Talk:Burden of proof
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The burden of proof rests with the person who wants to change someone's mind. That person must take on the burden of proving something to a person.
A person with a nonstandard theory who wants it to become the standard theory has to convince a lot of people; in that case, he does have the burden of proving it to enough people to get that recognition. If he doesn't care whether it becomes the standard theory, he doesn't have the burden of proof.
For instance, say that someone develops a nonstandard theory that disagrees with a standard theory. Here are the possibilities :
- The proponents of both don't care to change minds on the other side, so no one takes the time and energy to do so (no one takes the burden of proof).
- The proponents of only one side want to convince those of the other side, so they take the time and energy to do so (they take the burden of proof).
- The proponents of both sides want to convinve those of the other side, so both take the time and energy to do so (both sides take on the burden).
12.214.45.9 20:41, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
- The legal use is somewhat primary, in that the colloquial use is (I believe) derived from it. In any case, the way you wrote it was fairly non-encyclopedic. I've tried to put together a kind of rump format for addressing some of the issues you raise. More effort will probably be needed, but it should be written like an encyclopedia article. VV 09:19, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- An encyclopedia is not made to sound or look "encyclopedic" (whatever that means). It is made to allow people to learn about various topics. If a presentation is easy to understand, adding in overblown words and grammar to make it sound falsely academic is abhorrent ! It goes against the purpose and spirit of an encyclopedia. It is a plague of logorrhoea (see the examples in the article) or pleonasm which makes it unapproachable unless the reader knows legal or logical terminology fairly well and likes slogging through overwordy grammar. Occam's Razor applies to writing.
- If you want to say that the legal use was the original use, you can say it regardless of the order of presentation.
- I only raised one issue (about changing someone's mind) and I assume that you didn't actually read what you replied to on this page. One issue was somehow transformed into "the issues" and was totally obliterated in the article (you weren't "addressing" the issue at all). It looks like you were angry that I dared change the article and hastily wrote a non sequitur justification.
- 12.214.45.9 02:06, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
expand on "person who claims" notion
The article is good. But I think the general definition of "burden of proof" needs to be expanded. Indeed, the burden of proof rests on the prosecution because of the ASUMPTION of "innocent until proven guilty". (Note other cultures do not make this assumption, thereby shifting the burden of proof to the defense.
As for the general case, we should note the two examples: "I exist" "I don't exist" The article is spot on that the burden of proof lies with the claimant, regardless of how common sense the claim is. One might want to say that the burden of proof lies with the "default" position. However, we are outside the legal context here. The person who claims "I exist" has no more justification above the person who claims "I don't exist" aside from the fallacious support of appeals to popularity and common sense.
I'll let the article progress, and maybe expand on this notion in the future and see what everyone thinks.
Merger
I merged Standard of proof. See Talk:Standard of proof for reference. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 16:59, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)