The Burden of Proof fallacy also known as the Appeal to Ignorance is a fallacy in which the burden of proof is placed on the wrong side. Using this fallacy not only gets rid of having a rational discussion but can be misleading. A common example of this fallacy is in the American law where a person is innocent until proven guilty. This places the burden of proving this person guilty on the prosecution. Another example of this fallacy is one I heard recently while spending time with my six and eleven year old nephews during our vacation in Germany this past summer. My two nephews Donny and Ian were arguing over if Santa Claus is real. Ian, who had found out the truth about Santa, decided to tell Donny that Santa wasn’t real in order to pick on him. I thought Donny would cry when he found out the truth but instead he replied, “How do you know that? Have you been around the entire North Pole and looked to see if you found Santa’s workshop because if you haven’t then you don’t know anything.” Ian was speechless after Donny said that and got angry and stomped upstairs. At the time I was proud of my little nephew for sticking up for himself and winning the argument however now I see he won by using a fallacy.
It is very true that this type of fallacy can be very misleading especially in the Santa Clause example, which is quite funny. Your nephew was able to win the argument by using appeal to ignorance. Donny had no proof that Santa Clause doesn’t exist so that causes ignorance especially because no one has ever found Santa’s workshop. That is totally something my younger sister, who is 6 years old, would say. She comes up with the randomness reasoning and other children believe her. I think she still does believe that Santa Clause is real and many other fictional stories.
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