"kais" <kais_maayah@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:334eba25.0307151556.6112a5db@posting.google.com...
> > "Shifting the burden of proof
> > The burden of proof is always on the person asserting something.
Shifting
> > the burden of proof, a special case of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, is the
> > fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or
questions
> > the assertion. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that
something is
> > true unless proven otherwise."
>
> This is "Old Logic" just "Old Europe" (if anyone remembers remembers
> who said that)... the bush administration has shown us all how to do
> it.


Except that Old Europe is gone, and the same principles of valid argument
(logic) remain, because the opposite would be absurd. (Arguing _ad
ignorantiam_ would be OK, for example, which would be an absurd situation.)

The Bushies are definitely masters at sophistry -- argument _ad ignorantiam_
(shifting the burden of proof) in particular.

From yesterday's White House  press briefing by Ari Fleischer :

MR. FLEISCHER: I think this remains an issue about did Iraq seek uranium in
Africa, an issue that very well may be true. We don't know if it's true -- 
but nobody, but nobody, can say it is wrong.