Pentagon study finds no sign of alien life in reported UFO sightings going back decades
AP's March 8, 2024 report on the Pentagon's UFO review is a textbook reminder that 'not fully explained' does not mean 'therefore alien' or 'therefore conspiracy.' The remaining uncertainty in the file is exactly what makes the episode useful for thinking about overconfident belief formation. The fallacy here is Argument from ignorance: someone concludes that a claim is true because it has not been disproved, or false because it has not been proved. That matters here because the burden is not met by pointing to a gap in refutation. A better analysis would remember that a claim needs positive support of its own.
Associated Press · 2024-03-08
New Pentagon report on UFOs includes hundreds of new incidents but no evidence of aliens
AP's November 14, 2024 story on hundreds of new UAP reports is a useful case because it mixes explained incidents, unexplained incidents, and limited data without pretending they all support the same conclusion. It is exactly the kind of evidence landscape that invites cherry-picking and premature certainty. The fallacy here is Argument from ignorance: someone concludes that a claim is true because it has not been disproved, or false because it has not been proved. That matters here because the burden is not met by pointing to a gap in refutation. A better analysis would remember that a claim needs positive support of its own.
Associated Press · 2024-11-14
How an unsubstantiated, anonymous affidavit about the ABC presidential debate was amplified online
PolitiFact's September 20, 2024 reconstruction of the fake ABC whistleblower affidavit is especially valuable because it shows how public figures shared the claim while conceding they did not know whether it was true. That is a live, well-documented case of conjecture and amplification outrunning authentication. The fallacy here is Argument from ignorance: someone concludes that a claim is true because it has not been disproved, or false because it has not been proved. That matters here because the burden is not met by pointing to a gap in refutation. A better analysis would remember that a claim needs positive support of its own.
PolitiFact · 2024-09-20
After an anonymous affidavit circulated online in September 2024 alleging that ABC had secretly rigged the Harris-Trump debate, many posts treated the absence of immediate disproof as if it were evidence that the allegation was real. The fallacy here is Argument from ignorance: someone concludes that a claim is true because it has not been disproved, or false because it has not been proved. That matters here because the burden is not met by pointing to a gap in refutation. A better analysis would remember that a claim needs positive support of its own.
UAP discussions often jump from 'we do not yet know what caused this' to 'therefore it was extraterrestrial technology,' which treats unexplained as if it meant explained by the favored hypothesis. The fallacy here is Argument from ignorance: someone concludes that a claim is true because it has not been disproved, or false because it has not been proved. That matters here because the burden is not met by pointing to a gap in refutation. A better analysis would remember that a claim needs positive support of its own.
