay but only if we are dealing with something is obviously physically impossible. But if we are incredulous about something that is merely wildly implausible then we are committing a fallacy? Can you confirm that that is your position?

It is, of course, OK to be incredulous of a claim about something that is physically not possible. Indeed, the claim should be disputed. If a claim is physically possible, but it is wildly implausible, then again, it is OK to be incredulous, but it is not OK to just dismiss the claim because it is implausible, that would be a fallacy.

Germans modifying a Krema, so that one room is used for undressing, another for gassings and the ovens are capable of multiple corpse cremations, is physically possible and not implausible. German design and construction capabilities, in the 1940s, were easily up to the task. The same applies to the use of vans and purpose built gas chambers. Revisionists make out that Germans building gas chambers is wildly implausible, but it is not, as it would be for an Amazonian rain forest tribe. It is accepted that the Germans built and operated gas chambers to delouse clothing and many revisionists even accept limited gassings took place, in particular for the T4 euthanasia project. They dispute the large scale use of gassing.

That is why revisionist incredulity about the gas chambers, is logically flawed. The claim that Germans gassed people is not wildly implausible. If a claim was made that the British operated gas chambers to kill captured Germans, my reaction would not be, that is implausible, because the British could not operate gas chambers. It would be to look to see what evidence there is, that gassings took place.

Historians routinely reject or discount things on grounds of improbability. I am amazed that you don't know that.

For historians, the adage of the more extraordinary the claim, the more it needs evidencing applies. But, the adage of if you rule out all possibles, what is left, no matter how implausible, is what happened, also applies. A claim that is improbable will not be rejected merely because it is improbable. It will be rejected because it is not evidence. Any investigator, who knows what they are doing, will not just reject something because in their opinion, it is improbable. They look to the evidence.

That mass gassings took place inside the Kremas, is proven by the evidence. Revisionist attempts to evidence something else happened, have failed. It does not matter how incredulous revisionists remain about the gassings, they are the only narrative that is evidenced. For revisionists to claim no gassings, based on their incredulity, contrary to what is evidenced, without being able to evidence what did happen, is logically flawed.

[Nessie]

A post made by borjastick, in the thread by Prudent Regret about AR, fits better here, as it proves my point 4 from the OP, that revisionism is ignorant of and constantly lies about the evidence for gassings. Revisionists have to be constantly corrected and reminded about the evidence.

https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=182#p182

'As for the Jewish property, the majority was stolen when each family was removed from their home, taking only a suitcase and what they could wear, to the ghettos. The Nazis knew that families were taking their most valuable, portable property, so the next part of the operation was to steal that. What better way, than to transport those people to camps, where they were forced to strip naked before they were gassed.

Your claims that AR was just about the property, have repeatedly failed to evidence what happened to the owners of that property. I have repeatedly asked you for evidence, but you dodge.'

The first underline shows that we agree on one part that jews were persecuted and lost possessions to the Nazi regime. The second underline shows what massive leaps of imagination you make with zero evidence. The same old same old with never a gas chamber shown, nor bodies, nor cremains, nor method, manpower or facilities. You and your deranged mates make these claims forever and a day (israel, that shitty little country, weaponises the holocaust and all its lies to this day to justify mass murder of innocents in Gaza) but after all these decades still fail to show any evidence. Real evidence not the type you peddle here over and over about this document and that claim all of which are hot air and proof of Holocaust Derangement Syndrome. You want the holocaust to be true so you clutch at any passing straw to comfort your little heads. You need to get a new hobby because you are totally f--king useless at this one...

Borjastick claims there is "zero evidence" of gassings. That is not true. He states;

"never a gas chamber shown". The Nazis destroyed the AR camp gas chambers, but remains have been located where witnesses report the gas chambers were located, that match witness descriptions of what the chambers were built with. Of the A-B gas chambers, the two farm houses/bunkers were destroyed. Krema I remains intact, but it was modified for use as a bomb shelter. Kremas II and III were demolished, but there are ruins to examine. Kremas IV and V were destroyed and little remains. Various delousing chambers, such as at Majdanek, survive, as do the rooms used for gassings at the Action T4 euthanasia centres. Where witnesses report gas chambers, there are buildings and rooms that fit the descriptions.

"nor bodies, nor cremains". The Nazis used cremations to dispose of the dead. Archaeological surveys have traced huge areas of buried cremated remains at the AR camps and Chelmno. A dome was constructed at Sobibor, there was such a volume of exposed remains. It was possible to see into the dome, and the bones and ashes. The sites have been largely covered over, such was the problem with grave robbing and people walking about the sites were finding cremated remains on the surface. That is still happening at TII.

"nor method, manpower or facilities". How the gas chambers were constructed and operated, is well documented by records found at the camp's construction office and from Topf & Sons, who were responsible for the gas chamber modifications and multiple corpse cremations. Those documents are corroborated by the numerous witnesses who worked inside the Kremas. Less evidence survives from the AR camps and Chelmno, but there is documentary and other corroborating evidence to prove those camps received mass transports, the mass theft of property, gassings, burials and cremations.

Borjastick is making a false claim and is trying to get me to stop posting, because he cannot counter my arguments, or deal with the evidence.

[Archie]

That is why revisionist incredulity about the gas chambers, is logically flawed. The claim that Germans gassed people is not wildly implausible.

Strawman much? The story is not merely that the Germans "gassed people." The story is that they gassed MILLIONS of people AND made the bodies disappear. At that point we can use math and science to evaluate the plausibility of the story. The reason you refuse to do that is because you know the story doesn't hold up. Same reason you don't like discussing testimonies.

Drawing informed conclusions based on the likeliest interpretation of the evidence is not a fallacy. You are completely wrong. That is done all the time in all intellectual fields. I have given you many examples in a variety of contexts of people expressing rational incredulity/debunking stories, similar to what revisionists do, and all you do is make unprincipled exceptions for why it's okay to do it in other contexts but not with the Holocaust.

[Nessie]

That is why revisionist incredulity about the gas chambers, is logically flawed. The claim that Germans gassed people is not wildly implausible.

Strawman much? The story is not merely that the Germans "gassed people." The story is that they gassed MILLIONS of people AND made the bodies disappear.

No, the evidenced history is that millions were gassed (and millions more shot) and that the Nazis cremated millions of corpses, which did not disappear and remain buried at sites that have been the subject of archaeological and forensic examination.

At that point we can use math and science to evaluate the plausibility of the story. The reason you refuse to do that is because you know the story doesn't hold up.

I have used "maths and science" to evaluate the gassing claims and find them to be plausible. I find revisionist use of "maths and science" to declare the gassings to be implausible, to be the logical fallacy of incredulity.

The witness statements and surviving documents and physical evidence, do not provide enough information to make a reliable "maths and science" evaluation of how gassings took place.

When German engineers describe the "maths and science" of how they designed and modified Kremas to contain undressing rooms, gas chambers and ovens that could cope with multiple corpse cremations, and they are corroborated by construction documents and every other person who worked at the Kremas, along with the circumstantial evidence around the building operations, I find the "maths and science" to be plausible.

Same reason you don't like discussing testimonies.

I love discussing testimonies and pointing to all the studies that prove what the witnesses said, that revisionists claim proves they lied, are, in fact, to be expected errors and mistakes that do not prove lying. I love pointing out that the Jewish testimony is far more emotive than the matter of fact Nazi testimony, and that they all agree with each other! I love providing the evidence that corroborates the witnesses.

I really love pointing out that the way revisionists assess the witnesses leads to the highly suspicious conclusion that 100% of those who worked at the AR camps, Chelmno or inside the A-B Kremas, lied.

Drawing informed conclusions based on the likeliest interpretation of the evidence is not a fallacy.

Revisionists are drawing conclusions based on opinion over evidence. Your lot cannot even agree on what happened.

You are completely wrong. That is done all the time in all intellectual fields. I have given you many examples in a variety of contexts of people expressing rational incredulity/debunking stories, similar to what revisionists do, and all you do is make unprincipled exceptions for why it's okay to do it in other contexts but not with the Holocaust.

Debunking Santa was your comparison. It is obvious why Santa can be debunked. The Nazis building gas chambers to gas millions and then cremate the corpses, was well within their design and construction capabilities, and it is evidenced to have happened.

[Archie]

That is why revisionist incredulity about the gas chambers, is logically flawed. The claim that Germans gassed people is not wildly implausible.

Strawman much? The story is not merely that the Germans "gassed people." The story is that they gassed MILLIONS of people AND made the bodies disappear.

No, the evidenced history is that millions were gassed (and millions more shot) and that the Nazis cremated millions of corpses, which did not disappear and remain buried at sites that have been the subject of archaeological and forensic examination.

At that point we can use math and science to evaluate the plausibility of the story. The reason you refuse to do that is because you know the story doesn't hold up.

I have used "maths and science" to evaluate the gassing claims and find them to be plausible. I find revisionist use of "maths and science" to declare the gassings to be implausible, to be the logical fallacy of incredulity.

The witness statements and surviving documents and physical evidence, do not provide enough information to make a reliable "maths and science" evaluation of how gassings took place.

When German engineers describe the "maths and science" of how they designed and modified Kremas to contain undressing rooms, gas chambers and ovens that could cope with multiple corpse cremations, and they are corroborated by construction documents and every other person who worked at the Kremas, along with the circumstantial evidence around the building operations, I find the "maths and science" to be plausible.

Same reason you don't like discussing testimonies.

I love discussing testimonies and pointing to all the studies that prove what the witnesses said, that revisionists claim proves they lied, are, in fact, to be expected errors and mistakes that do not prove lying. I love pointing out that the Jewish testimony is far more emotive than the matter of fact Nazi testimony, and that they all agree with each other! I love providing the evidence that corroborates the witnesses.

I really love pointing out that the way revisionists assess the witnesses leads to the highly suspicious conclusion that 100% of those who worked at the AR camps, Chelmno or inside the A-B Kremas, lied.

Drawing informed conclusions based on the likeliest interpretation of the evidence is not a fallacy.

Revisionists are drawing conclusions based on opinion over evidence. Your lot cannot even agree on what happened.

You are completely wrong. That is done all the time in all intellectual fields. I have given you many examples in a variety of contexts of people expressing rational incredulity/debunking stories, similar to what revisionists do, and all you do is make unprincipled exceptions for why it's okay to do it in other contexts but not with the Holocaust.

Debunking Santa was your comparison. It is obvious why Santa can be debunked. The Nazis building gas chambers to gas millions and then cremate the corpses, was well within their design and construction capabilities, and it is evidenced to have happened.

You object in principle to applying math and science to the gas chambers. You say "it doesn't matter if revisionists can't work out how these things worked." To which I would say, how do you know how plausible the story is if you refuse to check?

The thread below on RODOH was an excellent example of how false statements can be detected by analyzing them for contradictions and common sense. According to you, the people who first identified the hoax were committing fallacies of "incredulity," based on your completely backwards and frankly embarrassing misunderstanding of logic.
https://rodoh.info/thread/679/case-stud ... stone-hoax

Speaking of impossibility, here is something you are ignoring: It is impossible for two contradictory statements to both be true. So all the contradictions you want to brush off are actually quite important. Yes, SOME contradictions can be explained away as lapses in memory, etc., but not ALL of them. And to show that, you need to do some actual work. You can't just fall back on vague (and incorrect rules) like "it's normal for witnesses to get stuff wrong; therefore, errors don't matter."

[Nessie]

....

Debunking Santa was your comparison. It is obvious why Santa can be debunked. The Nazis building gas chambers to gas millions and then cremate the corpses, was well within their design and construction capabilities, and it is evidenced to have happened.

You object in principle to applying math and science to the gas chambers. You say "it doesn't matter if revisionists can't work out how these things worked." To which I would say, how do you know how plausible the story is if you refuse to check?

I have checked. The best evidence are the documents from the A-B Construction Office and statements from the Topf & Sons engineers. The Krema modifications, such as fitting gas tight doors and the ventilation system are straightforward and the oven designs are fine and obviously work, since the designer filed patents for them.

The thread below on RODOH was an excellent example of how false statements can be detected by analyzing them for contradictions and common sense. According to you, the people who first identified the hoax were committing fallacies of "incredulity," based on your completely backwards and frankly embarrassing misunderstanding of logic.
https://rodoh.info/thread/679/case-stud ... stone-hoax

How do you analyse a witness, whilst ensuring no personal bias and agendas affect your decision and that you are not just deciding based on your incredulity?

Historians, journalists, lawyers and the police look at contemporaneous evidence, to see if any evidence that is independent of the witness, backs up, or contradicts their claim. That means the evidence determines the conclusion, rather than opinion.

For example, a witness states over a million people were sent to a camp. Documents record high hundreds of thousands of people went to that camp, so the witness is corroborated by the documents, with the caveat that the witness has over-estimated the number. Revisionist analysis would consist of asserting the witness is making an incredible, rather unbelievable claim, therefore he lied.

Speaking of impossibility, here is something you are ignoring: It is impossible for two contradictory statements to both be true. So all the contradictions you want to brush off are actually quite important. Yes, SOME contradictions can be explained away as lapses in memory, etc., but not ALL of them. And to show that, you need to do some actual work. You can't just fall back on vague (and incorrect rules) like "it's normal for witnesses to get stuff wrong; therefore, errors don't matter."

I like the way you contradict yourself after telling me it is an impossibility to have contradictory statements that are both true. You accuse me of not wanting to examine witness evidence, but you then fail to provide an example of contradictory statements.

I have not fallen back on vague and incorrect rules. I have already linked to studies of witness behaviour and memory, for example, witnesses getting dates wrong.

[TlsMS93]

Did the Allies build gas chambers at the end of the war to kill 2 million Germans out of the 14 million expelled from Central-Eastern Europe? After all, they also left their homes with only the clothes on their backs, and are there any remains of them?

These gas chambers are part of the industrial and bureaucratic ethos that the world had from the Germans at the time.

I'm glad the forum is back online, even if it's been revamped. I'm using the same one as the old one, and I'd like to find out who the new members were in the old one.

[borjastick]

I notice how Nessie has twisted and turned words and claims to make himself sound more credible.

He sounds rather like a newly elected socialist leader with his wish list of rather vague soundbite style ambitions;
I want to build a better world.
We will reduce CO2 and save the world.
Life should be fairer for all.


Nessie's plausibility scale or graph could be fun too. It would range from 'Extremely plausible (even likely)' to 'technically plausible but difficult to deliver'.

Nessie's Holocaust Derangement Syndrome is developing fast.The plausibility routine just shows you how loose and unbelievable these claims of theoretical believers are. We go around and around with the old 'it was possible so it must have happened' and 'If you can't show us where theses prisoners went they must have been murdered'. Pathetic.

When I say that the claims of gas chambers are wrong because one has never been shown I mean it and just because a few witnesses claim to know where they were and point to a pile of rubble proves absolutely nothing.

Here are a few of Nessie's more recent claims.

'Germans modifying a Krema, so that one room is used for undressing, another for gassings and the ovens are capable of multiple corpse cremations, is physically possible and not implausible. German design and construction capabilities, in the 1940s, were easily up to the task. The same applies to the use of vans and purpose built gas chambers. Revisionists make out that Germans building gas chambers is wildly implausible, but it is not, as it would be for an Amazonian rain forest tribe. It is accepted that the Germans built and operated gas chambers to delouse clothing and many revisionists even accept limited gassings took place, in particular for the T4 euthanasia project. They dispute the large scale use of gassing.'

'That is why revisionist incredulity about the gas chambers, is logically flawed. The claim that Germans gassed people is not wildly implausible. If a claim was made that the British operated gas chambers to kill captured Germans, my reaction would not be, that is implausible, because the British could not operate gas chambers. It would be to look to see what evidence there is, that gassings took place.'

'That mass gassings took place inside the Kremas, is proven by the evidence.'

'No, the evidenced history is that millions were gassed (and millions more shot) and that the Nazis cremated millions of corpses, which did not disappear and remain buried at sites that have been the subject of archaeological and forensic examination.'

[Nessie]

I notice how Nessie has twisted and turned words and claims to make himself sound more credible.

Can you link to and quote me doing that?

He sounds rather like a newly elected socialist leader with his wish list of rather vague soundbite style ambitions;
I want to build a better world.
We will reduce CO2 and save the world.
Life should be fairer for all.


Nessie's plausibility scale or graph could be fun too. It would range from 'Extremely plausible (even likely)' to 'technically plausible but difficult to deliver'.

Nessie's Holocaust Derangement Syndrome is developing fast.The plausibility routine just shows you how loose and unbelievable these claims of theoretical believers are.

Your arguments of implausibility, are the logically flawed argument from incredulity.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity

We go around and around with the old 'it was possible so it must have happened' and 'If you can't show us where theses prisoners went they must have been murdered'. Pathetic.

You misrepresent my argument. It is evidenced to have happened, so it was possible. If you cannot produce an evidenced alternative to murder, then the evidence for murder stands.

When I say that the claims of gas chambers are wrong because one has never been shown I mean it and just because a few witnesses claim to know where they were and point to a pile of rubble proves absolutely nothing...

When witnesses describe gas chambers, and remains are found where they describe them, that is part of the evidence to prove the Nazis were covering up criminal activity. It is part of the evidence that corroborates the witnesses.

[borjastick]

It is plausible that I might win the lottery this week too.

[TlsMS93]

It is plausible that I might win the lottery this week too.

According to scientific rhetoric, everything is plausible if the time and opportunity factor are given, more than that, it becomes inevitable. So if I jump for millions of years I will eventually reach the Moon, but there is a law that prevents this: gravity. In the same way that the laws of chemistry prevent life from forming spontaneously.

If we do the math, the cremation of 6 million people in 4 years surpasses several physical and chemical laws and even surpasses the Borel Limit.

[Nessie]

It is plausible that I might win the lottery this week too.

According to scientific rhetoric, everything is plausible if the time and opportunity factor are given, more than that, it becomes inevitable. So if I jump for millions of years I will eventually reach the Moon, but there is a law that prevents this: gravity. In the same way that the laws of chemistry prevent life from forming spontaneously.

True. What is also true, is that German's modifying an existing building, by fitting gas tight doors, a ventilation system, holes in the roof and a mesh column, for use as a gas chamber, is nothing like claiming someone jumped to the moon.

If we do the math, the cremation of 6 million people in 4 years surpasses several physical and chemical laws and even surpasses the Borel Limit.

Way more than 6 million people are cremated every year, let alone every 4 years. The earliest report of cremation pyres at TII was at the end of 1942 and ran till the camp closed, so potentially 12 months, to cremate a few hundred thousand. The camp death toll was around 800-900,000, but not all corpses were likely cremated, due to decomposition of the first to be buried. Revisionists love an estimation, so say 600,000 over 12 months, or around 3,300 a day. Witnesses spoke of pyres with thousands of corpses and the smell from burning going on day after day, for months on end. Just because a revisionist finds that too incredible to believe, and cannot work out how it is possible to cremate so many, does not therefore mean it did not happen.

When there is corroborating witness, archaeological, forensic and circumstantial evidence for mass pyres, that logically and evidentially proves, despite revisionist doubts, the pyres happened.

The description of the pyres, taken as a whole, tell us that they worked by keeping the corpses on metal grills, separate from the wood, like a fire pit or BBQ, so the wood burns to embers, draws air in, gets to around 1000 degrees and sets the corpses alight. Naked corpses, often partially decomposed, have enough body fat and flammables, to catch fire and burn. Pyres, not too dissimilar, were photographed at Dresden and Ohrdruf labour camp.

[TlsMS93]

Give me an example of a country that cremated 6 million people in a period of 4 years? Taking all the countries is not enough to establish plausibility regarding the Holocaust.

It has already been established that there was no wood or logistics for it, in Treblinka alone there would have been 200 thousand trucks with wood to finish off the 800,000 victims, trucks that were lacking on the battlefronts, 1/3 used in Barbarossa, only in a single camp.

The partially decomposed bodies would require more fuel than the recently dead ones, Germar Rudolf and Mattogno have already established this, you just need to learn more about the revisionist literature.

[Nessie]

Give me an example of a country that cremated 6 million people in a period of 4 years? Taking all the countries is not enough to establish plausibility regarding the Holocaust.

India, where most people are cremated, had 13.8 million deaths in 2023 alone.

https://www.globaldata.com/data-insight ... ia-240926/

It has already been established that there was no wood or logistics for it, in Treblinka alone there would have been 200 thousand trucks with wood to finish off the 800,000 victims, trucks that were lacking on the battlefronts, 1/3 used in Barbarossa, only in a single camp.

Why is the assumption delivery would be by truck and not rail? Revisionists, due to the lack of detailed evidence, have to make a lot of assumptions. Add in their bias and desire to disprove claims and their calculations cannot be relied upon. That is also true for the following. Neither of them have relevant qualifications, and they are both biased. Their opinion is suspect, and certainly not expert. To get close to scientifically disproving mass pyres of decomposing corpses, would require experiments utilising thousands of decomposing corpses.

The partially decomposed bodies would require more fuel than the recently dead ones, Germar Rudolf and Mattogno have already established this, you just need to learn more about the revisionist literature.

I am sure you can understand the logical flaw in this claim;

"I believe that mass cremations, as described at the AR camps, are physically possible. The pyres would work like a BBQ works. Therefore, they happened."

The same is true for this argument;

"I do not believe that mass cremations, as described at the AR camps, are physically possible. The pyres could not work because of calculations I have made. Therefore, they did not happen."

Pyres cannot be merely argued to have, or have not, happened. The only accurate, reliable method of determining if pyres happened, is to gather contemporaneous evidence from the people who worked inside the AR camps, circumstantial evidence around their operation and site examinations to gather archaeological and forensic evidence.

Revisionists cannot provide a single witness, or any other relevant evidence, to prove no mass creamtions and the ground at the camp is largely undisturbed. Historians can provide multiple witnesses and other evidence to prove the pyres happened.