Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance" (where "ignorance" stands for: "lack of evidence

to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false, it is "generally accepted" (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four, (1) true, (2) false, (3) unknown between true or false, and (4) being unknowable (among the first three). [1] In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used to shift theburden of proof. The fallaciousness of arguments from ignorance does not mean that one can never possess good reasons for thinking that something does not exist, an idea captured by philosopher Bertrand Russell's teapot, a hypothetical china teapot revolving about the sun between Earth and Mars; however this would fall more duly under the arena of pragmatism, wherein a position must be demonstrated or proven in order to be upheld, and therefore the burden of proof is on the argument's proponent. See also Occam's razor (assume simplicity over complexity).

Argument from Ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam)

Definition: Arguments of this form assume that since something has not been proven false, it is therefore true. Conversely, such an argument may assume that since something has not been proven true, it is therefore false. (This is a special case of a false dilemma, since it assumes that all propositions must either be known to be true or known to be false.) As Davis writes, "Lack of proof is not proof." (p. 59) Examples: i. ii. iii. Proof: Identify the proposition in question. Argue that it may be true even though we don't know whether it is or isn't. Since you cannot prove that ghosts do not exist, they must exist. Since scientists cannot prove that global warming will occur, it probably won't. Fred said that he is smarter than Jill, but he didn't prove it, so it must be false.

argumentum ad ignorantiam ("arguing from ignorance") -- A fallacy that occurs when someone argues that because we don't know something is true, it must be false, or because we lack proof that a statement is false, it must be true. Ignorance or lack of evidence doesn't necessarily mean a position or claim is true or false. Common Examples: "No one has ever proven that UFOs exist. Therefore, they don't exist." (Something can exist despite the absence of confirmation. Lack of proof is justification for caution or even scepticism, but not dogmatic assertions.) "There is simply no proof that God exists. Therefore, God doesn't exist." (God might exist even though there is no way empirically to prove it.)

Argumentum ad Ignorantiam
Also known as: Argument to Ignorance and Shifting the Burden of Proof. John Jackson 2006.

This fallacy is committed when a claim is believed to be true because it has not been proved false, or vice versa. The general form is: 1. A states that claim X is true. 2. B states that claim X is not accepted as true. 3. A states that claim X is potentially true as B has not proved it false (wrongly shifting the burden of proof to B). Examples:

You can't say that PSI phenomena don't exist; after all, science hasn't disproved them. We have no evidence of alien visitors; therefore, aliens do not exist. (They may well exist, but are not visiting Earth). Just because Reiki healing energy cannot be detected does not mean that it isn't there.

The defining feature of the Argument to Ignorance is that ignorance, the lack of knowledge (or evidence), is used as evidence to support/refute a claim, whereas in reality, it's an irrelevance. Claims can only be accepted or refuted based on tangible evidence. Ignorance about something provides no evidence about its existence or non-existence. The burden of proof is a concept where the claimant must provide proof or evidence of the claim they are making before it can be considered. It's not up to others to refute a claim that has no evidence to support it. This position is a logical one, which is meant to avoid false conclusions. In UK law, for example, a defendant

is presumed innocent until proved guilty. It is up to the accuser (or the prosecution) to provide evidence for their claim.

Contradictory claims.
Contradictory claims arise from dichotomous (either/or) situations. The claim can only be true or false, therefore proving one proposition to be true or false settles the claim. For example, Person X is either male or female. This person's gender (let's assume female) can be discovered either with evidence that she's female or evidence that she's not male.

Contrary claims.
Contrary claims are similar to contradictory ones in that only one proposition can be true; however, they differ in that both, or more, propositions can be false: i.e. proving one proposition to be false does not automatically prove another to be true. Example: Person X drives a German car. Audi and BMW are popular German cars. Person X does not drive an Audi therefore Person X drives a BMW (this is clearly not necessarily true). Note: if we are in our state of ignorance with both types of claim, our ignorance cannot be used to argue for or against the truth of the claim.

The argument to ignorance - general usage.

The argument to ignorance is used extensively. It is mainly used in two ways: 1. As an argumentative tactic. It is rare to engage in debate about controversial or unaccepted topics without encountering an argument to ignorance. "No-one's proved it doesn't work" and "just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't real" are common examples. The example of Person X illustrates the fallacy:

Claiming that "no-one's proved Person X isn't a man" does not add any weight to the claim that Person X is a man. It is actually completely irrelevant. Similarly, "no-one's proved that ghosts don't exist" adds no weight to claims that they do. 2. As a proposition in claims. Most claims we deal with are contrary claims rather than contradictory claims. This means that showing a proposition in a claim to be false does not mean that an alternative proposition is true. Many people, however, treat claims as if they were contradictory: creating a false dichotomy. A ghost hunter may get an unusual reading on an EMF meter and postulate that it may be due to ghost activity. A skeptic may point out that it may have come from electric cables. If the ghost hunter discovers that there's no electricity in the building, thus disproving this explanation, he may feel justified in his conclusion that he's picked up a ghost. This is obviously a false dichotomy fallacy; however, it is still based on an argument to ignorance: the idea that not knowing the cause of the unusual reading adds weight to the claim that a ghost was encountered. It is important to realise that someone showing that a proposition in an argument made against them is false can still leave them making an argument to ignorance. The example of the German cars should illustrate this point.

When does ignorance not lead to a fallacy?

The Argument to Ignorance fallacy is committed when a claim is believed to be true because it hasn't been proved false, or vice versa. Whenever one points out that a person is using the Argument to Ignorance fallacy, such as believing in something because it hasn't been proved false, it is common to get a reply along the lines

that it works both ways: one can't state that something is false just because it hasn't been proved true either! This can of course be true but it is not always the case: We have to consider the burden of proof requirement. If a person makes a claim it is up to that person to provide supporting evidence. If there is none it is not committing an Argument to Ignorance to presume that a claim is false until some supporting evidence is provided. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is a saying that's often used. It is true in some circumstances (in the possibility of there being alien life, for example) but not all. It is not true when there's an absence of evidence and we should expect to find that evidence. For example, stating that the Loch Ness Monster could exist because no-one's proved it doesn't is clearly an Argument to Ignorance; however, stating that the Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist because no-one has proved that it does is not making an Argument to Ignorance. This is because a breeding population of Plesiosaurs (or whatever) would be expected to leave evidence of their existence.

Conclusion.
Arguments to Ignorance are extremely common and can be easy to miss. They can be obvious when formally stated as "I believe X and science hasn't proved X wrong"; however, they often take the rather more persuasive form: "I believe that X is true. It may not certainly be true but science has never shown X to be wrong therefore it's reasonable to keep an open mind on X". The defining features are: 1. A case is put forward that has no tangible supporting evidence; 2. It's stated that the claim has not been proved false therefore it is reasonable to believe it; 3. The burden of proof will be shifted from the claimant to the opponent - challenging the opponent to prove it wrong;

4. As the name implies, it is ignorance itself, the lack of knowledge of the claim, that is used to support it. Claims can only be decided on evidence. If something is not real or doesn't exist then no evidence can be found that will support or refute it. To claim that something has never been proved or disproved merely adds weight to the fact that it probably isn't true as it reveals that no evidence exists which could be used to examine it; and as always, it's the quality of evidence that decides a claim not ignorance.

Argument from ignorance, also known asargumentum ad

ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance" (where "ignorance" stands for:

"lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false, it is "generally accepted" (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there

is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four, (1) true, (2) false, (3) unknown between true or false, and (4) being unknowable (among the first three). In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used to shift the burden of proof. The fallaciousness of arguments from ignorance does not mean that one can never possess good reasons for thinking that something does not exist, an idea captured by philosopher Bertrand Russell's teapot, a hypothetical china teapot revolving about the sun between Earth and Mars; however this would fall more duly under the arena of pragmatism, wherein a position must be demonstrated or proven in order to be upheld, and therefore the burden of proof is on the argument's proponent. See also Occam's razor (assume simplicity over complexity).

Contents
o o o o o o o o

1 Overview 1.1 Basic argument 1.2 Matters of confusion 2 Related terms 2.1 Contraposition and Transposition 2.2 Absence of evidence 2.3 Evidence of absence 2.4 Negative evidence 2.5 Null result 3 Related arguments 3.1 Argument from incredulity/Lack of imagination

o o o o o o o o

3.2 Argument from self-knowing (auto-epistemic) 4 Distinguishing absence of evidence from evidence of absence 4.1 Formal argument 5 Examples 5.1 Absence of evidence 5.2 Negative results 5.3 Evidence of absence 5.4 Arguments from ignorance 5.5 In the field of science 5.6 Principles in law 6 Origin of the term 7 Sources 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Overview
Basic argument
Arguments that appeal to ignorance rely merely on the fact that the veracity of the proposition is not disproven to arrive at a definite conclusion. These arguments fail to appreciate that the limits of one's understanding or certainty do not change what is true. They do not inform upon reality. That is, whatever the reality is, it does not wait upon human logic or analysis to be formulated. Reality exists at all times, and it exists independently of what is in the mind of anyone. And the true thrust of science and rational analysis is to separate preconceived notion(s) of what reality is, and to be open at all times to the observation of nature as it behaves, so as truly to discoverreality. This fallacy can be very convincing and is considered by some to be a

special case of afalse dilemma or false dichotomy in that they both fail to consider alternatives. A false dilemma may take the form:

If a proposition has not been disproven, then it cannot be considered false and must therefore be considered true. If a proposition has not been proven, then it cannot be considered true and must therefore be considered false. Such arguments attempt to exploit the facts that (a) true things can never be disproven and (b) false things can never be proven. In other words, appeals to ignorance claim that the converse of these facts are also true (therein lies the fallacy). To reiterate, these arguments ignore the fact, and difficulty, that some true things may never be proven, and some false things may never be disproved with absolute certainty. The phrase "absence of evidence is

not evidence of absence" can be used as a shorthand rebuttal to the second form of the ignorance fallacy (i.e. P has never been absolutely proven and is therefore certainly false). Most often it is directed at any conclusion derived from null results in an experiment or from the nondetection of something. In other words, where one researcher may say their experiment suggests evidence of absence, another researcher might argue that the experiment failed to detect a phenomenon for other reasons.

Matters of confusion
Carl Sagan beside aViking model

See also: Evidence of absence

Much confusion about arguments from ignorance can be caused when one side of a debate forgets that we often possess evidence of absencein practice. The ignorance fallacy is sometimes confused (or combined) with logically valid contrapositivearguments. Contrapositive arguments

rightly utilize the transposition rule of inference in classical logic to conclude something like: To the extent that C implies E then Not-E

must also imply Not-C. In other words, if a cause always leads to an

effect, then absence of the expected effect isevidence of absence of the cause. For example, if the causal proposition that If it's raining

outside then the streets will be wet is assumed, then it can be assumed that if the streets are not wet then it is not raining outside.
The inference that it cannot be raining outside because the streets are not getting wet is exactly as true, or perhaps exactly as untrue, as the original proposition. The statements are logically equivalent. Carl Sagan explains in his book The Demon-Haunted World: Appeal to ignorance: the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa. (e.g., There is no compelling evidence

that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs exist, and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This
impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. For instance, absence of evidence that it rained (i.e. water is the evidence) may be considered as positive evidence that it did not rain. Again, in science, such inferences are always made to some limited (sometimes extremely high) degree of probability and in this case absence of evidence is evidence of absence when the positive evidence should have been there but is not. Arguments from ignorance can easily find their way into debates over the existence of God. It is a fallacy to draw conclusions based precisely on ignorance, since this does not satisfactorily address issues of philosophic burden of proof. But null results are not ignorance and can be used as evidence to achieve a given burden of proof.

Related terms
Contraposition and Transposition
Contraposition is a logically valid rule of inference that allows the creation of a new proposition from the negation and reordering of an existing one. The method applies to any proposition of the type If A

then B and says that negating all the variables and switching them back to front leads to a new proposition i.e. If Not-B then Not-A that is
just as true as the original one and that the first implies the second and the second implies the first. Transposition is exactly the same thing described in a different language.

Absence of evidence Absence of evidence is the absence, or lack of, any kind of evidence
that may show, indicate, suggest, or be used to infer or deduce a fact.

Evidence of absence Main article: Evidence of absence

Evidence of absence is evidence of any kind that can be used to infer or deduce the non-existence or non-presence of something. For instance, if a doctor does not find any malignant cells in a patient this null result (finding nothing) is evidence of absence of cancer, even though the doctor has not actually detected anything per se. Such inductive reasoning is important to empiricismand science, but has well established limitations. The challenge thus becomes to try to identify when a researcher has received a null result (found nothing) because the thing does not exist (evidence of absence), and when one simply lacks proper means of detection (absence of evidence).

Negative evidence Negative evidence is sometimes used as an alternative to absence of evidence and is often meant to be synonymous with it. On the other hand, the term may also refer to evidence with a negativevalue, or null result equivalent to evidence of absence. It may even refer to
positive evidence about something of an unpleasant nature.

Null result Null result is a term often used in the field of science to indicate evidence of absence. A search for water on the ground may
yield a null result (the ground is dry); therefore, it probably did not rain.

Related arguments
Argument from incredulity/Lack of imagination
Arguments from incredulity take the form: 1. P is too incredible (or: I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true); therefore P must be false. 2. I cannot imagine how P could possibly be false; therefore P must be true. These arguments are similar to arguments from ignorance in that they too ignore and do not properly eliminate the possibility that something can be both incredible and still be true, or appear to be obvious and yet still be false.

Argument from self-knowing (auto-epistemic)

Arguments from self-knowing take the form: 1. If P were true then I would know it; in fact I do not know it; therefore P cannot be true. 2. If P were false then I would know it; in fact I do not know it; therefore P cannot be false.

In practice these arguments are often fallacious and rely on the veracity of the supporting premise. For example the argument that If I

had just sat on a wild porcupine then I would know it; in fact I do not know it; therefore I did not just sit on a wild porcupine is probably not
a fallacy and depends entirely on the veracity of the leading proposition that supports it. (SeeContraposition and Transposition in the Related terms section in this article.)

Distinguishing absence of evidence from evidence of

absence
Absence of evidence is a condition in which no valid conclusion can be inferred from the mereabsence of detection, normally due to doubt in the detection method. Evidence of absence is the successful variation:
a conclusion that relies on specific knowledge in conjunction with negative detection to deduce the absence of something. An example of evidence of absence is checking your pockets for spare change and finding nothing, but being confident that the search would have found it if it was there.

Formal argument
By determining that a given experiment or method of detection is sensitive and reliable enough to detect the presence of X (when X is present) one can confidently exclude the possibility that X may be both undetected and present. This allows one to deduce that X cannot be present if a null result is received. Thus there are only two possibilities, given a null result: 1. Nothing detected, and X is not present. 2. Nothing detected, but X is present (option eliminated by careful research design).

To the extent that option 2 can be eliminated, one can deduce that if X

is not detected then X is not present and therefore the null result is
evidence of absence.

Examples
Absence of evidence
(These examples contain or represent missing information.)

Statements that begin with "I can't prove it but" are often referring to some kind absence of evidence. "There is no evidence of foul play here" is a direct reference to the absence of evidence. "There is no evidence of God, and therefore, god does not exsist" appeals to an absence of evidence

Negative results

When the doctor says that the test results were negative, it is usually good news. Under "Termites" the inspector checked the box that read "no". The results of MichelsonMorley's experiment reported no shift at all in the interference pattern.

Evidence of absence
(These examples contain definite evidence that can be used to show, indicate, suggest, infer or deduce the non-existence or non-presence of something.)

A biopsy shows the absence of malignant cells. The null result found by MichelsonMorley's famous experiment represents "strong evidence" that the luminiferous aether was not present.

One very carefully inspects the back seat of one's car and finds no tigers.

The train schedule does not say that the train stops here at 3:00pm on a Sunday.

Arguments from ignorance

(Draws a conclusion based on lack of knowledge or evidence without accounting for all possibilities)

"I take the view that this lack (of enemy subversive activity in the west coast) is the most ominous sign in our whole situation. It convinces me more than perhaps any other factor that the sabotage we are to get, the Fifth Column activities are to get, are timed just like Pearl Harbor... I believe we are just being lulled into a false sense of security." Then California's Attorney General Earl Warren (before a congressional hearing in San Francisco on 21 February 1942)

In the field of science

One looks in the back seat of one's car and finds no adultsized kangaroos and then uses thisnegative/null adult-sized kangaroo

detection results in conjunction with the previously determined fact (or

just plain old proposition) that adult-sized kangaroos, if present, cannot evade such detection, to deduce a new fact that there are indeed no adult-sized kangaroos present in the back seat of said car.

Principles in law

The presumption of innocence, if present, effectively removes the possibility that the accused may be both guilty and unproven, from consideration in judgment, and as such the accused is considered as innocent unless proven guilty. (See decision table below)

1. Innocent and unproven. Judged as innocent. 2. Innocent and proven. Judged as guilty. (Jury is biased, misled, makes error; law is incorrect; false evidence fabricated etc.) 3. Guilty and unproven. Judged as innocent. (Presumption of innocence)

4. Guilty and proven. Judged as guilty. (Innocent unless/until proven

guilty is a summary of this and easier to