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Definitional retreat – changing the meaning of a word when an objection is raised. [23] Often paired with moving the goalposts (see below), as when an argument is challenged using a common definition of a term in the argument, and the arguer presents a different definition of the term and thereby demands different evidence to debunk the argument.
A debunker is a person or organization that exposes or discredits claims believed to be false, exaggerated, or pretentious. [1] The term is often associated with skeptical investigation of controversial topics such as UFOs, claimed paranormal phenomena, cryptids, conspiracy theories, alternative medicine, religion, exploratory or fringe areas of scientific, or pseudoscientific research.
Credulity is a person's willingness or ability to believe that a statement is true, especially on minimal or uncertain evidence. [1] [2] Credulity is not necessarily a belief in something that may be false: the subject of the belief may even be correct, but a credulous person will believe it without good evidence.
Argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), or appeal to ignorance, [a] is an informal fallacy where something is claimed to be true or false because of a lack of evidence to the contrary.
Fact-checking and debunking can be done in one-on-one interactions, but when this occurs on social media it is likely that other people may encounter and read the interaction, potentially learning new information from it or examining their own beliefs.
Paul Horwich's minimal theory of truth, also known as minimalism, takes the primary truth-bearing entities to be propositions, rather than sentences. According to the minimalist view then, truth is indeed a property of propositions (or sentences, as the case may be) but it is so minimal and anomalous a property that it cannot be said to provide ...
Fallacies of definition are the various ways in which definitions can fail to explain terms. The phrase is used to suggest an analogy with an informal fallacy. [1] Definitions may fail to have merit, because they are overly broad, [2] [3] [4] overly narrow, [3] [4] or incomprehensible; [4] or they use obscure or ambiguous language, [2] contain mutually exclusive parts, [3] or (perhaps most ...
"Pseudoscientific" arguments may neglect this principle and demand that skeptics demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that a claim (e.g., an assertion regarding the efficacy of a novel therapeutic technique) is false. It is essentially impossible to prove a universal negative, so this tactic incorrectly places the burden of proof on the ...