Believers routinely demand proof of nonexistence for supernatural claims

Evidence

The demand for a reversal of the burden of proof is a regularly recurring part of discussions with believers. Sometimes it is demanded to prove the non-existence of ghosts or other supernatural beings, sometimes the non-existence of extraterrestrial visitors in the present or in the distant past, sometimes the impossibility of parapsychological phenomena and sometimes the ineffectiveness of so-called alternative therapies. Proofs derived from principles or from other natural sciences are thereby regularly called mechanistic, naively science-believing or dismissed (in complete misjudgement of the actual meaning of the term) as positivistic. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 763

Categorization

• SEED: A piece on the burden-of-proof reversal in fringe-belief debates, and why ‘prove it isn’t real’ is a category error, could be a strong accessible essay.

Related

• Burden of proof in paranormal claims rests with the claimant, not the skeptic (similarity 0.83)
• Unproven claims are slander or quackery regardless of disprovability. (similarity 0.79)
• Believers view science as fixed dogma while seeing beliefs as personal experience (similarity 0.79)