One single proof

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A dirty dozen gems about denialism

Conservative denial Conspiracy Denialism Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Germ theory denialism Global warming Historical revisionism Holocaust Ku Klux Klan Lost Cause of the South Moon landing hoax Transitional fossil

"One single proof" is a deceptive rhetorical flourish used primarily by denialists designed to apparently negate a preponderance of circumstantial evidence by claiming that without a specific key proof, the whole argument is invalid. The effectiveness of the technique is dependent on a sort of distortion of Occam's razor whereby any evidence that does not provide the whole answer is ignored.

Examples of the technique include

• In Holocaust denial, the insistence that the Holocaust defender produce a written order from Adolf Hitler ordering the extermination of the Jews, despite the fact that Hitler's desire to eliminate Jewry was fairly well-known without an explicit order being issued;
• Among Creationists, demanding one single transitional fossil, usually according to a Creationist definition of the term that is not recognized in scientific circles;
• Among tax protesters in the United States, demanding that the government show the protesters the law authorizing the income tax, while not accepting that the 16th Amendment to the Constitution and Title 26 (the Federal tax code) constitute sufficient notification in the eyes of the US Federal courts [1].
• Among deniers of the harmful effects of tobacco smoking (active and passive), demanding that public health authorities produce the death certificate of one person who died as a consequence of exposure to secondhand smoke, and, in the absence of such a death certificate, concluding that such exposure is innocuous.

The fallacy often rests on the idea that without a particular key bit of information, the entire system will fall apart. While this is sometimes the case, particularly when dealing with mathematical proofs, forensic arguments often make use of large quantities of circumstantial evidence in such a way as to point directly to a cause without a single smoking gun.

[edit] See also

• Logical fallacies
• Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Articles about logical fallacies
Formal fallacies
Ad hominem	Argument by assertion	Negative proof	Non sequitur
Informal fallacies
Ad hoc	Argumentum ad nauseam	Argumentum ex culo	Argument from ignorance	Argument from incredulity	Balance fallacy
Begging the question	Correlation does not equal causation	Equivocation	False analogy	False dilemma	Moving the goalposts
No True Scotsman	One single proof
Red herrings
Argumentum ad baculum	Argumentum ad populum	Argument from adverse consequences	Association fallacy	Bullshit	Poisoning the well
My enemy's enemy	Spotlight fallacy	Straw man	Style over substance fallacy	Texas sharpshooter fallacy
Conditional fallacies
Argument from authority	Galileo gambit	Slippery slope
Fallacious argument styles
Chewbacca Defense	Gish Gallop	Ham Hightail	JAQing off