Category Archives: Words

Burden of Proof

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Do you believe in unicorns?  I’m guessing not.  But how do you know that unicorns are fiction?  Or leprechauns?  How do you know that aliens from distant planets aren’t on earth, dissecting cows and probing humans?

Of course, we don’t know with certainty.  But that is where the evidence points, which is our best alternative.

Suppose someone makes a claim.  You don’t believe it, but you’re willing to listen to the argument.  There are three possible outcomes at the end of this discussion:

  1. Right.  The other person is right, and you change your mind.
  2. Wrong.  Nope—you’re still right.  You’ve heard nothing new, and this conversation might as well not even have happened for the effect it had on you.
  3. Middle Ground.  You’re not convinced, but you’ve now heard evidence that you can’t simply dismiss.

Let’s consider another area of argumentation, the courtroom.  Legal cases don’t end in ties.  There are only two options—guilty or not guilty.  The law handles option 3, the domain of some evidence but not enough to be compelling, by giving it to the defendant.

Suppose the prosecuting attorney and defense attorney did nothing more constructive than use their time to talk about favorite movies.  The arguments are equally bad.  Does the judge declare a tie?  No—the prosecution didn’t uphold its burden of proof, so the defense wins.

When someone shows you evidence for unicorns (perhaps references to unicorns in historical documents), you might agree that it is evidence but not sufficient evidence to convince you.  The other person didn’t uphold the burden of proof.

On a related issue, if you say, “unicorns exist” and I respond, “No, unicorns don’t exist,” then I have now made a claim that I need to defend.  If I make no such claim, the burden of proof remains yours.

Greg Kokul and his Stand to Reason blog say that it’s a “ploy” for the atheist to put the burden of proof on the Christian who claims that God exists.  The atheist isn’t playing fair.

Nope, “God exists” is a claim.  In fact, the claim that a supernatural being exists and created the universe is about the boldest claim possible.  If you make that claim, you shoulder the burden of proof.  If the evidence you provide isn’t compelling, I’m logically obliged to reject your claim.

Photo credit: stock.xchng

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Principle of Analogy

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I recently found the name for a simple and common sense idea that is often abused in apologetics circles, the Principle of Analogy.

Bob Price described it this way:

We don’t know that things have always happened the way they do now.  But unless we assume that, we can’t infer anything about the past.  If we don’t assume that physics and chemistry have always worked by the same laws, we’re just going to believe anything any nut says.  …

[Imagine being confronted with the claim,] “I met a guy today who turned into a werewolf when the full moon came out.”  Wait a minute—I know of no one who has ever seriously claimed to have ever seen that, so there is no analogy to current day experience to such a claim.  But … there are fictional stories and movies where that happens.  I bet this really is one of those.  (Source)

How do we categorize a miracle claim from history?  What’s it analogous to?  Does it look like the plausible activities of ordinary people or does it look like legend?  You can’t say for sure, of course, but which bin does this claim best fit into?

Did a winged horse carry Muhammad?  Did Joseph Smith find golden plates with the help of the angel Moroni?  Can faith healers cure illness that modern medicine can’t?  Science has no analogy to these claims, but mythology and legend do.

Incredibly, I’ve heard Christians reject this principle and argue that an atheist must bring positive evidence against their claims.  Say for example that the question is whether Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  The Christian points to this story in the gospel of John—that’s the evidence in favor.  And then he says, “So where’s your evidence against?”

Of course, I have no direct evidence against this particular event.  I have no direct evidence that Jesus didn’t raise Lazarus or that Merlin wasn’t a shape-shifting wizard or that Paul Bunyan didn’t exist.  The plausibility test that we all use helps ensure that we don’t simply believe everything we hear or read.  Well, all of us, I guess, except someone who’s eager to make exceptions to preserve a preconception.

Something can violate the Principle of Analogy only with substantial evidence.  The claim “I can see through opaque objects” properly fit into the magical category until Wilhelm Röntgen demonstrated x-rays.

Until we have an analogy to a miracle story, it properly belongs in the magical category as well.

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  • The Bob Price quote was from a 4/11/2010 interview titled “How to Study the Historical Jesus” from Common Sense Atheism.  The MP3 file is here (go to 13:30).

Caltrop Argument

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CaltropA caltrop is a small object with four sharp spikes arranged such that however it lands on the ground, three spikes are down and one is pointing up.  Ninjas are said to have tossed these on the ground as they ran away to stop barefoot pursuers.

A caltrop argument is a defensive argument that attempts to avoid an argument rather than respond to it honestly.

My favorite caltrop argument goes something like this:

Atheist: There is no absolute truth beyond trivial statements like 1 + 1 = 2.

Christian: Well, that certainly sounded like an absolute truth statement!  Aha—you’ve defeated yourself!

Atheist: [sigh]  Fine.  What I should have said was “I have never seen evidence of such absolute truth statements.”

The atheist in this exchange made a mistake.  But instead of interpreting the statement charitably and finding the valid point wrapped in an imperfect presentation, the Christian tried to use the mistake to avoid the point completely.

Of course, I’m not saying that only one group is guilty of this.  Atheists can toss out caltrops to avoid confronting an argument as well.  But the person interested in the truth confronts an argument directly.

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