Archie wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 4:15 pm
And of course he doubles down, even though he's obviously wrong.
"False analogy," he says. Except no "analogies" were offered.
Analogies have been offered, such as Santa Claus, to make the point that it is acceptable to be sceptical about something that is physically impossible.
The point here is to understand the appeal to incredulity in general. The AI, which I'm using as an independent arbiter here, explains the distinction between simple incredulity without any support and justifiable skepticism based on data and reasoning. This is the distinction that everyone else understands but that you refuse to understand. You simply assume a priori that revisioning reasoning is invalid.
Your argument from incredulity, is not, as you think, supported by justifiable scepticism. That is why the Santa analogy you have used, is a false analogy. You are comparing something that is physically impossible, a flying sleigh delivering presents around the world, with something that is possible, Germans designing and operating a gas chambers.
Let me be clear. You do not have to agree with the arguments revisionists make. But you must engage with those arguments, not dismiss them out of hand. If we say a witness is not reliable because of X, Y, Z and you want to give a reasoned response explaining why you think the witness is reliable, go right ahead.
That is what I do, a lot, linking to studies that prove the witness is exaggerating, or mistaken, rather than lying. You then ignore that, which is wrong on your part. You need to engage with my points about witnesses and their behaviour, but you do not want to, because if you admit the witness is exaggerating about how many fitted inside the gas chambers, rather than lying gassings happened, then you lose your claim of no gassings.
Or if we say that Treblinka going through 1,000 tons of wood per day to cremate bodies is not realistic and you disagree and want to present your own competing analysis, fine. That's the whole point of the Debate forum.
When you do that, and declare no pyres, because you find it too incredible to believe, or cannot work out how the pyres were fuelled, you are committing the fallacy of argument from incredulity, as AI pointed out to you.
What I do have a problem with is you saying that our arguments are automatically wrong because you have the erroneous impression that any expression of incredulity is a fallacy.
I do not have that impression, that is yet another mistake on your part. I have clearly said it is acceptable to be incredulous about an incredible claim about mass pyres. I have also explained, at great length, that the truthfulness of the incredible claim cannot be determined by arguing over quantities of wood. It can only be reliably determined by gathering evidence to establish if mass pyres happened or not.
You are using this to avoid debate. Like just now in the other thread.
Nessie wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 9:35 am
Do you accept Muehlenkamp's claim that only 15 kg of wood were needed per body?
I have no idea if that is correct or not. The guessing and estimations are merely that and experiments are way off the reality of cremating thousands of all ready decaying corpses at a time. My point is that the truth is more reliably established from the evidence, not argument over wood reqirements for outdoor cremations. Only revisionists disagree with that.
This is unresponsive. It basically goes back to your whole "it was possible because it happened" circular reasoning.
It is not circular reasoning to say pyres were possible, because of the corroborating evidence they happened. I am not using the premise as the conclusion, I am not going back on myself. The method I use is liner, a methodical gathering of evidence.
A claim is made that something happened. I then look for evidence to determine if the claim is correct or not.
In the case of mass pyres, I look to who made the earliest reports, which were local Poles living near the camps who reported months of burning. They were then corroborated by escaped prisoners. Those two groups were then corroborated by Polish site examinations that found large areas of buried cremated remains. The two groups and the first set of site examiners were then corroborated by Nazis who had worked at the camps, who admitted to the pyres. The circumstantial evidence of an action to cremate corpses at numerous sites where the Nazis had conducted mass killings, provides more corroboration again. The motive, of covering up a criminal act, has been established. Finally, a second set of site examinations again evidences large areas of cremated remains and disturbed ground.
That volume of evidence proves mass pyres. It does not matter that you cannot work out where the wood came from, or how much was needed. Your opinions are not evidential. They do not reliable determine if the pyres happened.