Argument from silence

What it is

Draws a conclusion from the absence of evidence, such as a source not mentioning something. Silence is informative only if the source would be expected to mention it.

Related

• Appeal to ignorance fallacy
  Both infer something from missing evidence; the argument from silence applies it to a source that does not mention a thing.
• Survivorship bias bias
  What is missing from the record (silence) is often missing because of how the record was selected, as in survivorship bias.

References

• Wikipedia: Argument from silence en.wikipedia.org
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies iep.utm.edu
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies plato.stanford.edu
• Wikipedia: List of fallacies en.wikipedia.org
• Purdue OWL: Logical fallacies owl.purdue.edu

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