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Peter Novick: "No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate."

 

Norman Finkelstein

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Peter Novick: “Finkelstein’s book is trash.”

 

Norman Finkelstein

 

This is how Tam Dalyell is feeling -- about the Belgrano, about Westland, the miners' strike, Libya, GCHQ, Zircon, the Peter Wright affair... this book is really just a cry of rage: "I was right -- surely you can see -- look, here is the evidence -- let's go through it all carefully again -- how can anyone disagree..?" But the thrust of the book, and the detailed evidence assembled, are for the most part familiar. Writing it all up, again, and publishing it in this way, is just one more try at persuading somebody (I don't think Mr Dalyell is quite sure whom) to say: "Yes, Tam, you were right. Off with Maggie's head!" How he loathes Mrs Thatcher. She is variously called pig-headed, a fishwife, and a mass murderess as the story proceeds. This element of personal vendetta seriously weakens his case because -- for all that he rests it upon alleged facts -- his gravest charges rely upon his imputing to her the worst imaginable motives consistent with those facts. One has to say -- without denying that his allegations of facts need answering -- that there is a certain sleight-of-hand here.

 

Tam Dalyell

 

What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

 

Robert A. Heinlein

 

The Word takes to Himself one man, for He takes unity. He does not take schisms to Himself, nor does He take heresies. ... So it is one man who is taken, and his Head is Christ. ... This is that "blessed man who hath not walked in the council of the ungodly" (Ps. 1:1); this is he that is assumed. He is not outside of us. ... Let us be in Him, and we shall be assumed; let us be in Him, and we shall be chosen. ... Therefore this one man that is taken to become the temple of God, is at once many and one..

 

Augustine of Hippo

 

[On Empiricism] It is evident, on the basis of our considerations, that this appearance of success cannot in the least be regarded as a sign of truth and correspondence with nature. Quite the contrary, suspicion arises that the absence of major difficulties is a result of the decrease of empirical content brought about by the elimination of alternatives, and of facts that can be discovered with their help. In other words, the suspicion arises that this alleged success is due to the fact that the theory, when extended beyond its starting point, was turned into rigid ideology. Such Ideology is "successful" not because it agrees so well with the facts; it is successful because no facts have been specified that could constitute a test, and because some such facts have been removed. Its "success" is entirely man-made. It was decided to stick to some ideas, come what may, and the result was, quite naturally, the survival of these ideas. If now the initial decision is forgotten, or made only implicitly, for example, if it becomes common law in physics, then the survival itself will seem to constitute independent support., it will reinforce the decision, or turn it into an explicate one, and in this way close the circle. This is how empirical "evidence" may be created by a procedure which quotes as its justification the very same evidence it has Produced.

 

Paul Karl Feyerabend