On Taking on Holocaust Deniers
Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 8:12 pm
Given the recent postings by our resident holocaust denier, I wanted to say a couple of things. If you haven't encountered a hard-core conspiracy theorist before, let alone the pernicious subspecies known as holocaust denier, here are a couple of things I've learned.
First, unless you are willing to put in some time to figure out and understand the denier's argument and to research and understand why it is wrong, it's a waste of time to engage. Holocaust denial is based on smidgens of true facts, misleading distortions of true facts, and outright lies, all mixed together in a jumble that takes time and effort to untangle. Unless you've put in the time, you'll respond with something that is factually incorrect in some way, and then the denier will shift the attack from the holocaust to your ignorance/stupidity/etc. At that point, it's a total pain in the ass to get the discussion back on topic.
Second, while the leaders of the holocaust denier movement are often smart and clever, their followers are often not. Many times they just copy and paste stuff that they don't understand or haven't checked out themselves. The last thing they want to do is to drill down to the actual factual evidence. Witness the number of times Smokey has ducked a simple question about the use of ball point pen and Anne Frank's diary.
Third, it helps to think of holocaust deniers as mopologists. Both operate the same way. They believe in a vast conspiracy for which they have no evidence. And they're only tool is to find some way to dismiss all of the evidence that contradicts their denial. Their "conspiracy" functions just like God does for mopologists as the ultimate get out of jail free card.
Fourth, like mopologists, they attempt to intimidate through insult and bluster. Ignore it. If you've spent the requisite time learning the material before you start to engage, you know way more than they do. And that puts you in control no matter how much they bluster.
Fifth, understand why they reason the way they do. They're not crazy. They're simply falling prey to powerful cognitive biases we all have: (1) Patternicity -- our brains are biased towards finding patterns and will find them even in random data. They underestimate the frequency of chance and coincidence. (2) Intentionality -- our brains are biased towards concluding that an intelligent agent is responsible for the patterns we find.
When we are looking to understand or explain a set of data, our best bet is to look for the interpretation that has the best explanatory power for the data we have. That's actually what most of us do. However, in large and complex sets of facts, there will always be what we can call "anomalous" data. Anomalous data is data that is either not explained by the best fit explanation or may even appear to contradict it. This is inevitable because our access to facts is never perfect, and the more complicated the facts, the less perfect our access is.
Often, a careful investigation of what appears to be an anomalous fact reveals that it is not anomalous at all. Perhaps a witness got something wrong. Perhaps there was a rationale for an action that we overlooked. For this reason, investigating the anomalous fact is critical to determine whether it actually contradicts the best fit explanation.
Conspiracy theorists don't do that. In fact, one of our conspiracy theorists here once put it very accurately when he said that he ignores the evidence and looks only at the anomalies. They don't investigate the anomalies to try and figure out why they exist and whether they actually contradict the best fit explanation. The patternicity bias leads them to stitch apparent anomalies that are often completely unrelated into a pattern, and their internality bias leads them to create a conspiracy to explain the pattern.
That's why conspiracy theorists are impervious to evidence in support of the best-fit explanation. You could provide Smokey with mountains of evidence that millions of Jews were exterminated at Auschwitz were exterminated, and he'll respond: OK boomer. What about the swimming pool? **Shut it down** meme. The weak part of the Holocaust Denier argument is that the "anomalies" turn out to be based on false or significantly misrepresented facts. So, the most effective attack is to make them explain the factual basis for their claims and to explicitly explain why the fact actually disproves the best fit explanation. When you get down to the actual, concrete facts, they can't do it. When they start tap dancing, avoiding answering simple questions, changing the subject, or Gish Galloping, resist the temptation to respond to the new thing: relentlessly demand that they produce the evidence and explain how it "disproves" the best fit explanation. When they refuse to answer simple questions that reveal their original claim as BS, you've won the point. They'll never admit it. But they know it.
Finally, never ever accept evidence that a holocaust denier provides without evidence of its provenance. Anyone who is confident in their sources will happily identify them or provide you with a link. If the denier refuses to do so, they simply look dishonest or shady to any fair minded reader.
There is a pretty definitive analysis of holocaust denier claims about Auschwitz. https://www.hdot.org/vanpelt/# It's an expert report prepared in a famous English case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_v_ ... _Books_Ltd It explains the history of Auschwitz, what Auschwitz was composed of, different functions it performed over time, etc. If you'll read it, you'll understand why Smokey's arguments that there was no extermination camp at Auschwitz are simply rubbish. You'll also learn exactly how the people that Smokey is relying on distort and deny the actual evidence. It's a long read, but will help immensely if you choose to engage with holocaust deniers.
Oh, and Smokey, I'm still waiting for you to show me which diary entry purportedly written in Anne Frank's handwriting is in ball-point pen.
First, unless you are willing to put in some time to figure out and understand the denier's argument and to research and understand why it is wrong, it's a waste of time to engage. Holocaust denial is based on smidgens of true facts, misleading distortions of true facts, and outright lies, all mixed together in a jumble that takes time and effort to untangle. Unless you've put in the time, you'll respond with something that is factually incorrect in some way, and then the denier will shift the attack from the holocaust to your ignorance/stupidity/etc. At that point, it's a total pain in the ass to get the discussion back on topic.
Second, while the leaders of the holocaust denier movement are often smart and clever, their followers are often not. Many times they just copy and paste stuff that they don't understand or haven't checked out themselves. The last thing they want to do is to drill down to the actual factual evidence. Witness the number of times Smokey has ducked a simple question about the use of ball point pen and Anne Frank's diary.
Third, it helps to think of holocaust deniers as mopologists. Both operate the same way. They believe in a vast conspiracy for which they have no evidence. And they're only tool is to find some way to dismiss all of the evidence that contradicts their denial. Their "conspiracy" functions just like God does for mopologists as the ultimate get out of jail free card.
Fourth, like mopologists, they attempt to intimidate through insult and bluster. Ignore it. If you've spent the requisite time learning the material before you start to engage, you know way more than they do. And that puts you in control no matter how much they bluster.
Fifth, understand why they reason the way they do. They're not crazy. They're simply falling prey to powerful cognitive biases we all have: (1) Patternicity -- our brains are biased towards finding patterns and will find them even in random data. They underestimate the frequency of chance and coincidence. (2) Intentionality -- our brains are biased towards concluding that an intelligent agent is responsible for the patterns we find.
When we are looking to understand or explain a set of data, our best bet is to look for the interpretation that has the best explanatory power for the data we have. That's actually what most of us do. However, in large and complex sets of facts, there will always be what we can call "anomalous" data. Anomalous data is data that is either not explained by the best fit explanation or may even appear to contradict it. This is inevitable because our access to facts is never perfect, and the more complicated the facts, the less perfect our access is.
Often, a careful investigation of what appears to be an anomalous fact reveals that it is not anomalous at all. Perhaps a witness got something wrong. Perhaps there was a rationale for an action that we overlooked. For this reason, investigating the anomalous fact is critical to determine whether it actually contradicts the best fit explanation.
Conspiracy theorists don't do that. In fact, one of our conspiracy theorists here once put it very accurately when he said that he ignores the evidence and looks only at the anomalies. They don't investigate the anomalies to try and figure out why they exist and whether they actually contradict the best fit explanation. The patternicity bias leads them to stitch apparent anomalies that are often completely unrelated into a pattern, and their internality bias leads them to create a conspiracy to explain the pattern.
That's why conspiracy theorists are impervious to evidence in support of the best-fit explanation. You could provide Smokey with mountains of evidence that millions of Jews were exterminated at Auschwitz were exterminated, and he'll respond: OK boomer. What about the swimming pool? **Shut it down** meme. The weak part of the Holocaust Denier argument is that the "anomalies" turn out to be based on false or significantly misrepresented facts. So, the most effective attack is to make them explain the factual basis for their claims and to explicitly explain why the fact actually disproves the best fit explanation. When you get down to the actual, concrete facts, they can't do it. When they start tap dancing, avoiding answering simple questions, changing the subject, or Gish Galloping, resist the temptation to respond to the new thing: relentlessly demand that they produce the evidence and explain how it "disproves" the best fit explanation. When they refuse to answer simple questions that reveal their original claim as BS, you've won the point. They'll never admit it. But they know it.
Finally, never ever accept evidence that a holocaust denier provides without evidence of its provenance. Anyone who is confident in their sources will happily identify them or provide you with a link. If the denier refuses to do so, they simply look dishonest or shady to any fair minded reader.
There is a pretty definitive analysis of holocaust denier claims about Auschwitz. https://www.hdot.org/vanpelt/# It's an expert report prepared in a famous English case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_v_ ... _Books_Ltd It explains the history of Auschwitz, what Auschwitz was composed of, different functions it performed over time, etc. If you'll read it, you'll understand why Smokey's arguments that there was no extermination camp at Auschwitz are simply rubbish. You'll also learn exactly how the people that Smokey is relying on distort and deny the actual evidence. It's a long read, but will help immensely if you choose to engage with holocaust deniers.
Oh, and Smokey, I'm still waiting for you to show me which diary entry purportedly written in Anne Frank's handwriting is in ball-point pen.