Very interesting post, I would have loved to have taken this course, if only to write a an essay giving an unequivocal "Yes" to this question.
It would have been great if he hadn't placed all the emphasis on the Holocaust but also discussed two other well-known, widely believed denials: one scientific ("Americans didn't land on the moon") and one very recent ("9/11 was actually planned by the US government").
What shouldn't be heard? For example, should reincarnation be heard? What about telekenesis or other psychic abilities? What about more off the wall things like murder is justifiable if you don't get caught? Or that cheating is actually a good thing if you can pin the fallout on someone unsuspecting? Or that most Blacks are werewolves who need to be staked in the heart for the sake of the world? Or that WWII never happened, but was invented by Marvel comics to sell Captain America? Or that Santa Claus is not only real, but its he who delivers the babies, since he killed all the storks?
At what point do we say, that point of view has so little evidence that hearing it is a waste of time, given time is a limited resource?
I skimmed the study in question. There are no obvious methodological flaws, and by the standards of psychological publishing, it was worthy of publication. It's my opinion that ALL students of psychology should read it critically, and understand why it doesn't prove that psychic abilities are real. (Then they should apply that same skepticism to the rest of psychology research.) It's a great exercise, just like doing easy integrals, or spotting flaws in proofs that 1 == 2.
But that article could be about virtually anything. Articles about things that are untrue, where methodology is wrong, can be substituted for anything and prove those things are true too (like how you can prove anything mathematically if you start with one incorrect premise).
I do agree that we should study how poor science is done. But there's a difference between studying poor science, and actually spending time trying to figure out how one might actually be the next Airbender.
The answer to that question should be always "nothing!" You have chosen examples in jest, to show how some assertions are unbelievable/silly; but other assertions, that you or I might find almost as silly are taken seriously (or were taken so until recently), e.g. "Do blacks/women/(other stigmatized group) have equal intelligence as man?", "Should we kill/neuter people with serious psychological illness", "Should we perform lobotomies".
The problem that exists is that none of the issues are binary:
- "Yes allow it a voice" doesn't define what form that voice takes (taught as an alternative, and example of denial, etc.)
- Holocaust denier is a broad term that covers those who outright deny anyone died to those who question things like the scale, or the culprits/responsibility, or other facts.
- Some Holocaust denial is simply anti-Semitism in a new package, some of it is rather more genuine questioning of history
And then throw in the fact that overwhelming public opinion is that the holocaust did happen largely as recorded in mainstream history books and you have a situation where "Yes" isn't a very meaningful answer.
I guess that is the point of the paper; to reach that conclusion critically.
I wonder how much your response is born out of critical thinking, and how much it is born out of an ideal that people should not have their voices repressed just because they hold a view that is diametrically opposed to the mainstream. And if the latter is true (I don't wish to make assumptions :)) I wonder whether you would write an unequivocal yes after taking this course, it being apparently designed to address such attitude.
As I read it, the point of this post is to say "students are useless at critical thinking until taught it, and the way I do that is to introduce them to the idea of holocaust denial and force them to make their own critical assessment". Extending that to a general idea of teaching holocaust denial without the accompanying tutoring in critical thinking is another consideration entirely :)
I'm curious whether your "Yes" is because you yourself deny the holocaust or because you think that it is important to hear the other side of the story.
I will admit myself that while I don't actually believe it to be true, I often take the denial side of the "Americans landed on the moon" argument. It is always fun to challenge people on their long held beliefs and make them rationally defend their position.
I've never personally found the holocaust denying evidence to be at all worth parroting even for the benefit of theoretical discussion.
I often take the denial side of the "Americans landed on the moon" argument. It is always fun to challenge people on their long held beliefs and make them rationally defend their position.
Do people actually try to defend it, or just write you off?
If someone tells me they're a holocaust denier I'm not likely to try to prove it happened. The evidence exists if they cared to spend 5s looking. I'm much more likely to just say, "OK", and then avoid at all costs, since frankly I'm a little afraid to be around people with such beliefs -- since the belief that it didn't happen is also strongly associated with "and if it did, it would have been justified".
Some people definitely write me off. The key to engaging them is not coming off as if I believe it too much. Then they think that they can convince me. When I come off as either an asshole or a conspiracy nut then people just laugh it off.
I feel like its a good conversation starter and usually don't beat it into the dust. Ask people if they really think we could go to the moon in 1969, before we had personal computers or the internet and it at least makes them stop and think.
It is always fun to challenge people on their long held beliefs and make them rationally defend their position.
The view point that only one side needs to defend their position is not rational. At the same time you don't need to look at every piece of evidence. If you can't come up with 2 or 3 strong pieces of evidence to support your side and the other side can then you have lost.
I've never personally found the holocaust denying evidence to be at all worth parroting even for the benefit of theoretical discussion.
That's a stance a lot of intelligent people take. The result is that people who are bad at ‘critical thinking’ hear more nonsense than well thought out argument.
Short answer: Because it's important to hear the other side of the story.
However, I think it is important to elaborate on the reason why (also, the combination of overcast skies this morning, working on EC2 until late last night, and the fact that there's not much work to be done at the moment has induced a certain degree of drowsiness and desire to delve into such topics as this, rather than more C++).
Someone makes an assertion X. The question here is, how should we respond when someone claims ~X. I think the answer lies in how, if any, ~X affects our understanding of X.
If, X is an axiomatic claim, then hearing ~X may be interesting intellectually but would have no bearing on X. A well-known example, of course, is Euclid's fifth axiom. If someone declares that this is not correct, it has no effect whatsoever on Euclidean geometry. I view religious claims, such as "God exists," "God is all-benevolent", to also belong to this category.
Now, if X is a scientific statement (or theory), e.g. "no body with non-zero mass can travel faster than light in vacuum", the principle of bivalence applies (simplistically speaking), so X is either true or not. In this case, hearing ~X is not only important, but vital.
These two were the easy cases. Analysis of statements in other disciplines ("soft sciences", to use a slightly derogatory term) such as history, sociology, etc. is muddied by at least two factors: (i) There are many more factors that are hard to isolate and test in any setting, (ii) the concept of "truth" has been challenged in liberal arts as a condescending construct of dominant culture. In these cases hearing the argument for ~X may lead to a synthesis with X, whereupon you arrive at a "better", joint understanding, X'. So, again hearing ~X is important, but leads to a slightly different outcome than the scientific case (those who deny that each newer scientific theory gets closer to "truth", e.g. Kuhn, would not agree that there's a difference).
My totally subjective view is that, although all three are historic statements, "Americans landed on the moon" should be analyzed by the scientific approach Moon landing is a well-defined event and there are few factors to take into consideration that would make its detection difficult.
"US government was behind 9/11" is on the other end of the spectrum. The assertion is unbelievable (in fact, I find it ridiculous) but the many complexities of the situation and definition of terms (e.g. do you think US's activities in the Middle East precipitated the events, does that count as "was behind"?) would make one want to engage with proponents of these views, just to see if any important facet of the whole set of complex events is missed. I might learn and advance my understanding of the event from such discussions. (Sadly, this almost never happens, generally such people are politically motivated ideologues who parrot useless propagandist nuggets of falsehoods).
The interesting question is: where to place the Holocaust denial in this spectrum? Personally, I put it much closer to the moon landing argument than the 9/11 one.
This, however, by no means be the basis of making it illegal to voice such opinions, as it is in some European countries or censure them. My motto is simple: Everything should be discussable and analyzable, there should be no intellectual taboos whatsoever in a modern society.
It would have been great if he hadn't placed all the emphasis on the Holocaust but also discussed two other well-known, widely believed denials: one scientific ("Americans didn't land on the moon") and one very recent ("9/11 was actually planned by the US government").