If proof is accepting reasonable arguments for a position, then one can prove anything. If proof requires evidence, then the presence of evidence becomes proof. In that case one3 cannot prove some things. The absence of evidence does not mean the evidence is absent, only that it has not been produced. In that regards, it is still satisfactory to conclude that the negative has not been proven so far. Science has had positions that certain things did not exist because the equipment or technology at the time did not permit the evidence to be obtained.
With technological developments, Science has had to be rewritten because things that were not supposed to be there are proven to be there. Hence the production of evidence has confirmed the existence or reality of things. The meaning of all this is that one cannot prove scientifically that something does not exist unless one has the capability to test the non-existence of that thing to the limit.
It is certainly more rational to conclude that one cannot prove a negative, than to argue that one can by modifying the meaning of proof! I disagree with this argument based on many things. You can prove A is A and A is B. By straddling a state line you are in two different states, and by standing in a door way you are both in and out of a doorway.
Also If P is Q then whatever follows must always be true is as you have previously stated inaccurate. You can have sugar in something and it not be sweet and you can have no sugar in something and the object be sweet if using literal interpretation. As for the final argument of double negatives is complex.
Also as you have previously stated it would be based on likelihood and probability. All of the proof of how that negates your statements does have high likelihood and probability as well. None of these previous arguments is based on faith alone or lack of logic and probability just on the idea that perspective does change an idea of what the existence of God might be.
Now for the final point is the idea that you can prove guilt, but not innocence is reasonable. Which has a lot to do with this statement and the importance of it.
Furthermore it is important to distinguish the difference in wording and therefore meaning to me. Absence of evidence means that no evidence has been produced which means evidence could still be produced.
Evidence of absence is proof and evidence of the lack of something. Which is basically proving a negative, very different meanings. It all depends on how you define proof. We could quibble over the domain and tautology of formal logic, but examination of one fact demonstrates the limits of proof. To be able to statistically analyze and prove the possibility of an event occurring you must be able to observe the event when it happens.
If the event is outside human perception, even with instrumentation, you can never count to see if the event happens over a given period. Therefore, you cannot say anything objective about the event at all. The event may be true or may be false, more importantly you cannot say it is more likely to be true or false.
In this sense you cannot prove the negative, or the positive, of that which is beyond human perception. You cannot even say that it is likely or unlikely that anything exists beyond human perception. Suggestion: consider a new version of this article in which the propositions are more rigorous, excluding extraneous factors that compromise validity.
Also consider expanding by substituting probability for likelihood and exploring it as the key concept along with inference in statistics.
And by discussing the impact of quantum physics and uncertainty on the subject. Uncertainty derives from the knowledge that every particle is in constant motion, the sum of particle effects on each other is infinite, and therefore there are limits to the capacity of empirical methods to generate the knowledge needed to establish a set of beliefs. Because we swim in a sea of uncertainty, we need guidance to set our course. Also consider that the question asked exists in more than one dimension and on more than one plane.
Time is a crucial dimension. Evidence of existence fades in and fades out. Concepts are born, become salient, then obsolete. Do they cease to exist or merely cease to be relevant? What happens to validating methods over time? Does probability always become harder to define over time, and see its predictive value diminished? Representation is a layer in propositions that poses its own challenges to validity. The way human beings, other life forms and their environment are represented in formulating propositions can affect their validity and usefulness.
Variations across cultures may be significant. The way in which a unicorn is represented can influence validity criteria, and these may vary among communities. Trust is important to some commenters here when the concepts of truth, evidence and validity are under discussion. Some are partial to induction and probability because they believe they can unlock all the secrets of he actually existing universe.
Others trust in deities — the unabashedly metaphysical — as either a substitute or a complement. This trust bridges the gap between empirical evidence and knowledge or belief. For those who do not, no evidence is adequate. I appreciate the comment. And, I have no idea if anyone has ever changed their mind after hearing an argument.
But I do think minds are changed over time by people with open minds based on hearing enough arguments. An interesting article. The author clearly put a lot of effort into it. In theory : we can define what a WMD is how much explosive or killing power does it have to have? Then we could check all weapons in Iraq to see if they satisfy the established criteria.
In practice : or is it a question of practicality? That person would make a fair point, though it would obviously in theory be possible to check each and every location in Iraq, one just needs enough manpower enough manpower to check each and every location on the same day while watching all roads and tunnels because if you check location 1 on day 1 and location 2 on day 2 they could of course have moved the WMD from location 2 to location 1 during the night.
In his book God: The failed hypothesis , scientist Victor J. Stenger uses this approach it is also where I got the inspiration for this post. In the first chapter he explains the models and methods he plans to use in the rest of the book. When a hypothesis is falsifiable by a direct empirical test, and that test fails, then the hypothesis can be safely discarded. While failure to pass a required test is sufficient to falsify a model, the passing of the test is not sufficient to verify the model.
It is usually a long and arduous process of testing. Further on, he points out what most people forget, namely, that the method of empirical testing can also be applied to the God-hypothesis, iff that hypothesis states that God has certain verifiable characteristics:. We cannot refute the existence of a God who is somewhere outside the box, say, in another galaxy.
But God is supposed to be everywhere, including inside every box. So when we search for God inside a single box, no matter how small, we should either find him, thus confirming his existence, or not find him, thus refuting his existence. We don't see them because they blend in.
Can you prove otherwise? No one has ever proved, to my knowledge, that Santa Claus does not exist. And if one were to fly to the North Pole and say: Well, look, there's no toy factory there. A believer could argue: Well, Santa Claus knew you were coming and moved his operations to the South Pole.
So you fly down to the South Pole. No Santa Claus factory, toy factory there. So the believer would say: Oh, he moved it back up to the North Pole. So you simply cannot prove general claims that are negative claims -- one cannot prove that ghosts do not exist; one cannot prove that leprechauns too do not exist.
One simply cannot prove a negative and general claim. For instance, "there are no big green Martians" means "there are no big green Martians in this or any universe," and unlike your bathtub, it is not possible to look in every corner of every universe, thus we cannot completely test this proposition--we can just look around within the limits of our ability and our desire to expend time and resources on looking, and prove that, where we have looked so far, and within the limits of our knowing anything at all, there are no big green Martians.
In such a case we have proved a negative, just not the negative of the sweeping proposition in question. It is possible to prove rather specific negative claims that are made with rather well defined limits. If the area to be searched is well defined and of a reasonable size that permits searching then a negative claim might be capable of being proven.
For example, if one claims that there is no apple in the top desk drawer of a desk then all one needs to do is to open the top desk drawer indicated in the claim and examine it for its contents. Finding no apple therein would provide sufficient evidence under ordinary circumstances to verify or confirm the negative claim that there is no apple in the top desk drawer. You can prove a specific negative claim by providing contradictory evidence. An example of a proof of a rather specific negative claim by contradictory evidence would be if someone were to claim that the one and only watch that you own is in the top drawer of the desk.
You make the negative claim that it is not in the drawer and you see it clearly on your wrist. There is no need to look in the drawer. You can also prove specific negative claims when they involve known impossibilities. For example is someone were to claim that the one and only moon that normally orbits the planet earth was in the top desk drawer.
You claim that the moon is not in the desk drawer. There would be no need to look inside because the mass of the moon would not fit inside such a space and were its mass to be condensed its mass would be far greater than the desk could support were the desk made of ordinary earth substances.
You can also prove specific negative claims that can be rephrased as a positive claim. If someone claims that the lights are not on in room that claim can be rephrased as claiming that the lights are off in room The claim that you can not prove a negative claim is itself a negative claim and would be a self defeating statement or a retortion were it not generally understood to be a limited claim.
What is usually meant by the assertion that "One can not prove a negative claim" is that it is not logical to insist on proof of claims or statements of the sort: " There is no such thing as X that exists anywhere at all and at any time at all. Negative claims in the context of religion are very commonly of this form:.
These claims are asserted by those holding belief in the existence of such phenomena. They do not usually assert such criticisms against those who claim that there are no phenomena such as those not believed in by the defenders of the existence of a deity or miracles. For example believers in deity or miracles do not criticize those who claim that there are no tooth fairies or that there are no leprechauns.
The theists appears to think that the critic of theism is claiming that there are no deities and that such a claim can be proven or has been proven. What is actually being claimed by most critics of the claims that there are deities or miracles is that "There is not sufficient evidence to establish the existence of a deity or a miracle. The critic of the person making the positive claim that an entity X does exist is asking for evidence in support of that claim and that the evidence be relevant and sufficient to warrant or support the claim.
Here's what the The Objectivist Newsletter April had to say on the logical fallacy of proving a negative:. Proof, logic, reason, thinking, knowledge pertain to and deal only with that which exists. They cannot be applied to that which does not exist. Nothing can be relevant or applicable to the non-existent. The non-existent is nothing. A positive statement, based on facts that have been erroneously interpreted, can be refuted - by means of exposing the errors in the interpretation of the facts.
Such refutation is the disproving of a positive, not the proving of a negative Rational demonstration is necessary to support even the claim that a thing is possible.
It is a breach of logic to assert that that which has not been proven to be impossible is, therefore, possible. An absence does not constitute proof of anything.
Nothing can be derived from nothing. See Self Exclusion Doubt must always be specific, and can only exist in contrast to things that cannot properly be doubted. It means that if we don't know that something exists and have no evidence that it exists then that is not a sufficient basis for thinking that we have proved that it does not exist at all.
It only means we don't know one way or the other, we just haven't been made aware of it yet so it's not part of our knowledge. This is another variation on argumentum ad ignorantium , The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise or that it is false unless proven otherwise. From a lack of knowledge or any evidence to support a claim it is not appropriate and definitely not safe to reach any definite conclusion about the claim.
The case for evidence of absence depends upon whether or not evidence of any kind exists. If none exists, then absence of evidence is neither evidence of absence or of existence. If someone claims that X exists and then there is a search for X but the more people look in places where X "ought to be" in ways and at times that X "should be likely to be there," and there is no evidence of X found, then the more confidence you can have that there is no "X".
Even if absence of evidence really is evidence of absence in some few well defined cases of very finite extension e. Ignorance of evidence is evidence of ignorance and that is all that it is. Rejecting the Burden of Proof There are those who will refuse to accept that the burden of proof rests with those making positive claims.
They do want to claim that: "miracles exist unless someone proves that they do not exist. Those who behave in this manner are rejecting the use of reason. They want to believe that X is true or that X exists and to believe it without evidence or even against evidence to the contrary. They want to have their beliefs remain intact and not subject to refutation or to reexamination for fear of needing to alter their beliefs.
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