Why would you want to prove a negative?

In 1992 The Amazing Randi was tired of dealing with fakes and so announced that “You can’t prove a negative”; specifically, he stated that telepathy, for example, cannot be proven, and that someone who claims that telepathy exists must prove its existence. Suffice to say that this has been applied to deities as well.

This is one of those arguments that works well in theory, but not so well in practice. The basic premise behind the argument is that belief in a deity is exactly that, a belief and that the deity does not actually exist. Of course, should the deity actually exist it falls upon the believer to prove that the deity in question exists. It’s a simple argument, and as such welcome in discussions of religion or, more importantly, atheism.

The problem is that it’s, well, a simple argument. This is a great argument for when you haven’t seen something in a few years and want others to agree with you that it doesn’t exist anymore, but that’s about it. Even lawyers admit that this is pretty much an argument based on pragmatism rather than fact; advocates recognize that at some point a person must acknowledge that it’s time to move on and the person’s effects and legal issues need to be dealt with. However, biologists hate this argument; they cite too many animals that have been called “extinct” only to pop up a few years later. Even when they are sure they really aren’t, and it makes for some interesting debates in their circles.

The problem is that this is an argument that focuses on pure logic and ignores reality; it’s been noted that you can logic away something that is standing right in front of you and this is one of those kind of arguments. Although the logic is reasonable the problem is that it fails in reality. Even with the phenomena Randi was complaining with there is some proof, not enough granted to call it dependable but enough to make experimentation interesting. The argument has issues applying to the phenomena it was created for.

When it comes to deities it gets weirder. The problem is that deities are notoriously good at playing hide and seek, and that they actually prefer a hands-off approach when possible; with a few notable exceptions most prefer a strategic nudge rather than an obvious intervention. This makes it interesting to prove their existence, making it hard for even the most devout believer to prove that they exist. If the evidence of parapsychological phenomena is debated, and there are some actual positive results, it can be downright difficult to present any evidence to someone that refuses to admit that the evidence is valid.

Sooo….Where are we? The evidence isn’t exactly compelling, as it is based mostly on interpretation rather than straight evidence, and it comes from someone with a definite bias. At the same time this is something that the results of either side would be ignored by the other side unless the findings were against the bias, making for some interesting arguments. Although the argument itself has some issues, the logic is reasonable even if there are some issues applying to reality. It’s a great sound bite, but it should be excised from serious discussion…