Too partial: Shifting The Burden Of Proof

Yeah, I got that, but imagine this:

How many other invisible things, worlds or universes, parallel or not, are out there? The answer is unknown. Not "Somewhat unknown", completely unknown. There might be infinite universes. There might be no other universes. We might only know about 0.000000000000000001% of existence.

I would obviously never refer to invisible unicorns with pink polka-dots on roller skates in a discussion, as that lacks any meaning, still, any speculation regarding their existence, considering they are, by definition, undetectable by our kind, would be an assumption lacking evidence.

If there are infinite universes out there, the probability of the existence of something, no matter how complex, is always unknown.

Forgive me if I speculate too much here and sound insane, but I prefer not to take any position regarding the existence of such things. I don't know will probably always seem like the best option for me.

edited 5th Aug '11 12:06:37 PM by Teraus

Anyway, the situation is very clear: the wikipedia article is more impartial and explains that the fallacy is the same for both the positive and negative side. The TV Tropes article greatly favors the negative side.

It also has factual errors: "This is a good demonstration of why the negative side doesn't bear the burden of proof; it is for all intents impossible to demonstrate something is absolutely incapable of happening."

No, it's not. Reductio ad Absurdum is a way to prove that something is not possible. Yes, the negative side DOES bear the burden of proof, too. Still, that doesn't make the positive side's claim to be any less fallacious.

edited 5th Aug '11 12:11:26 PM by Teraus

Since pretty much everyone agreed that it needed to be rewritten, I edited the article and nuked the example about God. All the necessary information is right there.

edited 5th Aug '11 12:30:06 PM by Teraus

No, the Wikipedia article specifically mentions, "The fallaciousness of arguments from ignorance does not mean that one can never possess good reasons for thinking that something does not exist." That needs to be covered. It's a part of basic scientific and philosophical debate, and a very important part. The original claim that "the default assumption is negative" was badly phrased and misleading, but something about it has to remain.

Other than that, I'm quite pleased with the change.

edit: basically, Wikipedia doesn't have this (and they aren't 100% reliable in any case). They have an article about the logical "argument from ignorance" with a redirect, but burden of proof comes in four flavors: logical, philosophic, scientific, and legal, and they all have their own versions of shifting. Since we don't want to have four articles (like Wikipedia does), we can cover them all here. At least in brief (this isn't an encyclopedia).

edited 5th Aug '11 4:01:40 PM by Xtifr

Should I add "It should be noted, though, that there can be other good reasons to believe in a statement even if it's not outright proven"? Do you want to propose another change?

We could try to cover the differences in burden of proof, but I always assumed this was more centered on the logical aspect.

Edit: I made another change in the article. It should be fine now.

edited 5th Aug '11 4:24:27 PM by Teraus

"Actively denying the thing would still be fallacious" is too strong. It's not fallacious to deny the existence of pink-polka-dotted unicorns on roller skates. They denial may not be based on pure logic, but it's absolutely reasonable from a scientific stance, and trying to claim otherwise is shifting the burden of proof.

Pure logic is what drove the ancient greeks astray, which is why actual science is generally preferred today. We know that heavy objects fall at the same speed as lighter ones (ignoring air resistance) because of science, not pure logic.

Oh, man... Please read the first post of the second page, regarding invisible worlds. It is only not fallacious if it's proven. If the unicorns are invisible, made from a different kind of matter, you can't say anything about their existence. If they're visible and living among us, it's a whole different story.

But we are talking about pure logic, too. "Fallacy" is a logical term.

edited 5th Aug '11 4:46:51 PM by Teraus

Please keep in mind that the page is about the use of the fallacy in logic (not science, not law, not philosophy) in fiction and media. Nor is it intended to be a crash course in logic. Legal Burden of Proof in fiction should be on the Artistic License – Law page, and scientific Burden of Proof should be covered, if at all, on one of the pages about science.

edited 5th Aug '11 4:46:17 PM by Madrugada

Then maybe it should be renamed to Argument From Ignorance (which is what the other wiki calls the logical fallacy) to avoid confusion with the more general term (which is more often used in scientific and legal contexts).

By it's very definition, there can't be "multiple universes" or "other universes" since the universe is defined literally as " the whole body of things and phenomena observed or postulated" (Copy pasted from the webster).

If there was another universe, then it would be part of the same one. See You Keep Using That Word under "Universe"

Just Sayin'

Okay, replace "Universe" with "world" or "place that was generated by a massive explosion with a certain set of physical laws". Everything I said remains true. Also, the article itself refers to the possible change in meaning of the world "universe" due to its usage.

edited 5th Aug '11 6:32:52 PM by Teraus

To Xtifr: Anyway, my point is that, in terms of pure logic, the lack of proof of something's existence doesn't somehow make it any less likely to exist. Similarly, the lack of proof of its nonexistence doesn't make it any more likely to exist. If something exists or not, it exists independently from our knowledge about its existence. And that's why, when there's no proof to either side, it's just better not to make assumptions, unless one side implies some sort of absurd or there are visible hints that favor one side somehow.

edited 5th Aug '11 10:22:56 PM by Teraus

It's a basic tenet of science that hypotheses without evidence should be discarded (this isn't always followed strictly, as with String Theory, which is considered untestable even in theory, and thus not science, but many scientists study it anyway).

As I say, if this is simply about the logical fallacy, it should be given the proper name of the logical fallacy, Argument From Ignorance. I'm absolutely fine with that. Calling it Shifting the Burden of Proof, though, is misleading, because the scientific and legal meanings of the term are far more common in fiction (the scientific in SF and the legal in mysteries and courtroom drama).

If we're going to keep the current name, then it should be expanded to cover the types of shifting-the-burden-of-proof that will actually occur in works, or this will get massive misuse.

Note that there's still quite a bit of information about the legal meaning of the term on the page, which has nothing to do with the logical fallacy. (It's also slightly wrong when it talks about civil cases, and has a very US-centric view, but those are separate issues).

edited 6th Aug '11 10:32:08 AM by Xtifr

I agree that the article should be renamed. After some quick research, I saw that burden of proof really is about these things you mentioned. Go ahead and change it, I'm too lazy to do that right now.

I have a simple example that shows this is not exactly true. You know something everyone believes in and is not proven? Objective reality.

It's simple: everything you know is what you perceive. What's inside your mind, essentially. As far as you're concerned, all of existence could really be inside your mind. It is not possible to prove that anything other than our thoughts exist. We assume that external reality exists because we like to think so. It's more useful (and by useful I mean satisfactory).

Still, all of science is based on the assumption that there is an external reality. It's the only hypothesis that can go unproven, since there's really no "proof" if there's no reality to begin with.

Other than that, I've covered this point several times already. I know it's not useful to dwell on things that are not proven, as they are not useful in practice, but that has nothing to do with their actual existence. I don't know how many times I'll have to say that.

i.e: that might or might not exist, but I'll just act as if it didn't.

edited 14th Aug '11 3:47:58 PM by Teraus