Pic: The Bushy-tailed ginger cat “fox” heading for the gorse bushes. Picture taken at “Selma”, number 1624 Esk Highway Fingal Valley
Pic: Photographed in the Fingal valley 50 metres from the main road. The “fox” was eating a new-born baby lamb.
Scepticism is the default state of science. Doubting is mandatory in order to examine the reasoning, assumptions and biases inherent in various claims.
We owe much to this tradition.Scepticism about claims made without evidence underpinned The Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution that took western civilization down the road to a society based on reason.
Charles Darwin did not kill god, scepticism did. The world changed when people rejected dogmas and demanded evidence. Given this pedigree, it’s odd to be admonished for being a sceptic. Quite remarkably, in the face of uncertainty, scepticism is being criticised as an irrational and unhelpful attribute by the fox eradication program and some of their supporters. At the same time, science education in Australia attempts to teach sceptical inquiry skills and clear thinking to promote a better understanding of science and rational discourse. That’s ironic.
In the fox debate, an ideological tug-o-war is waged between those uncomfortable with their claims being contested by outsiders who are sceptical of the evidentiary basis for those claims. It appears that the fox program has been comfortable setting their own standards and rules of what constitutes proof. And thus far they have managed to get away with it. Something happened in the fox debate a few years back that demonstrates this quite well. Like a magician’s sleight of hand, it went almost unnoticed.
The fox program quietly reversed the burden of proof. Few realized the worrying significance of this.
In law you must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, but science has an even tougher standard where the proponent must present convincing evidence for their claim or have it rejected. Sceptics don’t have to disprove any claim, but merely point out when the standard of proof has not been met relative to the magnitude of the claim. By suggesting that sceptics must demonstrate or produce evidence that foxes don’t exist, a false dichotomy was produced. Because it’s impossible to present evidence of something that does not exist. That’s the reason why the burden of proof must always stay with the proponent.
Attempting to reverse the burden of proof of an unproven claim isutterly illogical.There is only a single claim that requires proof; that which says that live foxes exist in Tasmania. Claims that a live fox population exists, or once did, demand direct evidence of those very same live foxes.
The reason for the burden of proof being changed was obvious. From the beginning, the fox program crafted facts from evidence that was never capable of meeting that standard. For instance, four opportunistically collected dead foxes, ignoring the very dubious circumstances of their collection, did not constitute evidence of a live population of foxes. This was especially so in the face of numerous additional fox hoaxes that accompanied their discovery and provided good evidence that dead foxes were being shipped in.
This simple logical conundrum may be best demonstrated by analogy.
Imagine you drop anchor at a desert island and discover four dead sailors on the shore. Is it logical to first claim that a population of sailors must exist on the island? Then, after you search and can’t find any to prove this claim, will you then demand that your detractors instead must prove the absence of live sailors to disprove your assumption? Logically, the first and perhaps only relevant questions should be ‘where did the bodies come from and were they dead when they arrived?’
The standard of proof in science is not ‘reasonable doubt’. If something is to be accepted as a fact, it is because all other alternative explanations have been exhausted. If they have not been, it is not proof. If people and institutions are allowed to reverse the burden of proof, the responsibility for their lack of evidence is transferred to the very people who point out the absence or inadequacy of evidence. Uncertainty can then become a proof of sorts. ‘You haven’t disproved that god exists’ then sounds convincing (transpose ‘god’ for foxes and thylacines as the trick has endless applications).
It’s a cynical party trick that plays to the woeful lack of critical thinking skills in society. Unfortunately it is also quite effective. People rally to such irrational claims; ‘yeah, you haven’t disproved it’ sounds almost what a sceptic might say. The difference is, no proof can ever be offered and no claim was ever made that it could be.
A chain of similarly illogical associations that characterise the fox program have gone largely unchallenged in the media. Mr Mooney’s earlier claim of a large scale and intentional release of foxes has no evidentiary basis whatsoever, as pointed out by the Tasmanian Police. It was not that the police could not prosecute the people responsible, as repeatedly claimed, but the absolute absence of any physical evidence to support this claim. This is on the public record. Thereafter, opportunistically found dead foxes were equated with evidence of the existence of live foxes and a justification for this first unsubstantiated claim. But a conjunction of two unproven claims that leapfrog the need to prove the validity and connection of each, the absence of logic and evidence are dismissed as a minor clerical error.
Mr Mooney may well be satisfied with the logic that confirms that four dead foxes are evidence of live ones. He may somehow be convinced that his original claims of a mass fox release have been vindicated. Unfortunately, this misses a pretty significant omission. Because the proponent of a claim does not set the standards used to test the validity of their own claim.The person who should be listened to the least in testing the value of the evidence presented is the original proponent of the very same unproven claim.
A great weakness in the fox program became apparent very early on when they became the proponents of uncertain evidence to prove what they had already decided was true. Whether this was fox bodies, thousands of fox sightings or much later scat DNA evidence, you have little credibility when you toss out any pretense of objectivity and impartiality and grasp at straws to reinforce a house of cards.
A factual claim cannot be justified upon a whim or a good story. It is only the logical consistency and quality of the evidence that matters. Claims of fact must be based upon sound and consistent logic that is apparent to all. Scepticism is not used for the indiscriminate rejection of ideas in the face of overwhelming logic and evidence, for it is the quality of the evidence and the merit of the logic that determines when it is needed most.
The alternative is quite stark. Belief, in the absence of evidence, is called dogma. Those comfortable with a dogma have no use for sceptics, just as they have no use for objective or independent evidence to support their claims. Their own brand of proof will be good enough and they alone shall be the arbiters of what testsits merit.To those institutions with a comfortable dogma, sceptics are an irritant best treated with a dose of derision and a media strategy. That way they can be dismissed as conspiracy theorists.
With that type of thinking alive and well in the government of Tasmania, let’s hope that the secondary and tertiary education sector manages to do well teaching sceptical inquiry and clear thinking to our kids.It would be folly to dismiss the clear warning signs that an attack on scepticism and logic implies.
Penelope Marshall studied creative writing at Queensland University and has a Diploma in Freelance Journalism. In Hobart she has attended courses with local writers and journalists and studied for a Diploma of Arts in Professional Writing and Editing. She has had many feature stories and short stories published and is in her final year of an Arts Degree at The University of Tasmania majoring in English and History. Published works include stories in the Convict Lives at the Female Factory series and feature stories in 40 Degrees South Magazine. She lives in Opossum Bay where, when not writing, she runs a sanctuary for orphaned and injured wildlife … and owns lots of pets.
Ian Rist: A response to recent Mercury publication questioning fox sceptics, most notably Ian Rist Is evidence of a live fox too much to ask for? I think not, for this is the crux of the issue and the only way that Mr Mooney can prove his case. The onus is with him, not myself to disprove what is logically impossible to disprove. After 13 years, I am prepared to conclude that Mr Mooney has no proof, just long lived uncertainty. In the mean time, don’t take a bet from Mr Mooney when you are required by him to prove a negative. It might cost you $60 million.
Without being flippant, consider someone who believes in the Easter Bunny based on the evidence; plenty of chocolate eggs, loads of small people who see it each year and even a description of what it looks like. Logically, is the onus on others to disprove this uncertain claim? No, and for a very good reason that cuts to the heart of how science works.
The onus of proof accepted by science is that an event has not happened unless it can be proven – by the proponent, not disproved by the detractor. Yet, by an unproven association, Mr Mooney demands that we believe that live foxes must exist because dead ones were found. Then he demands that doubters disprove the existence of these live foxes or be admonished. Yet both his assertions neither follow one another, nor are they logical. The neat trick is that Mr Mooney inverts the onus of proof and demands his detractors disprove a negative (that live foxes don’t exist) and this can’t be done. It is simply logically impossible to do so. Only Mr Mooney can prove that live foxes exist, and this he has not done. No one need feel abashed to point this out to him.
Four dead foxes (and some 5 more dead ones that were hoaxes ) does not equate to a living fox population. On probability, it is far more likely that the famous 4 were hoaxes. The burden is Mr Mooney’s to prove they were not, but more to the point, to prove the validity of his association and the existence of his live foxes.
Is evidence of a live fox too much to ask for? I think not, for this is the crux of the issue and the only way that Mr Mooney can prove his case. The onus is with him, not myself to disprove what is logically impossible to disprove. After 13 years, I am prepared to conclude that Mr Mooney has no proof, just long lived uncertainty.
In the meantime, don’t take a bet from Mr Mooney when you are required by him to prove a negative. It might cost you $60 million.
— Ian Rist
