In defense of history's worst: Osama Bin Laden is innocent (Part 1)

It has been a great debate. Looking forward to seeing the others in the series. Broken vase I don’t really need to respond to anything here, because this wasn’t an argument. His objections don’t touch on the main idea anyway. He claims something like a cat could have knocked over the vase. This is trivial as this isn’t the original analogy in question. Which makes it a red herring. Pro also says “Con does not only have to demonstrate that "it is reasonable to think Osama broke that vase", Con has to demonstrate there is a lack of reasonable doubt.” The two are tautological. If you demonstrate x is a reasonable theory, it follows there is no reasonable doubt against that theory. If there is a reasonable doubt, then it is clearly degraded to a neutral theory that has an equal probability of being true or false or leaning towards false. 9/11 and Other Crimes I’m not sure about the relevance of mentioning the existence of God or the truthfulness of the bible. Occam’s razor has been used in those discussions, but it is not solely used for that purpose. Likelihood and the reasonableness of something is innately linked. To negate that view is to take a highly indefensible position bearing many absurdities. It is not reasonable to believe in an unlikely theory. If there is a reasonable doubt in a theory, its likelihood will be reduced to 50/50 or leaning towards it being false. How can you have a reasonable doubt without having any effect on the likelihood? In order for 911 conspiracy theories to have equal or more standing than the mainstream view, they would have to be just as parsimonious as the mainstream view. Which is clearly false. Positing a big secret hoax is not as parsimonious as the mainstream view. This extends into the other crimes section. As his main criticism in this section is the same. However, he repeats his claim that Bin Laden being there would have somehow made him innocent. He ignored what I wrote about that in the previous round and never explained how this would be the case. He then talked about the presumption of innocence. I do agree that the presumption of innocence should be used, but we are dealing with inductive reasoning. In order for us to know for certain that Osama committed the crime, it would have to be deductively true, but the claim is not a deductive one [1][2]. The only way to prove someone is guilty is to show the best explanation available with the current evidence demonstrates that the person is likely guilty. Pro’s conception of what the presumption of innocence means is unworkable. Pro concedes that his other rebuttals in R2 are fallacious. He also says bias isn’t just a left wing, right wing thing. This is a strawman, as I never claimed that. This also irrelevant, since his attack on the baisness of The Guardian came from it being a left wing paper [3]. Pro’s evidence and Al-Qaeda Pro mostly doesn’t make any arguments of his own here. He just links us to other people making arguments. I will cite websites rebutting Pro since that’s all I can do, but that is not a debate, it’s just trading links. Furthermore, Pro has used the debate tactic of spreading, most commonly known as the Gish Gallop [4][5]. Pro cites 7 videos, one of them is an hour and a half long. I counted a combined total of 2.3 hours and this is a low estimate because I only counted the minutes, not the seconds. There is no way I can rebut more than 2.3 hours worth of information under 8,000 characters. There have been entire websites formed around the claims in those videos. Fox news isn’t just one person, Fox hosts a variety of TV personalities. Napolitano is just one person on Fox. So, the claim that Fox revealed 911 was a hoax, isn’t entirely accurate. Nonetheless, demolition theories have been debunked many times [6][7]. The claims of Al-Qaeda’s nonexistence have also been refuted [8]. The only statement Pro made that can count as an argument is this “Top Bin Laden expert has also claimed the confession to be of a clearly overweight and imposter Bin Laden” The website referenced is this one. http://www.mujca.com... I have found no evidence of Bruce Lawrence making these claims, however I have found evidence of that this is an entirely fabricated story. Mike Williams writes [9] “.....there are a few points about this story that you might like to keep in mind. We're not entirely sure why Lawrence is referred to here as "Top U.S. Bin Laden Expert", other than to try and make the story more convincing. We've not seen anyone else make that claim about him. And while he edited a book of bin Laden's speeches, the cover, author biography and introduction make no mention of any special expertise on the man. The introduction to Lawrence's "Messages to the World" does contain other useful comments, though: ...Three years later, al Qaeda activists hijacked four planes in the United States and in suicide missions destroyed the World Trade Center, and severely damaged the Pentagon, killing 3,000 people, most of them Americans. It was not until 2004 that bin Laden publicly acknowledged his role in planning and organizing the attacks of 9/11 (Statement 23), but from the start few doubted that he was the author of this epochal act of terrorism. The Bush Administration's response was not long in coming… [10] When he wrote this book Professor Lawrence seemed in no doubt that al Qaeda were responsible for 9/11, then. And his book actually includes the October 2004 bin Laden statement that Lawrence says claims "direct responsibility for 9/11", with lines like "as I looked at those destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the oppressor in kind by destroying towers in America, so that it would have a taste of its own medicine. and would be prevented from killing our women and children." If Lawrence believes that al Qaeda were behind the 9/11 attacks, then, and that a legitimate 2004 bin Laden statement claimed responsibility for this, then his comments on the 2001 video don't seem nearly as significant as the original story made out.” Pro’s claim here is unjustified Conclusion Pro conceded that most of his second round is fallacious. Pro also misconstrues the link between probability, reasonability and Occam’s razor. His evidence come from the fringe debunked 911 truther movement coupled with the Gish Gallop. I have indeed provided evidence that Osama Bin Laden is guilty and provided evidence against the highly complex and fringe 911 truther position. My arguments remain standing, whereas Pro’s fall faster than free fall. [1] http://www.csun.edu... [2] http://plato.stanford.edu... [3] http://rationalwiki.org... [4] http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu... [5] http://rationalwiki.org... [6] https://sites.google.com... [7] http://www.debunking911.com... [8] http://www.911myths.com... [9] http://www.911myths.com... [10] http://goo.gl...