Shifting the Burden

The tactic of moving the burden of proof from the one making a claim to the one questioning it. Shifting the burden is what happens when someone says "prove me wrong" instead of supporting their own position. It's the logic of "you can't prove God doesn't exist, so he does," of "you can't prove vaccines are safe, so they're dangerous." Shifting the burden inverts the normal rules of argument, putting the challenger in the impossible position of proving a negative. The cure is recognizing that the burden of proof lies with the positive claim, not with its critics. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not extraordinary skepticism.

Shifting the Burden Example: "He claimed the election was stolen. When asked for evidence, he shifted the burden: 'Prove it wasn't.' She couldn't prove a negative; that's not how proof works. But shifting the burden had worked: now she was on the defensive, trying to disprove his unsupported claim. The argument was upside down, and he liked it that way."

Shifting the Burden by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 17, 2026