 I'm highly skeptical sure, but what is that skepticism based on if you're skeptical as well Have you asked yourself upon? What do I base my skepticism? Are you just plain ornery? You just don't want to go along with the rest of the thing Do you know some other people who believe in it that are really pretty dense and you don't want to join their group? You've got to have a reason I think For yourself and for others as to why you are skeptical these things are not likely to be true Therefore you need proof of them now. You're not required or am I certainly required to prove a negative I can't do that. I can't prove telepathy doesn't exist I remember getting a question years ago Lady stood up in the iron said can you prove to me that ESP doesn't exist and I said no I can't man. She sat down ha ha with her arms folded I was a victory for her and then I went on to explain I can't prove a negative my question is do you believe in it? She says absolutely. I said can you prove that it is so? She said well, I'm quite convinced of it That's not my question Can you prove that it ain't so or that it is so not you can't prove that it ain't so can you prove that it is so? You're the one making the claim and they are the folks making the claims We're not we skeptics as Michael Sherman clearly pointed out. We're not in the business of debunking If I were in the business of debunking and I've often had that label pinned on me And I've always resented it and I've denied it if I were in the business of debunking It means I go into an investigation Convinced that this ain't so and I'm going to show you that it isn't I'm not a lawyer I don't have an advocacy position to take I'm convinced this isn't so I don't care what the evidence is I'm somehow going to prove that it ain't so no I go into the thing Investigating now to be perfectly fair with you. Let's be real for a minute. Well all the way through this I hope I can't prove a negative. It's true But I go into this thing I say prepared to be shown am I prejudiced against it Oh, yes, I have to admit that after all if you've been sitting by a chimney for 63 years on the India December the 24th And a fat man a red suit has never bounced down the chimney. Oh, you can say is 100% of my evidence Shows me that this is not necessarily so I don't have any proof that it is and what's more important folks Is this one fact? It's not very likely to be true based upon what you already know now I Often end my lectures with this little illustration People will ask the question and I'll see and you show that it ain't so no Then I got you know you have to prove to me since you say it is so that it is so suppose I illustrate for you I think rather well, but you'll be the judge of that in a moment whether or not You can prove a negative. Let's take Santa Claus. That's a very good example. Well around the end of December I'm awfully popular. I must admit in the street And I have kids almost worshiping me Sorry if they're disillusioned later on but who knows wasn't my fault. I didn't tell him the myth in the first place You have to examine the Santa Claus thing by specific means now. There's one way you can go around and measure chimneys But that's not much of a you know, he does come in the back door I'm told occasionally if the chimney is occupied or it's too small. So that's not much of a way of investigating it Let's a flying reindeer. There's a good way. Hey that we can test. Oh, please don't tell the ASPCA about this I I don't really want to do the experiment. I must say that in advance I really don't want to do the experiment, but let's just walk through it as if I were doing the thing, okay Let's name some numbers now. Okay, select by some randomizing process. Oh a thousand reindeer, okay, and You get them all together in a reindeer truck or something. I don't know what you put a reindeer in and a whole bunch of people with Whips or I don't know what do you do with reindeer? But anyway get some people know how to handle reindeer and stick them up on top of the World Trade Center in New York You're laughing and you're making assumptions now. I can't have that You're going to test whether or not reindeer can fly, okay? So I'll sort of walk through it with you if you'll bear with me You have a guy there with a that's a dirty laugh lady. I want to tell you but I like it. Keep it up You go on the top of the upper part of the World Trade Center and You have your thousand reindeer there. All right I put numbers on the side one two three all the way up to a thousand big numbers So you can see them and you have a guy with a videotape camera lots of pads of paper and whatnot and pens that work And you say okay the time is now ten past ten in the morning Okay, first experiment number one, please and number one up to the edge and they're ready. Okay video camera going good push Write down no Really no Number two Push Well now I don't know what the result of the experiment will be I suspect strongly what it will be based upon My meager knowledge of the aerodynamics of the average reindeer So I'm not an expert on it and based upon previous accounts of what reindeer can and cannot do I think we are going to end up With a pile of very unhappy and broken reindeer at the foot of the World Trade Center I'm probably a couple of policemen standing outside a squad car saying I don't know but here comes another one Now it gets better. I won't throw any more reindeer. I promise Now what have we proven of this experiment have we proven that reindeer cannot fly? No Of course not think about it now We've only shown that on this occasion under these conditions of atmospheric pressure temperature Radiation all these sort of thing at this position geographically on the season etc that these 1,000 reindeer either Could not fly or Chose not to Now if the second Then we know something certainly about the IQ of the average reindeer in this group However, we have not proven a negative we cannot prove a negative technically and rationally and philosophically speaking however People will often look at this example and say well, how many reindeer would you have to test now? I'm not going to get into the statistics of the thing our Benjamin can handle that for you I'm not going to get into the arguments on the matter I will only tell you that you cannot prove a negative and I think that's a rather good example of it You might wish to use in illustrating your point the other folks who claim that it is so are required to prove it And if it's so it's very easy. Just show me one flying reindeer Of course, then they come up with the rationalizations and they say oh, no It's only the eight tiny reindeer that live at the North Pole who can and will on the evening of December the 24th Fly to do that specific job in that case you have to throw up your hands and say well I don't think your hypothesis is very testable for more of James Randy and the educational foundation Make sure you visit Randy.org