If I told you I had five bucks in my pocket, you'd probably believe me. It's not a wild claim. People carry money. It checks out. But if I told you I could fly like Superman and just choose not to show anyone? You'd probably ask to see some proof. And you'd be right to. That's how the burden of proof works. It's not your job to prove I can't fly. It's my job to prove I can.

This is one of my favorite logical fallacies. It's a rule in logic that's simple, powerful, and misunderstood by just about everyone: if you make a claim, it's on you to prove it. That's what we mean by "burden of proof." You don't get to declare something as true and then demand everyone else disprove it. That's not how reason works. Yet people do it all the time - in arguments, tech support tickets, Access development, politics, religion, the list goes on.

One of the simplest examples is something I hear in casual conversations all the time. Someone will say, "I just have a feeling this is true," or "You can't prove it's not." But having a feeling about something doesn't make it real, and the fact that no one can disprove it doesn't automatically make it valid. If I tell you there's $100,000 in gold coins hidden under the floorboards in your living room, you have every right to say, "Cool story, but I'm not ripping up my floor unless you show me some evidence." That's the burden of proof in action. The person making the claim has to offer support, not the other way around. (3)

This fallacy shows up in relationships too. Your partner accuses you of cheating but offers no evidence. Just a gut feeling. When you ask what they're basing it on, they say, "Well, you can't prove you're not." That's a red flag - not just emotionally, but logically. Innocence isn't something that needs to be proven. The person making the accusation carries the burden of backing it up.

In the workplace, this fallacy shows up a lot in cross-department blame games. One team will insist, "Your system is causing the slowdown," without offering a shred of evidence. But in IT, proving a negative is like chasing shadows. You can comb through logs, monitor traffic, rule out every known variable, and still end up hearing, "Well, maybe it's something you missed." I had one client who was convinced their network had been hacked because things were sluggish in the afternoon. No alerts, no weird logins, no suspicious traffic - just a gut feeling. I spent nearly an entire day trying to find the ghost. Eventually, I tracked it down to a backup job that had been mistakenly scheduled for 2pm instead of 2am. It was hammering their bandwidth right when people were working. So yes, there really was a slowdown - but the hacking claim had no basis. The burden of proof wasn't met, but I still had to waste time proving the negative before we could get to the actual problem. Good for my billable hours, I guess, but not exactly efficient.

I even ran into this once in a Microsoft Access forum, where a guy was adamant that Access was "losing" his records. He insisted that all his data was being entered, but it wasn't showing up on his reports. When asked to share a sample of his database, he refused, saying it should be obvious that Access was broken. Turns out, his queries didn't have the right joins. He was missing an outer join, so any unmatched records were silently dropped from the report. But instead of looking for evidence or feedback, he shifted the blame and demanded that others prove why it wasn't Access's fault.

This pattern extends to political debates, too. Someone might declare, "This policy will ruin the country," but when asked for evidence, they flip the script: "Well, can you prove it won't?" That's not how rational discourse works. If you're making the claim, the burden is on you to support it. We see this fallacy all the time in political mudslinging. "My opponent is corrupt." "Prove it." "Well, you can't prove he's not." It's lazy argumentation dressed up as bold conviction. Just because something sounds suspicious doesn't mean it's true. If you're going to make the claim, you should bring the receipts. (4)

Take a common example I hear when discussing religious beliefs: "Well, you can't prove there isn't a god." True. But that doesn't automatically prove the existence of one. You also can't prove there isn't a Flying Spaghetti Monster orbiting Saturn. Or a unicorn in your attic that's invisible and odorless and only shows up when no one's looking. The fact that something can't be disproven doesn't mean it's reasonable to believe. The burden of proof always rests with the person making the claim. As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." (1) I can't disprove the existence of invisible fairies living in my fridge either, but I'm not going to build a worldview around them.

One of the most entertaining Star Trek illustrations of the burden of proof comes from the original series episode Whom Gods Destroy. Garth of Izar, a once-celebrated Starfleet captain, has gone completely off the rails. He's taken over an asylum and declared himself the new ruler of the galaxy. His logic? He's brilliant. He's powerful. Therefore, everyone should obey him. When Kirk challenges him, Garth doesn't offer evidence or justification - just loud proclamations and indignation that others would dare question his authority. It's the burden of proof turned upside down: "Because I say so" becomes his only credential. The crew doesn't accept his claim, of course - because in any rational system, if you want to be treated like a god, you need to bring more than your own ego to the table.

In the Next Generation episode Conspiracy, Picard and his crew uncover signs of a hidden threat within Starfleet - parasitic aliens infiltrating high-ranking officers. It's a classic case of a wild-sounding claim that requires solid proof. And the crew does it right. They follow leads, gather data, and confirm the threat before taking action. Imagine if Picard and Riker had just burst into Starfleet Command shouting, "They're all infected!" and started vaporizing admirals without evidence. The audience would be horrified - and rightfully so. Even when the stakes are high, especially when the stakes are high, the burden of proof still applies. Without it, you're not upholding justice - you're just guessing with a phaser.

The point is simple: if you want to convince someone of something, back it up (2). Evidence builds credibility. Logic builds trust. And if you don't have either, then maybe it's time to reconsider the claim.

LLAP
RR

(1) And yes, I know this makes people uncomfortable when we get into philosophical or moral territory. But that's the whole point. If you base your worldview or ethical framework on a set of teachings or traditions, that's fine - but if you want to present those beliefs as facts about how everyone else should live, then the burden is on you to justify that. And not just with because it says so. If a moral rule is worth following, it should be able to stand up to questioning. The best values - kindness, fairness, honesty - aren't good because they're ancient or printed in a book. They're good because they help people thrive. They promote cooperation, stability, and peace. You can trace them all the way back through human history, not because they were handed down, but because they evolved naturally in communities that survived by working together.

(2) Just like your data. :)

(3) This is why it's so important to learn science and understand the scientific method. It helps build your Bullshit Detector. And yes, I know the footnotes are out of order with the story. Leave me alone.

(4) We've even seen this on the world stage. In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq largely on the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Despite a lack of concrete evidence, officials argued that the threat couldn't be ignored. But it wasn't up to the rest of the world to prove Iraq didn't have WMDs - it was up to those making the claim to prove that they did. That proof never came. And the consequences of that assumption were enormous. When decisions of that scale hinge on gut feelings instead of solid evidence, we all pay the price. Take at look at what's happening in the world right now.

P.S. One tricky thing about burden of proof is that it's not always clear who decides what counts as proof. In science, we lean on the scientific method: testable, repeatable, observable results. But in a courtroom, "proof" can often mean nothing more than someone's testimony under oath. Personally, I don't think that's great evidence. Sometimes you have to weigh the claim alongside the quality of the proof. If your buddy got drunk and ran around the bar naked singing show tunes, and ten friends all swear they saw it? Fine. Sounds legit (especially if you know the guy, and that sounds like something he'd do. I know a couple people like this). But if one guy you barely know tells you he saw the USS Enterprise descend from the clouds over Cleveland, well... that's a little different. Big claims need big proof. Not all evidence is created equal.