Negative proof, the fallacy of appealing to lack of proof of the negative, is a logical fallacy of the following form:
It is asserted that a proposition is true, only because it has not been proven false. The negative proof fallacy often occurs in the debate of the existence of supernatural phenomena, in the following form:
However, the fallacy can also occur when the predicate of a subject is denied:
In some cases a reversed burden of proof may ...
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Negative proof, the fallacy of appealing to lack of proof of the negative, is a logical fallacy of the following form:
It is asserted that a proposition is true, only because it has not been proven false. The negative proof fallacy often occurs in the debate of the existence of supernatural phenomena, in the following form:
However, the fallacy can also occur when the predicate of a subject is denied:
In some cases a reversed burden of proof may be appropriate. This occurs when there are two competing explanations, and neither can be confirmed by observation. For example: when an empirical relationship has been observed, but the underlying mechanism is unknown, it may be reasonable to infer from the lack of conflicting evidence that the observed relationship is most likely causal. (c.f. Correlation does not imply causation) (See also: Inference to the Best Explanation)
Though a lack of positive evidence can never disprove a hypothesis, a statistically large number of negative...
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