What is the burden of proof?

This is key to understanding where atheists like me are coming from. While a person can't claim to know, with any real degree of confidence, that no gods of any kind exist, a person can quite easily maintain the null hypothesis and simply not believe theistic claims until the burden of proof has been met.

Frank Turek, Guess who has the burden of proof

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[psychedelicfluff]

Very well done, I must say.I can't see how anybody could improve on your explanation-short and to the point-just the way I like it.Thanx again, man.

[indigobunting]

To be fair to Frank Turd, he said you need to have an explanation for things that happen in the universe and reality. I'm sure to turd extra-universal and unreal entities are the easiest say-so explanation. Because if it's not in the universe or acting in reality Dr. Turd has no burden to explain it while remaining internally consistent.

[engiecat]

"surely you don't actually believe that I was doing all of those things last thursday at 7:32pm, right?"
I dunno, man, you look hella sus.

[Martial-Mat]

Turrek's just another grifter. It's notable that all modern Christian apologetics seems to be based upon how to obscure the absence of convincing evidence, and how to lie about the evidence to the contrary.

[Zift_Ylrhavic_Resfear]

A little mistake at 4:54, "not guility". Is it worth a reupload though?

[tuxino]

In regards to the "brain in a vat" idea, one of my responses to that would be:

Why does it even matter whether I believe that? Even if the reality that I experience is merely a simulation fed to a disembodied brain, how would my belief change the ways that I would have to interact with that reality?

[venturieffect]

This video reminds me of your comment on NoelPlums video the other day. Just a coincidence, or has this question of explanatory power been on your mind?

I like your idea of creating an supernatural worldview built to address and answer everything. It would be an artificially constructed religion like Esperanto is a constructed language. I wonder if "Explanatism" would find any more success.

[thegoondockswarcouncil]

Agree with most of what you said, but one quibble: it’s not true that the reason for the burden of proof is because you *cannot* prove a negative. You certainly *can* prove some negatives. E.g, you can prove you were not in New York at time X by showing that you were somewhere else at the time. Other examples could be given, but the general point is that it’s not impossible to prove a negative, and therefor you should not ground your argument for the burden of proof in those terms.

[LockeGS]

4:00 What is my first thought that we're all brains in vats? Maybe. Probably not. So what? Doesn't really matter or change anything.
7:45 Another possible answer? "I dont care"

[oluchukwuokafor]

How would you say the null hypothesis is determine because it seems kind of arbitrary to me. Is the null hypothesis the generally accepted opinion? Also, does the null hypothesis concept apply to binary claims, i.e if someone says that 1 is an odd number and I reject it, wouldn't I have the burden of proof since my rejection of the claim is logically equivalent to stating that one is an even number.

[DavidFraser]

Turek was destroyed By Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens used logic and Turek reverted to trying to shout him down in a high pitched voice.

[lucidmoses]

In law I believe "innocent until proven guilty" is very much the correct wording. It stops people from introducing others as 'The possible puppy killer' or 'suspected witch', which would have no defense.

[kebakent]

You should do something with Tim pool.

[michaelsommers]

'Innocent until proven guilty' is not the way most legal systems work. Usually, outside of the common-law countries, you have to prove your innocence.

Also, apparently 'not guilty' does not mean 'not proven', because Scotland has both 'not guilty' and 'not proven' as verdicts a jury can reach.

[chrisose]

The wide range of apologist arguments is evidence of their complete lack of evidence.

[canwelook]

Each of us have a persuasion threshold. We become convinced, or are not convinced, by the evidence and argument presented.

A low threshold = gullible
An even lower threshold = god believer

[UriahChristensen]

I have a bit of a problem. What does innocent mean? If it means not guilty of a crime, then A not guilty verdict is functionally and definitionally the same as innocent. However, if we go the other way, and say someone is not innocent, this clearly means that a person is guilty. To make it even more interesting, think about what is expected if someone really is innocent. We expect that the one claiming guilt would be unable to prove their case. So, the inability to prove guilt is the evidence of innocence. Just as not seeing an elephant in my room is evidence that there is not an elephant in my room. The presumption is that my room is innocent of containing an elephant until that time there is evidence that proves otherwise.

[EdwardHowton]

The presumption of innocence is fine for the court system. The only VERDICTS available are guilty or not guilty, but they should be assumed innocent going in.
Presuming someone not guilty until proven guilty biases the court proceedings towards the accused being guilty but it hasn't been demonstrated _yet, _ whereas presuming someone innocent until proven guilty doesn't imply guilty. You should always go into court assuming the accused is innocent, in order to avoid bias. Evidence kicks bias's ass. If you show someone authenticated video of the accused committing a crime, bias towards innocence becomes apparent. If you show authenticated evidence of someone being innocent under the presumption of guilt, you're going to say 'How deviously that evidence was faked'. After all, why else would the accused be in court if they weren't actually guilty, right?

Which is legitimately a thing idiots assume: "you don't get arrested unless you're guilty." That tired cliché about how the innocent have nothing to fear from the law has been proven thoroughly and painfully false in the USA just this year alone, and that's setting aside the numerous examples from every other year. It's a whole psychology thing, like when people were asked to judge the speed of two cars colliding and shown a video, and then another group was shown the same video and asked to judge the speed the two cars smashed into each other. Colliding is a softer word, so the speed was judged slower, while smashing is more violent so the speed was judged higher. Words have a huge effect on people that way, so innocent until proven guilty is better than "guilty but we haven't shown it YET".

[Emiliapocalypse]

_We don’t believe that unicorns exist._
um...we don’t?? 😰🦄🙊

[jessewiley]

I'm fairly convinced that, we are, in fact, brains in vats.