How do you prove a negative?

Answer 1

You can't PROVE it, but you can demonstrate a high likelyhood that the negative is true.

You can't prove there isn't a pink toaster obiting the earth, but you can demonstrate how unlikely that event is.

Answer 2

Well, try it. Prove on here that Santa doesn't exist.

"Proving the non-existence of that for which no evidence of any kind exists. Proof, logic, reason, thinking, knowledge pertain to and deal only with that which exists. They cannot be applied to that which does not exist. Nothing can be relevant or applicable to the non-existent. The non-existent is nothing. A positive statement, based on facts that have been erroneously interpreted, can be refuted - by means of exposing the errors in the interpretation of the facts. Such refutation is the disproving of a positive, not the proving of a negative.... Rational demonstration is necessary to support even the claim that a thing is possible. It is a breach of logic to assert that that which has not been proven to be impossible is, therefore, possible. An absence does not constitute proof of anything. Nothing can be derived from nothing." If I say, "Anything is possible" I must admit the possibility that the statement I just made is false. Doubt must always be specific, and can only exist in contrast to things that cannot properly be doubted. “

Answer 3

You prove a negative the same way as your prove a positive. A negative is just the opposite of something else.

For example, -y is just the opposite of y. Say that x is equal to -y. Then, you could prove -x in the same way you prove y.

A negative statement is just a matter of wording.

You prove all statements by providing sufficient evidence and logic to support it.

Answer 4

“You can’t prove a negative.”

People who are searching for excuses to believe silly things frequently make this statement. A theist makes a positive assertion, and then declines to provide a basis for it. You deny their assertion (rightly so, what with no basis and all), but your denial is deemed invalid because it is impossible to prove a denial.

There is so very much wrong with this situation, it will take a while to wade through it.

The rules of logic and science indicate that there must be some kind of basis (either in substance or in thought) for an assertion or else it must be denied. An assertion, without evidence, is not accepted as true. That is the default position, the position that defines what critical thought is. Critical thought means not believing things you are told unless there is evidence to back it up. And without critical thought, logic and science are abandoned, and this is the only kind of productive thought humanity has ever come up with. To reject critical thought is to turn one’s back on thinking and embrace the Dark Ages. That’s the answer to this statement in theory.

However, in practice, there is usually a lot more happening with the person who makes such a proclamation. The person who makes this kind of statement has a great many fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of logic, science, and productive thought.

First, many people who believe in God do not realize that in every discussion about theism, their assertion is implicit: God exists. They do not need to say it. Every argument they make is under the assumption that the statement “God exists” is true. The fact that they identify themselves as believers is enough to serve as an assertion that a deity or deities exists. No assertion is being made by an atheist (at least not a smart atheist). The word “god” hasn’t even been defined and the nature of belief in that god has not been described; these must take place before any substantial discussion about the nature of God can begin. Atheists have no reason to provide these descriptions – without any beliefs about God, they have no reason to do so. It must be presumed that this onus rests upon the theist. The mere mention of one’s belief in God serves as an assertion that God exists.

Secondly, a person who rejects an assertion does not need to provide any justification for it. The evidence has to be provided by the party making the assertion. The person rejecting the assertion needs to provide nothing at all. Many theists try to escape this basic fact of life by declaring (in opposition to common sense) that their assertions need to be justified only to themselves in their personal experience. Simply put, that what is true for others might not be true for themselves. But this is madness – this also turns its back on productive thinking. This idea is called “solipsism,” and it refers to the notion that every person lives in his own reality, and what is true in his or her life might not be true for others. This is an old idea and it was shown to be ridiculous many centuries ago. Think about it – if it solipsism really was real, there wouldn’t be any books, schools, learning, or science. And people would never be able to communicate effectively.

Thirdly, the statement that “you cannot prove a negative” is simply false. On the surface, it seems to be true: if Person A says “I think God exists” and Person B says “I don’t think God exists,” it’s pretty clear that Person B is going to have a hard time proving that there isn’t a God. However, if you look a little closer, it actually depends on the nature of the negative statement being made. Here are some negative statements that can be proven very easily:

Five is not equal to four
The ancient Egyptians did not watch Seinfeld

The tsetse fly is not native to North America

Clearly, it’s possible to prove a negative statement. The real problem here is clearly the nature of the positive statement being refuted. When a person asserts that God exists, he does not specify the nature of God – that is, is God small, large, blue, red? And where is he? Of course it is not possible to prove that God does not exist, if “God” is a thing that has no definition, no characteristics, and no location. In fact, you can prove just about any kind of negative you can think of – except for (surprise!) the non-existence of mystical beings. When you get right down to it, the statement “you cannot prove a negative” is really just a different way of saying “You can’t prove me wrong because I don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

Logical statements have to abide by certain rules and restrictions. In order for a statement to be logical, it must be falsifiable, which means that it has to be presented in such a way that it could be proven incorrect. A statement is not logical if it cannot be tested to make sure it is true. The existence of God is not a logical question at all, and is therefore nonsensical. Of course you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist – no one even knows what God is supposed to be.

Answer 5

Let me see....

Proving a Universal Negative

It is taken for granted by Christians, as well as many atheists, that a universal negative cannot be proven. In this case, that universal negative is the statement that the Christian God does not exist. One would have to have omniscience, they say, in order to prove that anything does not exist. I disagree with this position, however, because omniscience is not needed in order to prove that a thing whose nature is a self-contradiction cannot, and therefore does not exist.

[We] do not need a complete knowledge of the universe to prove that cubic spheres do not exist. Such objects have mutually-exclusive attributes which would render their existence impossible. For example, a cube, by definition, has 8 corners, while a sphere has none. These properties are completely incompatible: they cannot be held simultaneously by the same object. It is my intent to show that the supposed properties of the Christian God Yahweh, like those of a cubic sphere, are incompatible, and by so doing, to show Yahweh's existence to be an impossibility.

Answer 6

Negatives are only relative to something you personally feel positive about. The same goes for quantity - if something has a negative value it is only because it opposes the human comfort-zone-interface. Negatives aren't anti-thought, they are the gaps that we fabricate to illustrate progress.
Oh almost forgot, the square root of -1? You can't prove a negative because it's a non-arbitrary function. The answer is that is 'j' btw...

Answer 7

It's a logical impossibility to prove a negative, you can only infer a negative by proving a positive....that's as close as you can get.

Answer 8

your question is so vague that almost anything could be made out of it. although i will try a guess. you are saying something like how can be negatively prove something : for example lets say someone says you have stolen his purse. now to positively prove that is logically possible. he will search all over your property and he may find his purse. he may not but if he finds it is positively proven you stole the purse but no matter how much one searches you and your property without finding the purse still it cannot be certain that you had not stolen the purse. so it cannot be negatively proven. the same pronciple will apply in many such situations.

Answer 9

You can't prove a negative.
Here are some examples.

Prove that you are NOT a dinosaur. You can only prove that you are a male or female human, but that does not necessarily prove that you are NOT a dinosaur.

Prove that you are NOT God. You can prove that you are a human but you can't necessarily prove that you are NOT god. Proving that you are a human does not rule out that you could be God. Therefore, you still have not proven that you are NOT god.

Answer 10

prove its not positive!! no actually, its up to you to decide wot is positive and negative as for each person this is different eg. a medicine could be a cure for one person but not for you, so you see it is negative for you but positive for the other person! proving a negative is up to the effects it has on you or other people!
hope this helped ;-)

Answer 11

You can't prove general negative existentials (eg. there is no such thing as a green swan), everything else is up for grabs.

Using the fact of a positive to disprove a negative relies on the law of noncontradiction, itself an unprovable assumption in classical logic systems. In fact, quantum theory can be taken to weakly disprove noncontradiction as far as existential matters are concerned.

Either:

(i) that particle has spin up and spin down;
(ii) that particle be observed to have spin up or spin down but nothing can be said about what actually is (rendering noncontradiction semantically null);

depending on your view of beables.