Examples of the argument from incredulity.

[Nessie]

This argument against the reality of the Santa Claus story is fallacious according to Nessie's interpretation:

"That Santa could deliver billions of presents in one night would require him to deliver thousands of presents per second which is just totally unbelievable."

This would be "trying to work out" how Santa could deliver so many presents which is not allowed, according to Nessie.

You are revealing that you still do not understand the fallacy. It is evidenced that it is impossible for a man, to get a reindeer drawn sleigh, to fly around the world, delivering presents at any rate, let alone thousands per second.

It is evidenced that Germans, who had the design and construction technology, were able to make gas chambers, mass corpse cremation ovens and pyres work. The documented modification of a room inside the Birkenau Kremas into gas chambers, with a ventilation system and gas tight doors, was well within their engineering capabilities.

Rather than your false Santa Claus analogy, why don't you justify your claim that because you cannot work out how the gas chambers could have functioned as described by the witnesses and from the evidence left of their existence, that proves there never were any such gas chambers?

[Nessie]

Show me the evidence for mass cremation pyre(s) at Auschwitz Nessie.

Show me.

The evidence comes from eyewitnesses and photos taken by the Sonderkommandos and from aerial surveillance. Show me how you justify your argument that your doubts about mass cremation pyres being possible, proves there were no mass cremation pyres.

[Nessie]

Santa deniers always seem to forget that he literally freezes time.

Checkmate.

It is another fallacy, false analogy. What Santa is alleged to have done is physically impossible. What the Germans were alleged to have done is physically possible.

You base your doubts on that physical possibility on poor witness descriptions and from evidence that has many gaps, as it was subject to a cover-up as a crime was being committed that those responsible for wanted to hide as much as they could.

Despite repeated requests, you still are unable to justify your argument that because you doubt gassing was possible, because you cannot work out how it could leave no PB and low HCN residue, that is evidence to prove there never were any gassings.

[Nessie]

Callafangers

viewtopic.php?p=22164#p22164

With SanityCheck's position now clarified and his stance firmly locked-in, let's review the overall effectiveness of his position:

Defensive pivot, not counter: SC "defends" by reframing (historical > physical) and deferring (Muehlenkamp, future digs), but evades quantification/math -- a pillar of the revisionist case. He concedes key weaknesses (incomplete cremation, escapes) as "refinements," diluting the original narrative without physical proof.
Reinforces thread thesis: SC admits disinterest ("don't give a shit," "waste of time") in physical specifics, prioritizing docs/witnesses -- his evasion confirmed.
Revisionist edge: Revisionism's specifics remain unchallenged; digs (Kola/Mazurek/Sturdy-Colls) corroborate sparsity/economic operations, falsifying extermination-scale predictions.

Verdict: Ineffective. SC survives via scope-expansion but loses on physical merits -- this thread's "evasion" theme holds. For a decisive win, he'd need calcs/scholar referral addressing specifics but none is provided. Revisionism's testable predictions (sparsity) are corroborated; extermination's (mega-traces) are falsified.

Sanity Check cannot explain how gassings, graves and cremations were possible, to Callafangers satisfaction, so he concludes that is evidence to prove gassings, graves and cremations did not happen.

[Nessie]

Sanity Check, explains why Callafangers argument from incredulity fails;

viewtopic.php?p=22173#p22173

Revisionism's 'testable predictions' aren't in fact fully quantifiable for reasons noted in this thread and earlier, by Roberto Muehlenkamp. The 'testable predictions' lead nowhere, since they then imply a hypothesis (deported Jews found elsewhere, alive or dead), which has in turn failed to be corroborated, and is thus falsified on your terms.

The revisionists base their claims about physical impossibility, their 'testable predictions', on incomplete evidence. Their resulting conclusion, that millions of Jews were not killed, is unevidenced.

The revisionist premise and conclusion are both faulty.

[HansHill]

Still waiting on a name, Nessie.

[Nessie]

Still waiting on a name, Nessie.

You are still attempting to take this thread off topic.

Please explain and justify, logically and evidentially, how that because you are not convinced by the explanations given by various chemists, as to why there is a lack of PB and low HCN residue, that is reason to believe there were no gassings?

What is it, about your personal incredulity, that means you think you can successfully argue there were no gas chambers?

[Nazgul]

Their resulting conclusion, that millions of Jews were not killed, is unevidenced.

They may well have died but that statistic lies in the area of uncertainty of the range of deaths of WWII, about 15 million, which is why there is caution. Using the midpoint of this range (≈ 76.5 million) implies an absolute uncertainty of approximately ±7.5 million, corresponding to a relative uncertainty of ~20%. This establishes a clear upper bound on numerical precision at the aggregate level.

Within this statistical framework, the citation of a specific figure such as 6 million deaths attributed to any single group has limited analytical meaning when discussed solely in the context of aggregate wartime mortality. This is not a qualitative or moral assessment, but a consequence of statistical resolution.

[Nessie]

Their resulting conclusion, that millions of Jews were not killed, is unevidenced.

They may well have died but that statistic lies in the area of uncertainty of the range of deaths of WWII, about 15 million, which is why there is caution. Using the midpoint of this range (≈ 76.5 million) implies an absolute uncertainty of approximately ±7.5 million, corresponding to a relative uncertainty of ~20%. This establishes a clear upper bound on numerical precision at the aggregate level.

Within this statistical framework, the citation of a specific figure such as 6 million deaths attributed to any single group has limited analytical meaning when discussed solely in the context of aggregate wartime mortality. This is not a qualitative or moral assessment, but a consequence of statistical resolution.

You are missing the point Sanity Check made, when he said "Revisionism's 'testable predictions' aren't in fact fully quantifiable...". There are gaps in the evidence, such as not knowing about how much wood was collected or delivered to the camps for pyres.

viewtopic.php?p=22158#p22158

"I've repeatedly pointed out that these variables cannot be realistically quantified to the apparent level of precision demanded. The demand to quantify them thus misses the fucking point.
Moreover, revisionist attempts to quantify wood requirements don't work because there are no records of fuel supply in general...
We have reports from Dresden in 1945 specifying the cremation to ash of 6,865 victims of the firebombing of 13/14 February 1945 taking place over a twelve day period, without these sources specifying the quantities of straw, wood or gasoline used. So be careful when you try to impose a requirement on open air cremations of non-German victims that would not be met for this documented and beyond all reasonable doubt open air cremation of German victims, lest you reveal yourself as a complete hypocrite."

Not knowing about the quantities or source of wood for pyres, and so not being able to figure out how the pyres could have worked, is not evidence to prove there were no pyres.

It is obvious that none of you can deal with the points Sanity Check and I are making, so there is a concerted attempt to take such discussion in other directions.

[HansHill]

It is obvious that none of you can deal with the points Sanity Check and I are making, so there is a concerted attempt to take such discussion in other directions.

Get off your high horse, you have nothing but bogus claims about a process nobody on planet earth has been demonstrated to understand.

[Nazgul]

Not knowing about the quantities or source of wood for pyres, and so not being able to figure out how the pyres could have worked, is not evidence to prove there were no pyres.

Your pyre obsession dodges the actual issue: uncertainty at the aggregate level doesn’t vanish because micro-variables are missing—this is a distraction dressed as rigor.

[Archie]

Those words do indeed suggest it is possible the argument from incredulity is being used. Or, it is the expression of a reasoned doubt.

Just to be clear, do you think what I quoted is a fallacy? Or no?

If Hincks concluded that the Semitics had not invented cuneiform system purely on his doubts, then yes. If he presented evidence to show it was uncertain that they had, then no.

Another evasive response. You're falling back on conditionals. I quoted the argument for you and you won't say whether you think it's a fallacy because you know that if we continue playing this game you'll end up contradicting yourself like crazy and you'll look like an idiot.

There are no ifs here. Hincks's arguments are not fallacious. He gave good reasons why the conventional wisdom at the time was wrong. Even if Hincks had turned out to be wrong, his arguments would not have been fallacious.

[Nessie]

It is obvious that none of you can deal with the points Sanity Check and I are making, so there is a concerted attempt to take such discussion in other directions.

Get off your high horse, you have nothing but bogus claims about a process nobody on planet earth has been demonstrated to understand.

How does not being able to understand why there is no visible PB and low traces of HCN, evidence that mass gassing did not happen?

[Nessie]

Not knowing about the quantities or source of wood for pyres, and so not being able to figure out how the pyres could have worked, is not evidence to prove there were no pyres.

Your pyre obsession dodges the actual issue: uncertainty at the aggregate level doesn’t vanish because micro-variables are missing—this is a distraction dressed as rigor.

There is no obsession from me. The wood for the pyres, is just one example of the revisionist use of the argument from incredulity, that it is clear no revisionist can logically or evidentially defend.

[Nessie]

Just to be clear, do you think what I quoted is a fallacy? Or no?

If Hincks concluded that the Semitics had not invented cuneiform system purely on his doubts, then yes. If he presented evidence to show it was uncertain that they had, then no.

Another evasive response. You're falling back on conditionals. I quoted the argument for you and you won't say whether you think it's a fallacy because you know that if we continue playing this game you'll end up contradicting yourself like crazy and you'll look like an idiot.

There are no ifs here. Hincks's arguments are not fallacious. He gave good reasons why the conventional wisdom at the time was wrong. Even if Hincks had turned out to be wrong, his arguments would not have been fallacious.

On face value, from the quoted text, he is not using the argument from incredulity, since he is only expressing his doubt. He is not concluding that cuneiform was invented by non-Semitic people, he is merely suspecting that is the case and stating his reasons for that suspicion.

Revisionists do more than express doubts about gassings, graves and cremations. They conclude that they did not happen. That is the step which completes the argument from incredulity.

Despite repeated requests, neither you nor anyone else I have challenged, has been able to explain both logically and evidentially, why, to use words from the passage on Hincks, revisionist "doubts" about seemingly "unnatural" mass gassing, graves and cremations by the Nazis, is evidence to prove none happened.