This is from a newsgroup post titled Subject: Stupid Skeptic Tricks.

Here are some tricks and ploys used by skeptics to derail debate, debunk theories, and dismiss you out of hand. I'm sure most folks here will recognize a lot of them -- I sure do. Enjoy. ;)

1.) RAISING THE BAR (Or IMPOSSIBLE PERFECTION):
This trick consists of demanding a new, higher and more difficult standard of evidence whenever it looks as if a skeptic's opponent is going to satisfy an old one. Often the skeptic doesn't make it clear exactly what the standards are in the first place. This can be especially effective if the skeptic can keep his opponent from noticing that he is continually changing his standard of evidence. That way, his opponent will eventually give up in exasperation or disgust. Perhaps best of all, if his opponent complains, the skeptic can tag him as a whiner or a sore loser.

Skeptic: I am willing to consider the psi hypothesis if you will only show me some sound evidence.
Opponent: There are many thousands of documented reports of incidents that seem to involve psi.
S: That is only anecdotal evidence. You must give me laboratory evidence.
0: Researchers A-Z have conducted experiments that produced results which favor the psi hypothesis.
S: Those experiments are not acceptable because of flaws X,Y and Z.
0: Researchers B-H and T-W have conducted experiments producing positive results which did not have flaws X,Y and Z.
S: The positive results are not far enough above chance levels to be truly interesting.
0: Researchers C-F and U-V produced results well above chance levels.
S: Their results were achieved through meta-analysis, which is a highly questionable technique.
O: Meta-analysis is a well-accepted method commonly used in psychology and sociology.
S: Psychology and sociology are social sciences, and their methods can't be considered as reliable as those of hard sciences such as physics and chemistry.

Etc., etc. ad nauseum.

2.) SOCK 'EM WITH OCCAM:
Skeptics frequently invoke Occam's Razor as if the Razor automatically validates their position. Occam's Razor, a principle of epistemology (knowledge theory), states that the simplest explanation which fits all the facts is to be preferred -- or, to state it another way, entities are not to be multiplied needlessly. The Razor is a useful and even necessary principle, but it is largely useless if the facts themselves are not generally agreed upon in the first place.

3.) EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS:
Extraordinary claims, says the skeptic, require extraordinary evidence. Superficially this seems reasonable enough. However, extraordinariness, like beauty, is very much in the eye of the beholder. Some claims, of course, would seem extraordinary to almost anyone (e.g. the claim that aliens from Alpha Centauri had contacted you telepathically and informed you that the people of Earth must make you their absolute lord and ruler). The "extraordinariness" of many other claims, however, is at best arguable, and it is not at all obvious that unusually strong evidence is necessary to support them. For example, so many people who would ordinarily be considered reliable witnesses have reported precognitive dreams that it becomes difficult to insist these are "unusual" claims requiring "unusual" evidence. Quite ordinary standards of evidence will do.

4.) STUPID, CRAZY LIARS:
This trick consists of simple slander. Anyone who reports anything which displeases the skeptic will be accused of incompetence, mental illness or dishonesty, or some combination of the three without a single shred of fact to support the accusations. When Charles Honorton's Ganzfeld experiments produced impressive results in favor of the psi hypothesis, skeptics accused him of suppressing or not publishing the results of failed experiments. No definite facts supporting the charge ever emerged. Moreover, the experiments were extremely time consuming, and the number of failed, unpublished experiments necessary to make the number of successful, published experiments significant would have been quite high, so it is extremely unlikely that Honorton's results could be due to selective reporting. Yet skeptics still sometimes repeat this accusation.

5.) THE SANTA CLAUS GAMBIT:
This trick consists of lumping moderate claims or propositions together with extreme ones. If you suggest, for example, that Sasquatch can't be completely ruled out from the available evidence, the skeptic will then facetiously suggest that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny can't be "completely" ruled out either.

6.) SHIFTING THE BURDEN OF EVIDENCE:
The skeptic insists that he doesn't have to provide evidence and arguments to support his side of the argument because he isn't asserting a claim, he is merely denying or doubting yours. His mistake consists of assuming that a negative claim (asserting that something doesn't exist) is fundamentally different from a positive claim. It isn't. Any definite claim, positive or negative, requires definite support. Merely refuting or arguing against an opponent's position is not enough to establish one's own position.. In other words, you can't win by default.

As arch-skeptic Carl Sagan himself said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If someone wants to rule out vistations by extra-terrestrial aliens, it would not be enough to point out that all the evidence presented so far is either seriously flawed or not very strong. It would be necessary to state definite reasons which would make ET visitations either impossible or highly unlikely. (He might, for example, point out that our best understanding of physics pretty much rules out any kind of effective faster-than-light drive.)

The only person exempt from providing definite support is the person who takes a strict "I don't know" position or the agnostic position. If someone takes the position that the evidence in favor of ET visitations is inadequate but goes no farther, he is exempt from further argument (provided, of course, he gives adequate reasons for rejecting the evidence). However, if he wants to go farther and insist that it is impossible or highly unlikely that ET's are visiting or have ever visited the Earth, it becomes necessary for him to provide definite reasons for his position. He is no longer entitled merely to argue against his opponent's position.

There is the question of honesty. Someone who claims to take the agnostic position but really takes the position of definite disbelief is, of course, misrepresenting his views. For example, a skeptic who insists that he merely believes the psi hypothesis is inadequately supported when in fact he believes that the human mind can only acquire information through the physical senses is simply not being honest.

7.) YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE:
The skeptic may insist that he is relieved of the burden of evidence and argument because "you can't prove a negative." But you most certainly can prove a negative! When we know one thing to be true, then we also know that whatever flatly contradicts it is untrue. If I want to show my cat's not in the bedroom, I can prove this by showing that my cat's in the kitchen or outside chasing squirrels. The negative has then been proven. Or the proposition that the cat is not in the bedroom could be proven by giving the bedroom a good search without finding the cat. The skeptic who says, "Of course I can't prove psi doesn't exist. I don't have to. You can't prove a negative," is simply wrong. To rule something out, definite reasons must be given for ruling it out.

Of course, for practical reasons it often isn't possible to gather the necessary information to prove or disprove a proposition, e.g., it isn't possible to search the entire universe to prove that no intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. This by itself doesn't mean that a case can't be made against the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, although it does probably mean that the case can't be as air-tight and conclusive as we would like.

8.) THE BIG LIE:
The skeptic knows that most people will not have the time or inclination to check every claim he makes, so he knows it's a fairly small risk to tell a whopper. He might, for example, insist that none of the laboratory evidence for psi stands up to close scrutiny, or he might insist there have been no cases of UFO's being spotted by reliable observers such as trained military personnel when in fact there are well-documented cases. The average person isn't going to scamper right down to the library to verify this, so the skeptic knows a lot of people are going to accept his statement at face value. This ploy works best when the Big Lie is repeated often and loudly in a confident tone.

9.) DOUBT CASTING:
This trick consists of dwelling on minor or trivial flaws in the evidence, or presenting speculations as to how the evidence might be flawed as though mere speculation is somehow as damning as actual facts. The assumption here is that any flaw, trivial or even merely speculative, is necessarily fatal and provides sufficient grounds for throwing out the evidence. The skeptic often justifies this with the "extraordinary evidence" ploy.

In the real world, of course, the evidence for anything is seldom 100% flawless and foolproof. It is almost always possible to find some small shortcoming which can be used as an excuse for tossing out the evidence. If a definite problem can't be found, then the skeptic may simply speculate as to how the evidence *might* be flawed and use his speculations as an excuse to discard the information. For example, the skeptic might point out that the safeguards or controls during one part of a psi experiment weren't quite as tight as they might have been and then insist, without any supporting facts, that the subject(s) and/or the researcher(s) probably cheated because this is the "simplest" explanation for the results (see "Sock 'em with Occam" and "Extraordinary Claims"; "Raising the Bar" is also relevant).

10.) THE SNEER:
This gimmick is an inversion of "Stupid, Crazy Liars." In "Stupid, Crazy Liars," the skeptic attacks the character of those advocationg certain ideas or presenting information in the hope of discrediting the information. In "THE SNEER," the skeptic attempts to attach a stigma to some idea or claim and implies that anyone advocating that position must have something terribly wrong with him. "Anyone who believes we've been visited by extraterresrial aliens must be a lunatic, a fool, or a con man. If you believe this, you must a maniac, a simpleton or a fraud." The object here is to scare others away from a certain position without having to discuss facts.

Bump

I like it

This should have a sticky on it.

Yes, this is a good article.
But it shows nothing else that skeptics and believers will never merge and form a uniform meaning on subjects such as 9/11.

Truthers will always fall for alternative views on things (Holocaust, Titanic, JFK, 9/11, Illumitai etc...)
Skeptics will allways fall into testing the truthers theories on every level possible

These are both very strong forces, but sadly the forces rarely treat each other with respect, and words like: Liar, Stupid, Retarded, ++... often come out allready in the first few posts of a disussion

yep

I see more of these tactics used by truthers than I do debunkers.

Additinally, your "you can't prove a negative" is wrong. By showing that the cat exists in another room, the proof of the negative is merely a by-product of proving a positive (the cat is in another room).
How about this negative: "Unicorns don't exist". How might you prove that negative?

@Roscoe and Headspin -- thanks. I do think it helps if we become aware of tactics used by folks who want to

• Simply up their post count
• Get attention they can't get elsewhere or
• Purposely misdirect threads or malign other posters

Agree, but we must also hold the possibilty that some are honest skeptics and have a difficult time handling the information, rather than deliberate wreckers and polluters which clearly exist, those wreckers become obvious over time anyway. your post is most useful.

Ok... I am an honest skeptic to the theories, but sometimes I just cannot bite my lip and sit on my hands when people are trying harder to shut me up than calmly explaining things or answering questions.
I have no interest in pissing you guys of for fun, I'd rather see the bottom of this case sooner than later, but google video and youtube or sites just picking elements from interviews and puting them togheter to form an image that fits the theory sadly doesn't tingle my truthbone, and punches are thrown ;)

Hi Goblin, haven't heard from you in a while.

Some time ago I thought we agreed the best thing to do was post your questions, singly, in their own threads, so we could examine what evidence there is to look at.

There is an awful lot of "stuff" out there, and some of it is likely unreal, but some of it may well hold up to scrutiny.

This thread is not the place for it, but if you've got a reasonable question why not start a post? I'll keep looking for it.

I've been busy with my wife and kid
The wheels keep turning you know, eh-eh...

I know, new questions, new thread. Hence the no question-marks in my post :)

Yes well you can recognise them instantly from the schills by the way they answer you.

Genuine skeptics will answer you with their own facts as they see them, they will not be afraid to put their case to you. Schills will totally ignore what you say, pick up a single point generally regarded as believed by all of the people who have not been too afraid to face the truth but not necessarily by the individual himself, and then come back with a question that is almost impossible to answer without guessing. The proven facts they totally side-step and try to make out they don't exist.

I'd just like to mention that my last post was on topic.

And this post bumps the thread back to the top

Elder- now now. Ive seen Truthers argue they dont have to prove anything, the Debunker has to prove he is wrong instead. We have also seen the "shill/agent/troll/liar" label thrown around ad nosaeum.

Maybe all the evidence, pro and con, should be given to a the Harvard, Yale, and Columbia debating teams, and let them do the debating.

Anyone who supports a move that costs a million lives, costs $3 trillion, lays waste two (maybe three) sovereign nations and blows the arms and legs off kids has to prove everything.

They have proven nothing. A fact.

And in some cases they don't even have evidence.

Still the schills have side stepped the awkward question regarding the identity of the aircraft that hit the buildings and whether it had any terrorists on board Arab, al Qaeda or otherwise.

Notice how we never get this one answered.

You believe that the terrorists were not on board?

What evidence would be required to falsify that belief?

What do you consider the proof to be that terrorists were on board those planes that crashed into the towers?

Some of the terrorists were seen by airport personel . These people such as Atta and Hanjour have not been seen since, They have not come forward To embarrass the US since 9/11. There is a lot of evidence that they were trained to learn to pilot the aircraft. Middle eastern hiojackers were reported by the stewardesses and passengers .People were reported as killed on the plane. The airplanes were seen on radar going to the world trade center. A stewardess reproted she was flying low over NYC seconds before the crash. A young man with his wife and child was talking to his father up until the time of the crash as the father watched the plane crash into the tower. Do you believe that man didn't know his sons voice or what flight his son was on?
There is a great deal of evidence but I suspect you are so wrapped up in your beliefs you will accept the conjoured up stories instead . Such as the calls were not legitimate , the people at the airport who saw them are in on it , the flight control perseonel who saw the planes on radar are either lying or somehow the radar was faked , etc

BTW Just because someone doesn't believe it was an inside job does not mean they support

That's exatly what I'm asking you. You are the one who doesn't believe it, what proof do you need?

Uh?

OK I think Bigfoot flew the plane. What proof do you need that this is incorrect?

I think the point went completely past you. Let's say you think that bigfoot flew the plane. Is it up to me to prove you wrong? Wouldn't you agree that it's up to you, the one making the extraordinary claim, to support it with evidence?

If you can't come up with evidence to support your claim, then it loses.

If bigfoot had been seen going through security at the airport , if the stewardesses had said bigfoot was hijacking the plane, if bigfoot had been enrolled in commercial flight schools , held a pilots license and if his rented car was found at the airport then i would be inclined to believe he was on the plane.

If bigfoot was not seen boarding the plane I would consider that to be enough evidence for me that bigfoot did not pilot the plane. After all he/she is bigfoot and would have been recognized.

The bigfoot belief is yours, not mine, therefore only YOU know what evidence would falsify your belief.

Based on the evidence, I know that your belief is incorrect....the key point here is....what evidence do YOU need in order to consider your bigfoot claim "proven wrong"?

The Islamic terrorist belief is yours, not mine, therefore only YOU know what evidence would falsify your belief.

Based on the evidence, I know that your belief is incorrect....the key point here is....what evidence do YOU need in order to consider your islamic terrorist claim "proven wrong"?

I'm glad you asked. To falsify my belief that islamic terrorists are responsible for the attacks, I would need:

- Proof that there were no islamic terrorists on the planes
- Proof that the people hijacking the planes were not islamic terrorists

Based on the evidence, I know that your inside job belief is incorrect....the key point here is....what evidence do YOU need in order to consider your inside job claim "proven wrong"?

- Proof that there were no islamic terrorists on the planes
- Proof that the people hijacking the planes were not islamic terrorists

Please prove to me that Bigfoot or Lord Lucan wasn't on the plane?

Would I have to first offer evidence that they were on the plane?

Bump

No witnesses reported seeing bigfoot at the airport, security, or on the plane. And no remains of a bigfoot-like creature were recovered.

What evidence do you have which would indicate that the planes were not hijacked by islamic terrorists?

No evidence that there were any islamic terrorists on the planes.

Please provide evidence that they were on those planes?





Grainy videos of unknown persons at Dulles airport does not answer this question.

Since when has Dulles Airport been either New York or Washington or the inside of a jet?

Please note the two question marks. You may think that by refusing to answer any of my questions and merely causing a response from me by continually asking me questions is making argument but can I just state that I'm not interested in convincing you I am merely taking this opportunity to preach to the casual reader and bumping this thread to the top everytime.

But there's copious evidence that the guys were on the plane. They were checked in by the airlines gate agents. Their names were on the flight manifests. Calls from victims on the planes described them and where they were sitting. DNA was found that didn't match any of the victims, but some could be determined to be from brothers. Also, DNA that didn't match the victims was matched to hairs found in the hotel rooms and rental cars used by the terrorists. The video from the security gates is the least of the evidence.

As I thought you've answered the completely wrong question.

I didn't ask if there are any fuzzy pictures at airports.

I didn't ask if the manifests had names of unknown people reported after the fact to be terrorists.

I didn't ask about hotel rooms cars or anything else.





I asked about the planes.
I require evidence that the planes that crashed into the towers were the very ones that have been reported.

There have been NO black Boxes found.

Let me repeat that because you people are so thick you have to ask this twice.

There have been no black boxes found.

You said yourself that the transponders were turned off so they couldn't be intercepted so how were they tracked in then? You can't have it both ways. There is no way of positively identifying those planes and this is a fact. So if you cannot identify the planes you cannot say that terrorists Arab or otherwise were onboard.

Therefore you have absolutely and utterly no evidence that the planes that crashed into the towers were the ones that have been reported by the FBI. Even the head of the FBI says that there is no chain of evidence.

So summing up.

You people have supported the attack on two sovereign nations, supported a government that has spent trillions of dollars and killed over a million people and blown the arms and legs off kids.

AND YOU HAVE NOT ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO JUSTIFY THIS ACTION.

Oh and as there will be yet more weasel words spouted in order to desperately try to get out of a question that you cannot answer.

What or who I think carried out the attacks will be answered by another independant investigation and inquiry. By raging against this proposal you are actively aiding and abetting murderers.

Do you have a problem with this?

As if the black boxes wouldn't be dismissed by you.

But you didn't ask about the planes - you asked about how we knew the islamic hijackers were on them.

Evidence for which planes crashed into the Towers? We have a phone call from a flight attendant, identifying that they were flying over the city at the exact moment that 11 was coming in. We have tens of thousands of witnesses to a United Airlines jet hitting WTC2. We have the fact that UAL and AA were missing those planes from their inventory, and haven't been seen since, and we have no other planes missing.

I think that these alone should be enough to convince any clear-thinking person. We also have some recovered peices that may have identification, such as the engine core, the landing gear/wheel, and the fuselage section from the rooftop (of WTC5?). I would bet that these have identifiable parts that would link them to those planes, but I don't think that has been published publicly. What would be the point? No sane person doubts that we know what planes hit the towers.

I asked if you have evidence that there were Islamic Terrorists on those planes that crashed into the towers.

You don't know what planes crashed into the towers.

Therefore you have no evidence that there were Islamic Terrorists on board.

End of Story.

Did Ms Ong know what plane she was on?
Did Peter Hanson who was talking to his father when the plane crashed into the tower know what plane he was on?

Sure I do:

AA flight 11 and AA Flight 175 were the 2 planes which crashed into the towers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks

In order to identify a plane that has crashed, the NTSB gathers plane debris and matches serial numbers on the plane's parts to the flight number it was assigned.

In order to unequivocally state that Flights 11 and 175 crashed into the towers, we shall need to see this ID number matchup.

If this information is available, I'd love to see it. Can you provide it? A simple Yes or No will suffice.

Thank you.

Would you like me to link you to the NTSB reports?

The NTSB doesn't need a piece of the plane to issue a report. I have read NTSB reports which have been issued for aircraft which have never been found.

The reality is that all commercial aircraft must file a flightplan with the FAA. At the end of the day, if everyone else is back on the ground and accounted for except for Flight 11 and 175, guess what that means?

I'd like to see you back up this assertion. I can see that if there were two planes crashed into the same spot, they might do this to figure out which pieces belonged to which plane. But as a matter of routine? Cite, please?

Ms. Ong was supposedly on Flight 11. which supposedly hit the first Tower. We can hear maybe 2-3 minutes of her on line with United Reservations. She claims the first flight attendant and one other have been stabbed and that there's some gas in the air preventing them from staying in the first class cabin area. She also states that the cockpit won't answer its phone and the cockpit door cannot be opened. She also states that the passengers from first class have moved into coach. That's all.

Peter Hanson was supposedly on Flight 93, which did NOT crash into a tower.

There are a lot of questions about the phone calls, among which the fact that we have not yet seen phone records substantiating them.

The full transcripts and audio from the phone calls from the affected flights have not been released. The portions that have been released happened quite a bit after the fact.

The CVR from both 11 and 175 were never (supposedly) recovered. (This fact is disputed.) Regardless, we have not heard any information on either of them.

If you read the transcript from the as-yet unreleased CVR of flight 93, most entries are unintelligible except for some awkard phrasings about Allah the glorious.

This information didn't come out until the Moussaoui trial last year. That gives someone a very long time to manipulate the tape.

Yes please. For flights 11, 175, 93 and 77. That would be great.