Question

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Jason Mathias

Can moving the goal post fallacies make any claim an unfalsifiablility fallacy?

For example. 

Presidential nominee X officially won. 

Presidential nominee Y officially lost. 

Nominee Y claims the election was a fraud and stolen. 

Yet, no matter how many audits, court rulings and refuted arguments show that nominee X won, nominee Y and his base keep moving the goal post until eventually further audit requests and arguments are rejected and ignored and then using that rejection as more evidence the elections were stolen.

Now, election results I would think are falsifiable since all you need to do is count the ballots. So, their claims of the election being stolen should be a falsifiable claim. But, since there is nothing that would convince these people nominee Y lost, does that then make their claim unfalsifiable? 

Help me to understand this.  

asked on Sunday, Aug 15, 2021 11:40:00 AM by Jason Mathias

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Answers

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Bo Bennett, PhD
5

Let's use an extreme to explore this question. Can we falsify the claim that the earth is flat? Yes, we can. Within dozens of scientific and academic disciplines, there are ways to falsify claims of a flat earth. Yet flat earthers will continue to either reject reality and facts often by committing the conspiracy theory fallacy. This doesn't mean that the claim is unfalsifiable; it just means some people don't accept facts.

What is going on with the US election is no different.

answered on Sunday, Aug 15, 2021 12:53:15 PM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:

Yep. It's a falsifiable claim initially ("election was fraudulent") but the proponents simply refuse to accept the falsification.

posted on Monday, Aug 16, 2021 05:12:28 AM
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Dr. Richard
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This question is pure biased politics, as I see it. For one thing, the only audits, as distinct from recounts, are not yet completed. If the ballot box is stuffed, it matters not how many times you recount. However, when you do an audit you separate the valid from the invalid votes. Stalin was right when he said in an election it is not the voters who count, it is who counts the votes.

As to court rulings, in every case I followed by actually reading the pleadings and the court rulings instead of letting the media tell me what the courts ruled, none have been on the merits. Judges, being the political animals they are, have avoided the merits by saying the litigants lack standing. 

As to the logical issue, if any there be in what is presented here, it is the use of false premises to arrive at a false conclusion. 

answered on Monday, Aug 16, 2021 10:01:42 AM by Dr. Richard

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Arlo
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I guess we need to share a common understanding of "falsifiable" in order to be able to reach a conclusion we can all accept.  If we don't, we're into the realm of  equivocation where a term is open to multiple understandings of meanings leading to different interpretations.

If by "falsifiable" we mean able to demonstrate using generally accepted evidence that something is wrong, then re-counting the available ballots might do it.  If by "falsifiable" we mean providing evidence that I'm prepared to accept and that supports my understanding of reality ... well, it's a more difficult task.

In the election example, the "re-count" process would need to demonstrate things like: all original ballots having been retained, that no new ballots were added, that determination of spoiled or non-acceptable ballots remained consistent and correct, and that the re-counts were the same as the original ones.  (Those criteria were the ones that came to mind for me quickly).  

Of course, if some other person thinks of an additional criterion that wasn't in my list, it would need to be confirmed before that other person would accept the evidence even though I might accept the evidence based on my list.  

Then, of course, there are always the highly unlikely situations – like imposters transporting ballots to central counting areas and disposing of certain ballots before they get to the counting table so that the original count was incorrect and that subsequent re-counts would confirm the same incorrect number because the missing ballots remain missing.  

While it's NOT a straw man, it seems that there will always be straws at which one can grab!

answered on Monday, Aug 16, 2021 10:31:28 AM by Arlo

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Arlo
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There's simply no fallacy with what they are arguing, as it's more of an inductive claim to "evidence", and equivocated definitions of what "evidence" is. 

It's the same for any kind truth claim, and the general public's complete ignorance pertaining to our electoral process, and the winning candidate , and his party, were able to exploit that, and it was apparently legally.

It's a very long topic, but the claim "Joe Biden received more votes than Donald Trump, as opposed to just more ballots" is an unfalsfiable claim, as is the claim "Joe Biden lost the election". I think it's very doubtful that Trump won the popular vote nation wide, but I also think it's very doubtful that Biden won States like Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania legitimately. Those are just my OPINIONS,  based on ballot dumps that I watched occur and the fact they sued to get all the laws changed on an emergency basis in the States they needed to win.

The nature of an  anonymous  ballot system, for better or worse, once the ballot is in the box, any real chance to discover cheating is over. The President's party was extremely aware of how the system works.  This isn't like tax audit, where names, social security numbers and bank account numbers are used. An "audit" of an anonymous ballot system will do nothing more than look for statistical patterns such as single candidate voting occurring in county X at a 120% rate higher than the average of all other counties. According to the courts and the MSM, this is not "evidence" of anything, but it is exactly what we'd expect of something was going on.

This system of no IDs, ballots floating around in the hands of special interest groups (aka ballot harvesting) worked very well for Joe Biden, and works very well for Democrats, which is why they have sued in federal and State court and cried about "racism" every time voter id laws are passed. 

In short, the way our system works now, with anonymous voting, once a ballot is in the box with thousands of others, it's game over. Anonymous ballot systems are good if you don't want to live in a country where the ruling Bath Party shows up to your door if you voted the wrong way, but a strong system of security has always been the foundation of our anonymous system.

What happened deligitimized the election in the minds of maybe half of Americans, and rightfully so. I do not trust the results whatsoever. This kind of nonsense is what lures so many millions into conspiracy theories of every kind now a days, because they don't know who or what to trust.

Either way, States and the Supreme Court will finally settle this now that they've seen what just happened. It worked for Biden this time, so kudos to him, but it really sank the legitimization of our electoral system.

Good question and fascinating topic!

answered on Monday, Aug 16, 2021 01:42:02 PM by Arlo

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