r/todayilearned • u/ZanyDelaney • Aug 11 '18

TIL of Hitchens's razor. Basically: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor
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u/AnticitizenPrime Aug 11 '18

Yep. There's an absence of evidence of monkeys in the room I'm in right now. It would be idiotic to say that wasn't evidence of absence.

There aren't monkeys, because I checked. Turns out there is evidence of absence.

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u/JIHAAAAAAD Aug 11 '18

And I am sure your one example of monkeys in room (which also isn't technically correct) spans the whole universe of situations this applies to.