Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Negative proof


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. The discussion on whether or not to redirect/merge can continue on the article's talk page (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Negative proof

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This is a non-standard name for a well-studied fallacy, namely Argument from ignorance. A comparison of the two articles shows that Negative proof adds nothing to the common article. The fact that there are no citations in this article supports that it is not common rhetorical or logical terminology. Finally, a merge does not seem warranted since as it is, the article on Negative proof adds nothing in particular to the article on Argument from ignorance. The latter article is well-written and sourced. Phiwum (talk) 17:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect and merge if there is anything worth merging - though it doesn't look like it from my reading. No need for deletion. Olaf Davis | Talk 21:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm satisfied with redirect as well. I doubt that "negative proof" has many hits, but redirect works. Phiwum (talk) 21:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep or merge and in any case distinguish the content a little more. The context is usually different, and I think the article tries to explain why, but apparently not clearly enough. This is the usual phrase in scientific literature, and it means something more specific than argument from ignorance. And as for usage, why "doubt" when you can search and actually prove or disprove something: The phrase searched for as a phrase has 2720 hits in Google scholar., and 887 in G Books.  . Some of these occurences are in the actual titles of academic articles.  DGG (talk) 00:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment My Google-fu isn't as good as yours. I did a search on "Negative proof" (in quotes) at Google Scholar and I didn't see anything in the first couple of pages relevant to this particular article.  I saw a hit or two that used the term to mean "Proof of non-existence", but that's the subject of a different Wikipedia article.  Perhaps you could point me to an article or book you have in mind?  I've taught critical thinking and introductory logic courses for years and I have never seen the term in any text.  Much thanks.
 * For the record, by "hits", I meant that not many people search Wikipedia for "negative proof" expecting this article and hence a redirect would be useless. But if you can show me that this meaning of the term is indeed in widespread usage, I'll eat my words.  When I searched google.com, I got the Wikipedia article, one personal website and some hits referring to one or both of those. Phiwum (talk) 00:32, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Searching scholar.google for the exact phrase "negative proof" in the title of articles did nothing to support your claim, by the way. There were 9 hits, none of which have anything to do with logical fallacy per se.  (Two of the hits had to do with a law journal article which might be related.) Phiwum (talk) 00:43, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Correction I have found one occurrence of the term "negative proof" that does not trace to Wikipedia. It occurs in a 1970 text on historians' fallacies by David Hackett Fischer.  Even there, however, it is obvious that "negative proof" is just another name for "argument from ignorance".  If anyone can tell me the difference, I'd like to hear it. Phiwum (talk) 20:48, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep, can't see any reason to delete. Stifle (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Argument from ignorance. Nothing to merge. While there is some text outside of what would fit an "argument from ignorance", it's minor and not sourced. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 20:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I see no point in article about term nobody much has heard of. One of its two lack-lustre refs says "Article has two refs, as one says "Negative Proof is a special case of the fallacy of Denying The Antecedent if we accept the additional premise that observing a phenomenon implies that it exists. ..".  Suggest redirect to Denying The Antecedent, and give this as an example of same.--Philogo 22:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Regardless of what Safalra's website says, it is much more obvious that negative proof either means the same thing as Argument from Ignorance or is a special case of it. With due respect, I suggest redirecting to Argument from ignorance. Phiwum (talk) 22:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This is roughly equivalent to section 2 of the article"argument from ignorance". "Inductive use". It differs enough from the principal use because it is not considered a fallacy.  is an example (#7 on the Google Scholar search). And see also  Even from the excerpt, a proof by doing a thorough search by systematic methods and not finding it is different from a proof by ignorance--and, if done right, accepted as a reasonable method of at least preliminary enquiry. The example I've generally used for it, is that to prove there are no birds of species X reported to be found in country A, you look for material on the bird, find it reported in several sources in many countries but not this one, & for material on the birds of A, and find several good accounts of the birds, mentioning related species, but not this. It's not a fallacy exactly, though of course not a formal proof. (There are many articles talking about a negative proof in mathematics, but I am unable to judge whether or not its the same thing.) There's a difference between "We've never seen it happen," and "If it would have happened, we can show we would have known".  This isn't formal logic, but informal use, which also belongs in Wikipedia,  DGG (talk) 16:15, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Is that what the article is about? It says it's about a logical fallacy, but what you're discussing is evidently not a fallacy.  (By the way, your reference to the Organizational Ignorance article clearly identifies "reasoning from ignorance" as the same thing as "negative proof based reasoning" and uses the "from ignorance" terminology almost exclusively, so does not serve to show there's a difference.  I can't read your second reference, I'm sorry to say.)  So, two issues remain: what you call "negative proof" is not really what the article discusses and the difference between "negative proof" and "argument from ignorance" still has no reliable sources.  You say the difference is that negative proof involves a search for evidence while argument from ignorance does not (or need not?).  Can you find a reference distinguishing the two thus?  Then perhaps the article on negative proof could be re-written (or included as a special case of argument from ignorance) to reflect this difference.   Thanks in any case for the clarification. Phiwum (talk) 16:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.