History Main / AppealToIgnorance

:: The claim that a statement is true because it has not been proven false, or that a statement is false because it has not been proven to be true. Famously refuted by CarlSagan with the statement, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Based on shifting the burden of proof onto whichever side of the argument you want to lose. If something can not be proven either way, just act like the opinion opposite of yours is inherently sillier, and you can assert that your position must be assumed correct until someone from the other side can prove you wrong. Usually involves an appeal to ''one's own'' authority and[=/=]or Burden of Proof Fallacy, and is essentially a claim of personal omniscience; if the arguer cannot imagine a way for something to have happened, it is clearly impossible.

* The 'Devil's Proof' was a favorite of Battler's early in ''VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi''. Until Knox's 8th was declared, Beatrice had to knock these down individually, though she once used Hempel's Raven to turn the burden of proof back to Battler eighteen-fold.

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* The 'Devil's Proof' was a favorite of Battler's early in VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi. Until Knox's 8th was declared, Beatrice had to knock these down individually, though she once used Hempel's Raven to turn the burden of proof back to Battler eighteen-fold.

:: The claim that a statement is true because it has not been proven false, or that a statement is false because it has not been proven to be true. Famously refuted by CarlSagan with the statement, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Based on shifting the burden of proof onto whichever side of the argument you want to lose. If something can not be proven either way, just act like the opinion opposite of yours is inherently sillier, and you can assert that your position must be assumed correct until someone from the other side can prove you wrong. Usually involves an appeal to ''one's own'' authority and[=/=]or Burden of Proof Fallacy, and is essentially a claim of personal omnipotence; if the arguer cannot imagine a way for something to have happened, it is clearly impossible.

** It was lated explained to him that we DO know what causes the tides (the moon's gravity) making O'Reilly retract the tide statement... only to apply the same argument to the moon. Just for the record, we also have a pretty good idea why the moon is up there too.
* O'Reilly's lunar argument above is simply a variation of another version of this trope: the God of the Gaps argument. It basically boils down to: "We don't know how 'Thing X' got here or how it works, Q.E.D, God." For instance, if one asks "how does the sun orbit the earth", and the atheist does not know...on and on and on. Of course, one day there will likely be no more gaps for God to populate, and the argument is logically untenable even if there were. This argument was first identified and comprehensively disproved by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a ''Christian theologian'' later executed by the Nazis, who pointed out that even if there is a gap in mankind's knowledge, the theist who says that "oh, so it must have been God" has no logical or factual basis for that decision.

* The 'Devil's Proof' is a favorite of the witches in VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* One of the most famous examples of this in politics is the United States right wing's denial of global warming. Whenever confronted by this topic, they usually tend to deny its existence by [[WeaselWords saying that only ''most'' scientists support this view, or that scientists say that global warming ''isn't'' totally proven.]] The notoriety has begun to die down recently, but their views are unlikely to have changed.
** Same goes for Evolution.
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:: The claim that a statement is true because it has not been proven false, or that a statement is false because it has not been proven to be true. Famously refuted by CarlSagan with the statement, "[[AbsenceOfEvidence Absence of evidence]] is not evidence of absence." Based on shifting the burden of proof onto whichever side of the argument you want to lose. If something can not be proven either way, just act like the opinion opposite of yours is inherently sillier, and you can assert that your position must be assumed correct until someone from the other side can prove you wrong. Usually involves an appeal to ''one's own'' authority and[=/=]or Burden of Proof Fallacy, and is essentially a claim of personal omnipotence; if the arguer cannot imagine a way for something to have happened, it is clearly impossible.

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'''[[AC:VisualNovel]]:'''
* The 'Devil's Proof' is a favorite of the witches in VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi.

* The 'Devil's Proof' is a favorite of the witches in UminekoNoNakuKoroNi.

* The popular argument "you cannot prove X does not exist, so it does" is the typical case. X can be {{God}}, aliens, [[GovernmentConspiracy a huge government conspiracy]], unicorns, whatever. It's more common with arguments that are harder to prove, one way or the other.

* The popular argument "you cannot prove X does not exist, so it does" is the typical case. X can be God, aliens, a huge government conspiracy, unicorns. It's more common with arguments that are harder to prove, one way or the other.

* The popular argument "you cannot prove X does not exist, so it does" is the typical case. X can be God, aliens, a huge government conspiracy, unicorns. It's more common with arguments that are harder to prove, one way or the other.

:: The claim that a statement is true because it has not been proven false, or that a statement is false because it has not been proven to be true. Famously refuted by Carl Sagan with the statement, "[[AbsenceOfEvidence Absence of evidence]] is not evidence of absence." Based on shifting the burden of proof onto whichever side of the argument you want to lose. If something can not be proven either way, just act like the opinion opposite of yours is inherently sillier, and you can assert that your position must be assumed correct until someone from the other side can prove you wrong. Usually involves an appeal to ''one's own'' authority and[=/=]or Burden of Proof Fallacy, and is essentially a claim of personal omnipotence; if the arguer cannot imagine a way for something to have happened, it is clearly impossible.

* To write out arguments from opposite sides using this to show the problem: "You can't prove that my argument is wrong, so I'm right." versus "You can't prove that your argument is right, so you're wrong and I'm right." This ties in very neatly with the ChewbaccaDefense; see particularly the example from ''ThankYouForSmoking''.

* The popular argument "you cannot prove X does not exist, so it does" is the typical case. X can be God, aliens, a huge government conspiracy, unicorns. It's more common with arguments that are harder to prove, one way or the other.
** A popular response to that argument is the argument "X is too silly to exist, so it does not". This can lead to long games of burden-of-proof badminton. A better one is "you can't prove X exists, so it doesn't". Not because it's a good argument - it's a ''terrible'' argument - but because it's fundamentally the ''same'' argument except with the opposite conclusion, so hopefully you can at least get the other person to recognize that both arguments suck equally.

** A popular reponse to that argument is the argument "X is too silly to exist, so it does not". This can lead to long games of burden-of-proof badminton.

* The popular argument "you cannot prove X does not exist, so it does" is the typical case. X can be God, aliens, a huge government conspiracy, unicorns. It's more common with arguments that are harder to prove, one way or the other.

* The popular argument "you cannot prove X does not exist, so it does" is the typical case. X can be God, aliens, a huge government conspiracy, unicorns. It's more common with arguments that are harder to prove, one way or the other.
** Of course the reverse is also true. A person making the argument "you cannot prove X exists, therefore it does not" has also committed this fallacy. Refer to the Carl Sagan quote above. The fact that no evidence exists in support of a given argument ''weakens'' said argument, but it does not automatically prove that argument false. The evidence may be undetectable by current methods[[hottip:*:(i.e. The apparent lack of certain fossilized organisms in pre-silurian rock was cited by Charles Darwin himself as a major problem for his then-fledgling Theory of Evolution, but modern science has revealed that those organisms were always there, they were just too small for the primitive microscopes of Darwin's day to detect)]], or it may not have been recognized as relevant[[hottip:*:(i.e. during the 1854 cholera outbreak in Soho, London, it wasn't until the physician John Snow noticed that all the infected households got their water from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Street_pump#Broad_Street_pump a certain pump]] and the outbreak was traced back to contaminated water that the miasma theory was disproved with respect to cholera)]]. Or the person making the AppealToIgnorance argument may simply be unwilling to accept the evidence.

* The popular argument "you cannot prove X does not exist, so it does" is the typical case. X can be God, aliens, a huge government conspiracy, unicorns. It's more common with arguments that are harder to prove, one way or the other.

* The popular argument "you cannot prove X does not exist, so it does" is the typical case. X can be God, aliens, a huge government conspiracy, unicorns.

:: Claiming to have proven that a statement is true (or false) when all that has actually been proven is that it is not known to be false. Famously refuted by Carl Sagan with the statement, "[[AbsenceOfEvidence Absence of evidence]] is not evidence of absence." Based on shifting the burden of proof onto whichever side of the argument you want to lose. If something can not be proven either way, just act like the opinion opposite of yours is inherently sillier, and you can assert that your position must be assumed correct until someone from the other side can prove you wrong. Usually involves an appeal to ''one's own'' authority and[=/=]or Burden of Proof Fallacy, and is essentially a claim of personal omnipotence; if the arguer cannot imagine a way for something to have happened, it is clearly impossible.

* To write out arguments from opposite sides using this to show the problem: "You can't prove that my argument is wrong, so I'm right." versus "You can't prove that your argument is right, so you're wrong and I'm right."

:: Claiming to have proven that a statement is true (or false) when all that has actually been proven is that it is not known to be false. Famously refuted by Carl Sagan with the statement, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Based on shifting the burden of proof onto whichever side of the argument you want to lose. If something can not be proven either way, just act like the opinion opposite of yours is inherently sillier, and you can assert that your position must be assumed correct until someone from the other side can prove you wrong. Usually involves an appeal to ''one's own'' authority and[=/=]or Burden of Proof Fallacy, and is essentially a claim of personal omnipotence; if the arguer cannot imagine a way for something to have happened, it is clearly impossible.