First, Moses’ diminishing returns

1. The fallacy of Argumentum ad Verecundiam – see “Washout” p234
2. See below
3. The fallacy of non sequitur extension – p235
4. ditto
5. bs – see p223-7
6. Verecundiam - p234
7. Spitting of dummy

With all his reading, academic “labour”, qualifications, tax paid income, and condescention, how many questions did Moses answer without misrepresentation? He says I ignore evidence and misrepresent Ryan. I ask him what evidence and produce proof re Ryan. He calls me fatuous, demands we name Ryan’s book, which I already had, but produces no evidence or Whitewash page. But today’s his “we deny genocide too” day. So does that mean Windschuttle’s right? Not likely, tomorrows another day. And anyway, until we read the UN charter we couldn't possibly understand.

Garra - why so convinced that diseases (e.g. influenza that killed those not immune and VD that rendered women infertile) couldn’t wipe out thousands of Tasmanians (probably two rather than five)? There’s nothing “unprecedented” about it, disease devastated all colonies, and the more isolated the worse the devastation. The Tasmanians were the most isolated people on earth. Why is Garra so convinced (without evidence) that thousands were killed by white murderers while all other colonists conspired silence?

Garra next demonstrates a favourite fallacy of the genocide brigade: equivocation (see p234). When asked for evidence of genocide they switch to a definition that doesn’t require any intent to kill, or even any deaths, just loss of language and customs. Then, having proved “genocide”, they throw the word around in contexts where everyone understands it to mean mass slaughter. This is not only grossly unjust towards the colonists, but (as Sayeret’s post demonstrates) gravely unjust towards the victims of real genocide.

Garra wants me to elucidate my motives. I’m sick of watching the craven injustice and supercilious ad hominem by academics such as Moses being hailed as scholarship. Academics once held the search for the objective truth as their sacred trust. The New Humanities academics don’t even believe there is such a thing.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

Bozzie Whatever you reckon. You may have no imagination but I do and it works for me. The most 'intelligent' people, for example physicists, have to have very fertile imaginations as well as the ability to reason logically, rationally and dispationately. Try doing that in relation to this issue.

What is your motive for wanting to defend white colonists?

Somebody else believes that they know and can recongnise good 'scholarship' and suggests that the idea that truth cannot be objectively known is restricted to Arts and Humanities faculties. I have to inform you that the idea is also known and accepted in Science Faculties. It is the only rational way to understand the world around us. Do some reading in this area also.

Why is the other side of this debate (Moses, Garra, now Mollydukes) so focussed on motives? What does it matter what my motive is? The issue is, am I right or wrong, and the answer is determined by evidence and logic, not by my motives.

But since Mollydukes asks, I’m not primarily defending the colonists, but truth. That leads me to defend the colonists because they have been unjustly maligned for crimes they did not commit. What’s your motive for maligning them Garra and Mollydukes?

Mollydukes says that “the only rational way to understand the world” is to understand “that the truth cannot be objectively known” – she knows this to be true.

But how can she know it to be true if “truth cannot be objectively known”? Does she “know” it subjectively? That means, not from the “world around us” but from inside her own mind (with or without a trigger from outside)? Why then need the rest of us be concerned about it? We may know subjectively the opposite is true for us from inside our own minds! So what do we do when our ideas clash? We can’t point to evidence “out there” to resolve the issue, so it comes down to how well we can manipulate and intimidate – is it any wonder the academics are so obsessed with “power and privilege”, they think it determines the “scholarly consensus” which determines their tribal “truth”.

When not engaged in ad hominem (such as applying insidious motivations) the academics are likely to be engaged in Argumentum ad Verecundiam, (the “appeal to reverence”). This fallacy assumes that the status of those who believe an idea determines its truth. Notice how, whenever they get stuck, they declare that we must “do some reading” to become as enducated as them.

If they’re so well read, they should be able to explain to us their enlightened ideas, or give us a reference where to find evidence. But simply claiming that because they’ve read something we haven’t that makes them right is, (to put it politely), a fallacious aproach.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

John and others: I don't think Dirk was taking the high ground and appealing to escoretic knowledge. He was saying, look, this debate is being conducted in an information vacuum. There is a brand new book out there on genocide that includes chapters by Reynolds, Manne, Haebich, Evans, McGregor and others and that's where you'll find answers to the questions raised here.

I'm not surprised he left the thread -- the subsequent posting bear out his exasperation at the points-scoring and pedantic nature of the discussion. We are rehashing old issues.

No-one seems interested in Lemkin, either. Pity. He says something about the relationship between genocide and colonialism on the first page of the link I posted. Is anyone interested in learning something here?

Dump Hux – Whatever Raphael Lemkin meant when he coined the term over 60 years ago bears no relation to what it means now. The word literally means, “race killing”, and it is in that context that the word is used today.

When settler treatment of Aboriginals is discussed, the focus on their loss of culture is quite distinct from the discussion of their “genocide”.

Since Dirk has taken his bat and ball and gone home I can’t ask him so I’ll have to ask you Dump Hux; what makes you believe that this thread has been conducted in an information vacuum? People can only respond to the information available. I’ve read quite a bit on white impact on Aboriginal society, and on Aboriginal society in general, over the last 20 years or so, and every other post here has a relevant point of view to express. You could hardly describe John Dawson as having scant knowledge of the subject.

Mollydukes – what are you talking about? We’re talking about the study of history here, not short story writing. History is, (or should be), non-fiction. It deals in facts, or at least the logical, rational, and unbiased interpretation of events and evidence to arrive at what can reasonably be believed to be the facts. Your political views or the application of a fertile imagination to ignore, twist or deliberately misinterpret facts should not be a factor. David Irving probably “imagines” that the Holocaust did not take place. According to your logic, he is right.

Mollydukes, my observation is that when a scientist says that the truth about a particular thing cannot be objectively known, that in itself is an objective statement. I suspect that most scientists would take you to task on your comments.

I was right; this is indeed all taking place in an information vacuum. Your statement, Bozzie, on Lemkin says it all. According to international law, genocide is not just race murder. What makes you a greater authority? And why did you want Dirk to stick around to educate us when you've clearly made up your mind about everything already? Why do you stick to Windschuttle as reliable and non-ideological when Moses and Bonnell showed pretty clearly that he had totally perverted the facts of the Negri case and Moses book? And why do you think Dawson is an authority? On his own admission, he's simply compared Windschuttle's and Manne's book and drawn his own conclusions. That's not scholarshp; that's a hatchet job performed in the name of his mate and publisher, Keith Windschuttle. How can we take this seriously? You keep revisiting boring issues with Mollydukes. I see that you did this with the Bonnell article. In your hands, this forum has become a site of very low-brow intellectual w-nkery. Note that no-one else bothers to post anything any longer. What's the point?