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In the " Argument from Ignorance " ( Appeal to Ignorance ) , also known as Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam , which is an Informal Logical Fallacy , the Statement in question ( The Absence of Evidence is not an Evidence of Absence ) is used as some sort of a Short Hand Rebuttal to one of the Propositions of the Former ( Appeal to Ignorance ) , which goes along this line that a " Proposition is considered False if it has not been proven , & , it can not be , therefore , considered True " . The Absence of Evidence comes in & says that if there's no Evidence that something is True , that does not mean that it's False ( Prop1 ) , & , vice verse , if there's no Evidence that something is False , that does not mean that it's True ( Prop2 ) . This kind of split approach ( Dichotomy ) to such Argument is somewhat misleading , because it simply rules out or excludes a third logical option or alternative that rejects this binary outlook , which states that due to the fact that no sufficient Information & Data is available , A Proposition is yet NOT proven either to be True or False ( Prop3 ) . Some say that ( Argument from Ignorance ) is sometimes used as a tool to shift the " Burden of Proof " in Debates , & , others said that such Arguments simply ignore the fact that some True things in life may never ever be proven as such , & , some other False Things may never ever be , with absolute certainty , proved as such ( Disapproved as False ) . And others , such Carl Sagan , strongly stated that the " Absence of Evidence is not an Evidence of Absence " should not be construed as One ( Person ) , at any point in time , can never obtain & attain an Evidence that certain Something or a Thing does not exist . Because simply put , it can happen . ( & That's the way it goes ) .
Absence of evidence is a condition in which no valid conclusion can be inferred from the mere absence of detection, normally due to doubt in the detection method. Evidence of absence is the successful variation: a conclusion that relies on specific knowledge in conjunction with negative detection to deduce the absence of something. An example of evidence of absence is checking your pockets for spare change and finding nothing, but being confident that the search would have found it if it was there.
