@Bonaventurian,
Bonaventurian;51167 wrote:It sounds like a variation of Ad Ignorantiam. A cannot be demonstrated. Therefore, not A. This isn't precisely what's going on here, but I think it's close enough.
Science's lack of ability to demonstrate a scientific proposition isn't of itself evidence that the scientific proposition is wrong.
What is demonstrated is that science is not to be trusted as an infallible source of knowledge. Every scientific proposition should be taken with a grain of salt.
But is he saying, in the consequent, "the scientific proposition is wrong"?
How did you get
that interpretation? It is not clear to me that this is the way we should interpret the consequent. Again: It reads "science is wrong"; does this mean "the scientific proposition is wrong"?
What is the relation between "uncertainty" and "wrongness"? Science self-imposes uncertainty when it accepts its principle of induction. If I say, "I'm uncertain that...", what good does it to tell me that I'm wrong? I've placed the possibility of being wrong in my uncertainty.
So what fallacy is there to speak of? {Uncertainty implies "wrongness"} is the claim made by this purported fallacy. But is
this a fallacy that we know of which has a popular name? Or are we simply introducing a new fallacy?
The "Hasty generalization" interpretation interprets the second instance of "science" to mean "the whole of scientific discourse," as it were, to generalize about all of science based on some uncertainty about one proposition. This would also be, in this case, the fallacy of composition, since it would assume that science is "unified" in some absolute sense (that the biological sciences have just as much "rigor" as the social sciences, for instance).
I myself have considered Argument from ignorance, but though you consider it "close," I think it categorically distinct. And thus, it gets no closer than any of the other informal fallacies. My reason is that this example given by the original poster involves the concept of "uncertainty." Again, I say the example probably needs more meat added to it, for it is quite bare.
Is the original poster trying to say that "uncertainty implies non-proof"? Certainly science can provide a substantial about of evidence and a
kind of proof, once which we commonly accept (the scientific method). But is
uncertainty just another meaning of
lacking proof. This concept of "uncertainty" makes the example prima facie not Argument from ignorance. But it may be that the original poster
intended to say "has not provided a proof." Though, he didn't, which is why I think the example needs more explanation.
Take the example from Wikipedia:
[INDENT]"The student
has failed to prove that he didn't cheat on the test, therefore he must have cheated on the test."[/INDENT]
This is Argument from ignorance: Now replace the antecedent with something like our original poster's example.
[INDENT]"The student
is uncertain that he didn't cheat on the test, therefore he must have cheated on the test."[/INDENT]
Are they the same? Take me to be arguing that the claim to hasty generalization and the claim to argument from ignorance as the correct identification are false claims. I do not agree that this fallacy is hasty generalization or argument from ignorance, as my arguments above have pointed out.
Now I add that the antecedent
and the consequent need further clarification.
