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Topic: Argument from ignorance

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	Argument from Incredulity - SkepticWiki (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Argument from Incredulity is an informal logical fallacy where a participant draws a positive conclusion from an inability to imagine or believe the converse.
		Argument from incredulity is also a fallacy in the hands of scientists as well; as Clarke's First Law puts it, "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right.
		As with argument from ignorance, in some cases we may be able to believe that our knowledge of a specific area is sufficiently complete that our imagination can be expected to cover all (reasonable) cases.
	www.skepticwiki.org /wiki/index.php/Argument_from_Incredulity (483 words)

	Argument Quotes - The Quotations Page
		No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.
		Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
		Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
	www.quotationspage.com /subjects/argument (268 words)

	Argument from Ignorance - SkepticWiki (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Argument from Ignorance (sometimes Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, from the Latin for "argument (aimed) at ignorance") is an informal logical fallacy where a participant draws a positive conclusion from a lack of contradictory evidence, frequently in an area where no such evidence can reasonably be expected.
		In this case, the following argument is valid (and not an appeal to ignorance).
		An argument from ignorance used to prove the existence of God is sometimes called a God of the Gaps Fallacy; the "gaps" being the incomplete understanding by science of the natural world.
	www.skepticwiki.org /wiki/index.php/Argument_from_Ignorance (616 words)

	Logical Fallacies .info - Fallacies of Presumption - Argument from Ignorance
		Arguments from ignorance infer that a proposition is true from the fact that it is not known to be false.
		Not all arguments of this form are fallacious; if it is known that if the proposition were not true then it would have been disproven, then a valid argument from ignorance may be constructed.
		This argument is fallacious because the non-existence of God is perfectly consistent with no one having been able to prove God’s non-existence.
	www.logicalfallacies.info /argumentfromignorance.html (120 words)

	talk.origins/Evolution Echo Jargon File 'A'
		An argument which relies upon denigrating the opponent and then asserting or implying that such an unworthy arguer could not have a valid argument.
		An argument of the form "the proposition X must be true because Y, a recognized authority, says it is true," as a substitute for actual evaluation of X. In conjunction with other evidence, the argument can help support a conclusion by demonstrating that others have come to the same result.
		An argument which arrogates omniscience to the arguer, who claims that because he or she cannot postulate a mechanism for a phenomenon that no such mechanism can exist.
	www.talkorigins.org /origins/jargon/jargonfile_a.html (954 words)

	Alt.Atheism FAQ: Constructing a Logical Argument
		This fallacy is an argument of the form "A implies B, B is true, therefore A is true".
		This fallacy is an argument of the form "A implies B, A is false, therefore B is false".
		A non sequitur is an argument where the conclusion is drawn from premises which aren't logically connected with it.
	home.cfl.rr.com /diehardanddragon/silverdragon/logic.html (5483 words)

	argument
		Stoker said he would settle the argument and went into a house and returned with a shotgun, which he loaded and placed in his mouth, Alford said the witness reported.
		ORAL ARGUMENT OF THOMAS I. The Connecticut courts are clear that the "use statute" prohibits by criminal process any use of contraceptive devices for prevention of conception.
		Hence, the argument that atheism precludes transcendental moral facts by virtue of excluding the transcendent altogether, is unsound.
	www.argument.nl (1647 words)

	argument to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam)
		The argument to ignorance is a logical fallacy of irrelevance occurring when one claims that something is true only because it hasn't been proved false, or that something is false only because it has not been proved true.
		The argument to ignorance seems to be more seductive when it can play upon wishful thinking.
		People who want to believe in immortality, for example, may be more prone to think that the lack of proof to the contrary of their desired belief is somehow relevant to supporting it.
	skepdic.com /ignorance.html (298 words)

	Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate
		That kind of response is fine, except that the original argument still remains in the debate, albeit in a less persuasive form, and the opposition is free to mount a rhetorical offensive saying why it's important after all.
		This is the familiar argument that some policy, behavior, or practice is right or acceptable because "it's always been done that way." This is an extremely popular fallacy in debate rounds; for example, "Every great civilization in history has provided state subsidies for art and culture!" But that fact does not justify continuing the policy.
		For instance, you might make an evolutionary argument to the effect that the prevalence of a particular practice in existing societies is evidence that societies that failed to adopt it were weeded out by natural selection.
	www.csun.edu /~dgw61315/fallacies.html (5262 words)

	Undressing Ignorance (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		She sees a parallel between the relationships of teacher and student and analyst and analysand whereby a student’s ignorance is likened to an analysand’s "repression" or "resistance" to knowledge.
		And, while Felman’s argument targets ignorance not as a lack of knowledge (I would agree with her on this point) she does characterize unknowing in a negative light as "an active refusal of information." This refusal she attributes to the student as an internalized resistance to knowledge, to say, literature, for example.
		Another hazard of Felman’s theory based largely on Lacan’s seminars and his success with stellar students in their undoubtedly amazing instances of collaborative discovery learning, is the disrespect students (already infected by half-knowledge) may show a teacher who relinquishes her authority in the classroom, even if deliberately, as a pedagogical ruse.
	www.specmind.com /vixen/undressing.htm (698 words)

	Fallacies of Relevance 1. Argumentum ad Baculum (appeal to force). The arguer appeals to
		In the field of the authority's expertise, "this method of argument is in many cases perfectly legitimate, for the reference to an admitted authority in the special field of that authority's competence may carry great weight and constitute relevant evidence.
		The conclusion of an argument is contained in one of the premises assumed.
		An argument which supports one conclusion is made to prove a different conclusion.
	www.skepticfiles.org /atheist/argument.htm (419 words)

	Common fallacies: Logical fallacies in everyday life
		You have not attacked my argument, but instead tried to discredit me. Like most fallacies, this is not always a bad thing.
		Argument from ignorance- This one is more subtle.
		A common argument from ignorance is the following: We have found no evidence for life on other planets; therefore there is no life on other planets.
	philosophy.suite101.com /article.cfm/common_fallacies (881 words)

	Argument: Species and Forms
		Argument from expert opinion creates a presumption that a proposition is true, based on an appeal to the opinion of a suitably qualified expert who has claimed that it is true.
		Argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance) is the argument that because a particular proposition has not been proved true (false), we may conclude that it is false (true).
		This type of argumentation is reasonable in many cases, but it can be used as a sophistical tactic to bring pressure against an opponent in argument, or to appeal to group interests or loyalties in an emotional way, in lieu of presenting stronger forms of evidence that should be provided.
	www.stanford.edu /~jonahw/PWR1-W04/Argument.html (901 words)

	CA100: Argument from incredulity
		This argument, also known as the argument from ignorance or "god of the gaps," is implicit in a very many different creationist arguments.
		In particular, it is behind all arguments against abiogenesis and any and all claims of intelligent design.
		Even a noted antievolutionist acknowledges this point: "The peril of negative arguments is that they may rest on our lack of knowledge, rather than on positive results" (Behe 2003).
	www.talkorigins.org /indexcc/CA/CA100.html (230 words)

	Argument from incredulity - EvoWiki (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		An appeal to ignorance is an argument that absence of proof is evidence of absence.
		A famous example has theologists argue their hypothesis of an invisible X is one even a genius like Galileo could not prove false.
		This is the argument from personal incredulity, and it contains the unwritten assumption that the speaker is a superhuman genius who should be able to understand everything unless he is missing an assumption.
	wiki.cotch.net /index.php/Argument_from_Ignorance (562 words)

	Douglas N. Walton: Arguments from Ignorance
		The first book written exclusively on the argument from ignorance as a distinctive type of argument.
		Arguments from Ignorance explores the situations in which the argument from ignorance (also known as the lack-of-knowledge inference, negative evidence, or default reasoning) functions as a respectable form of reasoning and those in which it is indeed fallacious.
		This book makes an original contribution in the areas of argumentation theory and informal logic, contending that, despite its traditional classification as a fallacy, the argument from ignorance is a genuine, very common, and legitimate type of argumentation with an identifiable structure.
	www.psupress.org /books/titles/0-271-01474-1.html (233 words)

	Favorite Quotations ~ Arguments ~ Ideas to motivate, educate, and inspire (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
		Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance.
		He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
	www.dailycelebrations.com /arguments.htm (241 words)

	Naturalism's Argument from Invincible Ignorance:
		Now, for many design skeptics, eliminative inductions are mere arguments from ignorance, that is, arguments for the truth of a proposition because it has not been shown to be false.
		In arguments from ignorance, the lack of evidence for a proposition is used to argue for its truth.
		The argument for the specified complexity of the bacterial flagellum, for instance, makes a positive contribution to our understanding of the limitations that natural mechanisms face in trying to account for it.
	www.designinference.com /documents/2002.09.Van_Till_Response.htm (5001 words)

	Argumentum ad Ignorantiam
		Abstract: The argument from ignorance is characterized and shown to be sometimes persuasive but normally fallacious.
		Argumentum ad Ignorantiam: (appeal to ignorance) the fallacy that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false or that it is false simply because it has not been proved true.
		Quoting arguments by Vadim Ranov, a man described as a well-known Soviet explorer, Tass said that no remains--skull or individual bones--had ever been found.
	philosophy.lander.edu /logic/ignorance.html (743 words)

	fallacies
		In such an argument, you build your opponent out of “straw” so that she or he is easily knocked down.
		Straw man arguments are fallacious, since if you merely show that a simplified version of the opposing view is absurd, it of course doesn’t follow that the more sophisticated version of the view is absurd.
		The rule of thumb is that someone is a legitimate authority to the extent that she is in a better position than “the person on the street” to discern the truth of the matter.
	www.unc.edu /~tparent/fallacies.htm (1105 words)

	Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Argument from personal incredulity is very similar, e.g.
		It is a logical mistake (a variant of the Argument from Ignorance known as a God-of-the-gaps argument) to assert that because a phenomenon is unexplained by current scientific theories, it is necessarily unexplainable by science.
		Similarly, the current lack of evidence about unexplained aspects of evolution indicates that the theory of evolution is incomplete, rather than necessarily incorrect.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Argument_from_ignorance (1889 words)

	Handbook of Fallacies
		If an argument is to be resolved by such an appeal, the authority must be one recognized by both parties.
		But if you approach a set of ideas from a state of ignorance, you are not intellectually equipped to pick and choose from among them.
		The determinist enters the argument with the claim that such alteration is impossible--that he has no power to volitionally change his state of consciousness.
	www.geocities.com /Athens/Olympus/7695/FALLACYS.HTM (9916 words)

	Logical Fallacy: Appeal to Ignorance
		An appeal to ignorance is an argument for or against a proposition on the basis of a lack of evidence against or for it.
		If there is positive evidence for the conclusion, then of course we have other reasons for accepting it, but a lack of evidence by itself is no evidence.
		It would not be an Appeal to Ignorance for you to reason that, since there is no evidence that I visited another planet, therefore I probably didn't do so.
	www.fallacyfiles.org /ignorant.html (645 words)

	(Talk.Origins) Argument from incredulity - CreationWiki
		This article ((Talk.Origins) Argument from incredulity) is a response to a rebuttal of a creationist claim published by Talk.Origins Archive under the title Index to Creationist Claims.
		If the whole creationist argument were simply an unsupported statement of unbelief, Talk Origins would have a good point; to say something is unbelievable without giving a reason is not good argument.
		Incredulity is an argument of scepticism about a certain point of view, and the evolutionist and atheist are not innocent of using such an argument.
	creationwiki.org /CA100 (1341 words)

	A Freeper's Introduction to Rhetoric (Part 1, Introduction and the Argument From Ignorance) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		An argument, whatever its subject or sphere, is generally constructed in such a way as to prove that its conclusion is true.
		An argument that contains or commits a fallacy of a given type may also be said to be a fallacy, that is, to be an example or instance of that typical mistake.
		The argument ad ignorantiam (from ignorance) is the mistake that is committed when it is argued that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false, or that it is false because it has not been proved true.
	www.freerepublic.com /focus/f-chat/1043424/posts (6231 words)

	The Chronicle: Colloquy: Responses
		First, even though specified complexity is established via an eliminative argument, it is not fair to say that it is established via a purely eliminative argument.
		If the argument were purely eliminative, one might be justified in saying that the move from specified complexity to a designing intelligence constitutes an argument from ignorance.
		Behe does indeed make an argument from analogy (which is an inductive argument) in addition to his argument from ignorance.
	chronicle.com /colloquy/2001/design/132.htm (1136 words)

	Evolution News & Views: Wolfson’s Argument From Ignorance
		Classical design arguments in biology typically sought to draw analogies between whole organisms and machines based upon certain similar features that each held in common.
		The status of such design arguments thus turned on the degree of similarity that actually obtained between the effects in question.
		The design argument from the information in DNA does not depend upon such analogical reasoning since it does not depend upon claims of similarity.
	www.evolutionnews.org /2006/01/wolfsons_argument_from_ignoran.html (1145 words)

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