Denialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism
Iran has decided to host a conference on the Holocaust, as if a conference can decide that it did not occur. As expressed in the wikipedia article, denialism is a form of propaganda, an attempt to put across a view for a specific purpose.
When it comes to massacre of people for their religious beliefs, there can be no reductio ad absurdum, or reduction to the absurd. So, the murder of 6 people for their religion is no less heinous than the murder of 6 million. Any attempt to deny the Holocaust can only be based on the belief that no Jews were murdered in Europe for their religious beliefs. This would require proof of the negative, much in the same way that true believers in God or Allah will not give up their belief unless there is incontravertible proof of the absence of a deity.
To equate a denialist with a true scientific scholar misses the point of science, which is not to question facts, but to expand on known facts to obtain deeper and broader knowledge. A denialist is more of a contrarian and a rhetorist, a debater or a inquisitor, a seeker of nefarious alternative explanations for the obvious, more a spinner of webs of deceit than a lens of clarity and focus.
One could credibly argue that the sun circles the earth, not vice versa, and dismiss all science that points in the contrary as conjecture, misinterpretation of the data, oversimplification of observations, conspiracy to deny and suppress the truth, or the existential belief that our senses may say the earth circles the sun but our senses do not tell us as it really is, only a projection of reality in our mind. These are interesting sophomoric musings, but not of much interest or importance in reality.
That the Holocaust really happened can never be known for certain, any more than whether or not Mt.St. Helens erupted in the recent past or whether or not Ronald Reagan ever existed. All things from the past cannot be witnessed in real time, only viewed through the eyes of those who were there or only examined through the images and other records left behind. Those of us who lost relatives in the Holocaust or know survivors who tell harrowing tales of mass graves and slaughter believe it happened as we believe in the veracity of what we have been told and in the records. To the denialist, facts and artifacts can be dismissed as opinions and fakes, and opinions accepted as facts.
The ability of denialists to gain center stage in public discourse is another sign of the dumbing down of the world. The game of the denialist has been well known for centuries. Actors and political poseurs have been talking this talk for some time. It is about time for us to stop being suckers and marks for this very obvious false science.
Iran has decided to host a conference on the Holocaust, as if a conference can decide that it did not occur. As expressed in the wikipedia article, denialism is a form of propaganda, an attempt to put across a view for a specific purpose.
When it comes to massacre of people for their religious beliefs, there can be no reductio ad absurdum, or reduction to the absurd. So, the murder of 6 people for their religion is no less heinous than the murder of 6 million. Any attempt to deny the Holocaust can only be based on the belief that no Jews were murdered in Europe for their religious beliefs. This would require proof of the negative, much in the same way that true believers in God or Allah will not give up their belief unless there is incontravertible proof of the absence of a deity.
To equate a denialist with a true scientific scholar misses the point of science, which is not to question facts, but to expand on known facts to obtain deeper and broader knowledge. A denialist is more of a contrarian and a rhetorist, a debater or a inquisitor, a seeker of nefarious alternative explanations for the obvious, more a spinner of webs of deceit than a lens of clarity and focus.
One could credibly argue that the sun circles the earth, not vice versa, and dismiss all science that points in the contrary as conjecture, misinterpretation of the data, oversimplification of observations, conspiracy to deny and suppress the truth, or the existential belief that our senses may say the earth circles the sun but our senses do not tell us as it really is, only a projection of reality in our mind. These are interesting sophomoric musings, but not of much interest or importance in reality.
That the Holocaust really happened can never be known for certain, any more than whether or not Mt.St. Helens erupted in the recent past or whether or not Ronald Reagan ever existed. All things from the past cannot be witnessed in real time, only viewed through the eyes of those who were there or only examined through the images and other records left behind. Those of us who lost relatives in the Holocaust or know survivors who tell harrowing tales of mass graves and slaughter believe it happened as we believe in the veracity of what we have been told and in the records. To the denialist, facts and artifacts can be dismissed as opinions and fakes, and opinions accepted as facts.
The ability of denialists to gain center stage in public discourse is another sign of the dumbing down of the world. The game of the denialist has been well known for centuries. Actors and political poseurs have been talking this talk for some time. It is about time for us to stop being suckers and marks for this very obvious false science.
posted by DocBrain at
8:19 PM
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