Demanding impossible evidence?

richard smith writes:

I seems like they know they cannot discredit or do not want to accept the source so they try to discredit the person giving the source.

 red herring, ad hominem, Cognitive dissonance

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:

Two great points here: 1) evidence demanded is not impossible and 2) what is demanded wouldn't reasonably be considered "evidence" for the actual claim.

Jakykong writes:

Interesting, I didn't think it was a red herring because the evidence they were demanding was related to the claim (even if I, too, consider swimming in Fukushima's reactor pools to be weak evidence of safety). 

I like Dr. Bennett's distinction above about an unreasonable demand, as opposed to impossible , since as you mentioned it isn't impossible, but certainly given that it's prohibited, it does seem unreasonable. (In particular because it's not that anyone swims in the water, but rather that I do.)

mchasewalker writes:

The claim is there is significant scientific evidence that Fukushima's waters are "generally" safe. One presumes that means that the radiation levels are sufficiently low as not to present any immediate harm. 

Likewise, every year a few visitors to Georgia State's pristine lakes and river systems are infected with Necrotizing fasciitis. Swimming in them is generally safe, but not altogether without significant danger. 

The respondent argues evidence be damned, he would only be convinced if his opponent actually bathed in Fukushima's waters. That's the deception.

His argument implies that determining lethal or harmless radiation levels and "general safety" of Fukushima's waters can be measured by his opponent physically swimming in it. Which is utter nonsense. This sleight of hand redirect leads us nowhere closer to the truth, and thus remains a big, stinking, flopping red herring. 

Jakykong writes:

I elided the vast majority of the conversation to focus on what I think is relevant to my question. However, it's not removing much: suffice it to say, they did not offer any justification for rejecting my sources (or, for that matter, any other part of the argument I was making using those sources). When I asked specifically about this, they stated they wouldn't read them until I "put my money where my mouth is" by swimming at Fukushima. 

Maybe they had good reasons for rejecting my sources or argument, but they didn't offer them to me, so I could only speculate. 

AI Fallacy Master writes:
[To boniaditya] The student's answer identifies a key aspect of the logical issue present in the debate scenario you've described. However, it's important to clarify the terminology and categorize the fallacy accurately:

1. **Shifting the Goalposts**: This is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone changes the criteria for proof or verification after evidence has been presented. The goalposts are "shifted" to a new standard that is often more difficult or impossible to meet.

2. **Raising the Bar Fallacy**: While not a widely recognized term in formal logical discussions, it can be seen as a subset or specific manifestation of the "Shifting the Goalposts" fallacy. This is when conditions for acceptance are continuously raised to an unattainable level, making it impossible to satisfy the demand for evidence.

3. **Argument from Ignorance (Argumentum ad Ignorantiam)**: This fallacy occurs when it is asserted that a proposition is true simply because it has not been proven false, or vice versa. However, in the context provided, the fallacy is more about dismissing valid sources without addressing them and not necessarily about asserting truth based solely on lack of contrary evidence.

In your scenario, the opponent dismisses valid sources and demands an unreasonable form of evidence ("I'll believe it when you swim in the pool"). This constitutes a form of the "Shifting the Goalposts" fallacy, where the criteria for accepting Claim X have been adjusted to an impossible standard. The initial demand is unreasonable, as personal evidence in the manner specified (swimming in the pool) is impractical and unrelated to the validity of the existing scientific sources. Additionally, this demand reflects an avoidance strategy rather than a genuine engagement with the evidence provided.

Istvan writes:

Sometimes the evidence exists, but cannot be dug up on a short notice, and should not be required.

Lets say you are sitting in a bus stop, someone argues with you about the Earth. You say the earth is round and revolves around the sun. The other guys might say you have to prove it. How do you provide evidence to well known facts when sitting in a bus stop?

Other example is you just got a new job at a company, sitting on a project meeting, someone proposes to do an engineering process on a new device, that they used to do on old obsolete devices. Then you say we cannot do that because XYZ will happen. They dont believe you, they demand proof of this XYZ happening, they never heard of it. Since you worked at other companies before where XYZ prevention strategies were solidified and applied daily by multiple engineers, you read books about it, you attended conferences on it 10 years ago where multiples of your competitors discussed their similar XYZ prevention strategies, it is a routine. Now at the new company they want you to dig up the conference papers (that you may only have on your personal laptop at home, cannot get it and reread it on this meeting) and the old trial runs you did with your former colleagues 10 years ago (that you don't have access to) to prove it, otherwise the team is full steam ahead and ignoring alleged XYZ. The meeting concludes to go full steam ahead, and note in the minutes that you interfered with the experts by talking about made up stuff. This actually happened to me multiple times.

What is causing it, is the listener to your claim being unexpectedly uneducated. Or dealing with fake experts. A fake expert is someone with less than average knowledge, who was promoted to being lead engineers simply through length of service, but claim to "know everything there is worth knowing in the field". The opposite of an open mind.

Dr. Richard writes:
[To Istvan]

I have to admit I do not understand your point. 

boniaditya writes:
[To Istvan]

There is a name for the evidence existing but not being able to produce it on demand.

This is called Testimonial Injustice , a variation of Epistemic Injustice.

Another technique of Bureaucracy or RedTape is to push you in an endless wild goose chase of finding evidence after evidence and We will not start till we have answers to all the questions - seems like NIRVANA FALLACY or a PERFECTIONIST FALLACY.

UNTILL all the planets align I will not act, is ARRIVAL FALLACY

We will start the project when we have all the data points, if it takes 10 years to collect all the data points so be it, we will get there eventually and only then we will start the project