proving a negative

[Keevan_Colton]

You can only ever prove a negative by exclusion, you can show something doesnt exist via an observation that is incompatible with its existence. The whole "there is no 'e' there" thing, you are proving that there is no e there by observing its absence...the absence of 'e' is the observation.

So long as you give something definite parameters, it can in principle be proven false by finding an observation that contradicts the parameters of the object. This is the very basic notion of falsifiability that science and every single tiny scrap of human advancement and knowledge is based upon...

It is still a positive that proves things though.

[wautd]

Certain negatives cannot be disproved, such as "God does not exist".

Homer did it

[Darth Wong]

The line "you can't prove a negative" is overly simplistic. More realistically, it would say "you can't prove a sufficiently VAGUE negative". A very specific negative is easy to disprove, like "there is no red cylindrical piece of plastic in that drawer over there". That's to be distinguished from a vague, useless negative like "there is no entity out there whose location is not known, properties are not known, capabilities are not known, and who cannot be defined in any meaningful or testable way".