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its not proved so cannot be disproved...?

Is this sound logic?

Written as an answer in this section recently.

Do you need to prove something before it can be disproven?

Can you only disprove something after it was previously proven?

Surely it does not follow that something has to be proven true before it proves false?

Update:

@ Ruth

I don't know if they were atheist or not, perhaps you do.

@ auntie Ann

But that's only one example, consider the claim; I was in Cyprus all last week. It doesn't need to be previously proven to only then be disproven.

13 Answers

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  • 8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Obviously. If a thing has not been proved, there is nothing to disprove

    Some issues are outwith proof..e.g. love. empathy, God.

  • 8 years ago

    A logical or philosophical statement falls into one (and only one) of very few cases

    A. Proved

    B. Disproved

    C. Not yet a or b but still possible to prove or disprove.

    D. Not possible to prove or disprove.

    A and B are mutually exclusive. C is transitory. D is permanent and usually can be explained with regard to WHY it cannot be proved or disproved. Off hand I can't think of another case.

    The headline question is NOT a sound statement of logic. It is possible to disprove something that has not been proved yet, perhaps because that something CANNOT be proved due to its being inherently false. See, for example, the old phlogiston theory of heat transfer, which was disproved conclusively by experiments in thermodynamics using something called a "bomb calorimeter."

    I would think that if you CAN prove something then it would be impossible to disprove it except by showing that the proof was faulty.

  • Sc0pe
    Lv 5
    8 years ago

    I think youre meaning to say if its not proved it does not need disproving

    you can only disprove something by proving something else that occupies the same equations as it

    such as i was told the car is blue(not proven does not need disproving), no i can see it, its red(proven, also disproves blue car)

    As for things such as god, it goes like this, i believe in god and this book says hes real and i also feel him at church(not proven, does not need disproving) then theres the fact that the bible has been wrong on a lot of things and the fact that people feeling things like 'the holy spirit' can be summed up to chemicals in the brain disproves these arguments

    but since god is apparently in another dimension its not as simple as the car argument and since thats the case we cannot disprove it because we dont have access to this supposed other dimension

  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    Not true.

    Fermat's Last Theorem wasn't proved (until recently), but that certainly didn't mean it couldn't have been disproved prior to that.

    ------------------------

    @ANDRE - It is not true that the burden of proof always rests on the person making the positive claim. Going back to my example of Fermat, he claimed that there is no whole number such that X^n + Y^n = Z^n where n > 2. He was making a negative claim, but had the burden of proof to demonstrate this. In math and philosophy, you'll find that you often come across proving negatives.

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  • GOD
    Lv 6
    8 years ago

    It cannot be disproved but we can prove how illogical the belief is because of the evidence that we have to prove the argument against it.

  • 8 years ago

    Until something is proven, with evidence, to be true, it is not reasonable to accept it.

    Further, the Burden Of Proof always rests on the positive claimant.

  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    "Is this sound logic?"

    Not particularly. That would be an excuse to make up anything you want and then insist that it is true because it can't be disproved.

  • 8 years ago

    Who cannot be disproved? Goblins? The Honey Monster?

  • 8 years ago

    I disagree. It's one of those statements that sounds logical, but is just verbal manipulation. Is anti-gravity true or false? As yet no-one has 'proved' anti-gravity. We could easily say that because no one has proved there IS anti-gravity, they have proved there is NO anti-gravity.

  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    No, that's logically flawed. If something has been proven, how can it be disproven?

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