I haven't read anything by Windschuttle. But Charles Clark famously declared that he was pushing "my kind of history", which was a poetic and spitually uplifting narrative in his opinion. Shortly before his death, he gave an interview about this topic, admitted he had fabricated many things, but believed his motive was sufficient excuse for doing so. You can equivocate all you want about inferring and complication, but he actually admitted it.
The "You're probably a [insert anything]!" is one of those pesky little logical fallacies intended to divert attention from the subject.
So don't read him. Call a meeting of the historian club and have him expelled. But, be prepared to find out Windschuttle, and all the other "real" historians committed grave faults, sins of omission, partial readings, because everybody does it.
I'm not trying to divert, I think you've missed a point. Clark was truthful about his craft. You somehow seem to think that everyone else has no faults? Am I misunderstanding and you realise all historians select, sample and therefore distort?
Maybe the central problem is knowing how much he made up.
> The "You're probably a [insert anything]!" is one of those pesky little logical fallacies intended to divert attention from the subject.
It's shaming language meant to shutdown a discussion so that the predetermined conclusion held by the shamer cannot be disputed.
"If you think $FOO you're probably a Nazi/wife-beater/misogynist" isn't meant to make you rethink your argument, it's meant to shut you up.
After all, what would be the point of calling a Nazi a Nazi? They already know what they are and don't care.
But calling a well-intentioned person a Nazi does make them pause, even if only for self-reflection, and does make them shut up, because they don't want to be a Nazi or to appear as one.
The "You're probably a [insert anything]!" is one of those pesky little logical fallacies intended to divert attention from the subject.