[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Jesus.H.Christ

Thank you for the link. I will have a read of it properly, although after skimming it, I saw some linguistic tricks and at least one fallacy, but I'll read the whole thing before commenting fully.



But just to highlight a glaring hole in his argument:



1. If unicorns had existed, then there is evidence in the fossil record.
2. There is no evidence of unicorns in the fossil record.
3. Therefore, unicorns never existed.



Not every animal that has existed we have evidence for, yet we know about their existence due to the fact that they are intermediary species, and through biology. Also, I'm fairly sure that there are, as of yet undiscovered fossils of animals that have existed in the past. Does the fact we are yet to find them, mean that they didn't exist? Of course not.


Finally, when people say " you can't either prove or disprove....." they are generally about to make a claim that is outrageous, such as heaven/religion/magic etc, so it's one thing attempting to use fossil evidence to disprove unicorns, but it's another thing entirely to make claims that can't be tested, and then say it's a draw.

But making a broad statement "You can't prove a negative" is incorrect.