Zulu wrote:Hektor wrote:
Me too. I also have a bias in favor of the smaller players on the market. As for "scientific consensus" that argument is entirely bogus. There is no such thing as "scientific consensus". Yes there may be widespread agreement on an issue within academia, but that isn't scientific proof at all. Science works with empirical evidence and the logical-rational conclusions being drawn from it. They aren't always 100% certain for sure, but when "academic consensus" is invoked, you can bet that it's not an issue they got scientific levels of certainty about.
Had consensus a minor scientific value, new theories would be approved by voting.
Many theories have won against "scientist's consensus" of their time. No need to cite Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei or Charles Darwin.
Another example less known, the theory developed by Alfred Wegener:
...
In theory you're right. But in practice it's indeed the way that general acceptance of scientific theories or facts work via some sort of consensus. And that often takes some time, especially if that theory has some political and/or ideological implications (like the Holocaust does). Ego may also play a role though.
That scientists, including historians, are guided solely by "reason and verifiable prove" is a myth and something they pretend to do, since that's what the educated public expects scientists to be. But they're also human beings and self interest, social psychology and biographical imprints work on them as well. That certainly finds its way into how they interpret things and what they'll publicly proclaim.
Galileo is an interesting case as it is widely believed that his theory on heliocentrism was rejected on religious grounds. That's not entirely true, It was actually rejected, because his proof wasn't really that sound (He used tides as proof among other things, but that doesn't contradict geocentrism). His theory was only proven at later stages by other arguments, which are actually quite complicated but relate to the movement of the planets.
Holocaust belief is based on atrocity propaganda and the post-war power relations. Add to that ignorance of the real facts and also interest groups pushing that agenda via media and the educational system. The historians went accord with this over time, until it became an "established fact" and the "scientific consensus". Court convictions of "Nazi war criminals" did their part to cement the belief, as well. But courts are part of the state apparatus, so they're actually an exercise of power. They are not as reliable as people tend to belief. And the evidence in those cases aren't really that overwhelming, if you go through the records.
The lack of hard evidence is even mentioned in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial verdict:
Denn dem Gericht fehlten fast alle in einem normalen Mordprozess zur Verfügung stehenden Erkenntnismöglichkeiten, um sich ein getreues Bild des tatsächlichen Geschehens im Zeitpunkt des Mordes zu verschaffen.
Es fehlten die Leichen der Opfer, Obduktionsprotokolle, Gutachten von Sachverständigen über die Ursache des Todes und die Todesstunde, es fehlten Spuren der Täter, Mordwaffen usw. Eine Überprüfung der Zeugenaussagen war nur in seltenen Fällen möglich.Die Glaubwürdigkeit der Zeugen musste daher besonders sorgfältig geprüft werden. Wo geringste Zweifel bestanden oder die Möglichkeit von Verwechslungen nicht mit Sicherheit auszuschliessen war, hat das Gericht Aussagen von Zeugen nicht verwertet.
http://www.junsv.nl/cgi/t/text/text-idx ... 1%3A6.2.54
"Missing were the victim's corpses, examination protocols on corpses, expert testimony on cause and time of death, traces of perpetrators, murder weapons, etc. verification of testimony was only possible in rare cases."
The cop-out is then that they excluded witnesses from consideration, when there was doubt on credibility. But if you go through the trial records, you'll see that a witness essentially had to implicate himself as a liar in no uncertain terms.
Now try the following. Ask for the name of a homicidal gassing victim in Auschwitz and proof for that claim. The trials were done without having identified any specific victims! Specific people were however accused of having participated in the gassing of unnamed victims. That's actually a real oddity and unheard of.
The lack of credibility (after 20 years) didn't hinder academic historians to use that testimony as proof in their Holocaust literature. As dispute is criminalized and popular belief is on their side. They won't get called out publicly on this.
