The "Revisionists are not peer reviewed" argument

[Hektor]

It is sometimes hard for a non-historian to distinguish between a book published by a historian doing peer-reviewed academic work, and a bestselling "amateur writer of history". For example, until David Irving lost his British libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt and was found to be a "falsifier of history", the general public did not realize that his books were outside the canon of acceptable academic histories.[7]

The distinction rests on the techniques used to write such histories. Accuracy and revision are central to historical scholarship. As in any scientific discipline, historians' papers are submitted to peer review. Instead of submitting their work to the challenges of peer review, revisionists rewrite history to support an agenda, often political, using any number of techniques and logical fallacies to obtain their results.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... egationism)

Given that any Holocaust revisionism and challenge to the Holocaust storyline is anathema for court historians, I expect that such articles would be rejected a priori. The thing is not open for debate and whoever tries it, will be confronted with future academic exclusion.

In short this argument is actually outrageously ridiculous. It is a fallacy.

[joachim neander]

I do not agree, Hector.
Peer review always helps the author to improve his argumentation, often gives him hints to overlooked sources, draws his attention to fallacies. It is, as a rule, a "blind" review, i.e. the reviewer does not know who wrote the text he reviews. So he does not know, e.g., if the author is labeled "revisionist" or not. And even if the manuscript, in the end, is not accepted for publication, the author has learned from the peer review process.

To be accused of not complying with generally accepted scholarly standards is, however, not only "Revisionists'" fate. I shredded, for example, two books that in your terminology would be called "exterminationist," in reviews for German Studies Review. The best known example, however, is D. J. Goldhagen's "Hitler's willing executioners," a book that has been criticized unanimously by the scholarly community as methodologically flawed. Had Goldhagen had his manuscript peer-reviewed, he would have avoided compromising and making himself a laughing stock among history scholars.

[PatrickSMcNally]

A bit of peer review might also have stopped Raul Hilberg from treating a plagiarist like Filip Mueller as a credible source. Or it might have kept Gerald Fleming from pushing the Franke-Gricksch item. It's an unfortunate fact that debates about the 20th century are very ideologically charged and even where peer review does take place this can easily influence the outcome of the review in ways that wouldn't apply so readily to a review of a study of the Napoleonic wars. One just has to keep that in mind.

[Hektor]

I do not agree, Hector.
Peer review always helps the author to improve his argumentation, often gives him hints to overlooked sources, draws his attention to fallacies. It is, as a rule, a "blind" review, i.e. the reviewer does not know who wrote the text he reviews. So he does not know, e.g., if the author is labeled "revisionist" or not. And even if the manuscript, in the end, is not accepted for publication, the author has learned from the peer review process. ....

Dear Joachim,
I do not doubt the merits of peer review. What I questioned was merely the demand for peer review made by exterminations or enemies of Holocaust revisionism. And believe me any historian will no how to label an author after he read the article for the first time. A revisionist paper or article submitted for peer review will not be treated like any other historical paper. Once suspected or identified as "denying the holocaust" one can expect any of the following:
a) That it will not be accepted for peer review.
b) That, if it is reviewed by orthodox historian, the review will be biased.
c) That if someone knows the author persecution or repercushion may follow.
d) That the review will not be published nor will the act of review be made known.

They know very well what the situation for revisionists or their publications is. So the demand for peer review is futile and to use the alleged absence of peer review as an argument against revisionism is flawed.

You are of course right about the uses of peer review. A critical review of a paper may highlight the weak points in the authors line of argument.

[Hektor]

A bit of peer review might also have stopped Raul Hilberg from treating a plagiarist like Filip Mueller as a credible source. Or it might have kept Gerald Fleming from pushing the Franke-Gricksch item. It's an unfortunate fact that debates about the 20th century are very ideologically charged and even where peer review does take place this can easily influence the outcome of the review in ways that wouldn't apply so readily to a review of a study of the Napoleonic wars. One just has to keep that in mind.

There is certainly far less ideological charge and blinders in other fields of history then anything concerning Hitler, Holocaust and WW2.

Knowing that Revisionists are violently persecuted and academically ostracized The "Revisionists aren't peer reviewed" argument must be one of the dumbest in the Holocaustian arsenal.

[Inquisitor]

A bit of peer review might also have stopped Raul Hilberg from treating a plagiarist like Filip Mueller as a credible source. Or it might have kept Gerald Fleming from pushing the Franke-Gricksch item. It's an unfortunate fact that debates about the 20th century are very ideologically charged and even where peer review does take place this can easily influence the outcome of the review in ways that wouldn't apply so readily to a review of a study of the Napoleonic wars. One just has to keep that in mind.

There is certainly far less ideological charge and blinders in other fields of history then anything concerning Hitler, Holocaust and WW2.

Knowing that Revisionists are violently persecuted and academically ostracized The "Revisionists aren't peer reviewed" argument must be one of the dumbest in the Holocaustian arsenal.

Indeed - it is more than a little disingenuous to dismiss something as not being "peer reviewed," when one's theoretical peers won't touch said work with a ten-foot pole!

[hermod]

The human soap canard was a peer reviewed argument for 5 decades.

"I believe that through this trial all thinking people will come to realize that in our day the gas chamber and the soap factory are what anti-Semitism may lead to." - Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, The New York Times, December 1960 (http://winstonsmithministryoftruth.blog ... 2380a36b30).




The same was true for Diesel exhaust as a weapon of mass murder. The holo-bible written by Raul Hilberg used it. And the Diesel "gas vans" are still part of the Holocaust narrative.

[borjastick]

The Peer reviewed argument is more about the system and its own protection than perhaps other things. The holocaust is largely protected and promoted within academia and as such they will never peer review something that the peers neither agree with nor will give house room too.

It's the old 'you're not an historian' argument, the like of which David Irving has endured. The academic and largely jew and left wing controlled university system rejects those with something to say as inferior and not to be listened to, thus they can claim that people who have studied the holocaust with great intensity and scrutiny are without credibility. Look at the way they tried to discredit Fred Leuchter. He probably knew more about gas chambers and related technical issues than they could ever learn but they just said 'he's not even an engineer'.

[Inquisitor]

The Peer reviewed argument is more about the system and its own protection than perhaps other things. The holocaust is largely protected and promoted within academia and as such they will never peer review something that the peers neither agree with nor will give house room too.

It's the old 'you're not an historian' argument, the like of which David Irving has endured. The academic and largely jew and left wing controlled university system rejects those with something to say as inferior and not to be listened to, thus they can claim that people who have studied the holocaust with great intensity and scrutiny are without credibility. Look at the way they tried to discredit Fred Leuchter. He probably knew more about gas chambers and related technical issues than they could ever learn but they just said 'he's not even an engineer'.

Exactly! I have a friend/acquaintance who just received her History degree and now fancies (and refers to) herself as a "historian, " with a whiff of superiority to go with every repetition of it! I just laugh to myself at this point, as I have forgotten more than she now knows on her best day. Her idea of history is, more or less, regurgitating every stale and noisome piece of propaganda her Leftist professors have drilled into her head. I've held back on even trying to broach Revisionism with her as her mind is just far too closed to even hope for a successful discussion in that arena.

Academia...pfft!!

**

[TonyB]

PatrickSMcNally:
A bit of peer review might also have stopped Raul Hilberg

http://robertfaurisson.blogspot.com/2011/09/victories-of-revisionism-continued.html
Raul Hilberg, the most eminent historian of “the Holocaust”, finally acknowledged that there was, after all, no known evidence of the reality of any order, plan or organisation aiming at the physical destruction of the European Jews and, in order to continue upholding that fiction nonetheless, he decided to resort to some astonishing explanations in the vein of what might be called “group parapsychology” (see below).

So here is the man generally considered the top scholar on the holocaust and he did not know there was no known evidence, no German documentation?

So much for "peer review." Peer review is doublespeak for "the deceiving process by which fantasy is purported to be truth and truth denied and labeled fantasy."

Edit: Oops! I should have been more careful reading your post given that you say Hilberg had no peer review. Did not know that. I just assumed his work was considered as pure as the driven snow.