The Appeal to Ignorance Fallacy and Duchess's Ice Cream

She can't say Bruno didn't try to warn her!

Deep down Duchess knew this day was coming. You can't eat 3 tubs of ice cream a day and get away with it. Even now, Duchess is still thinking of a tactic to will this away.

Go against the laws of nature itself with our Appeal to Ignorance Activity Pack.

Appeal to Ignorance in a Nutshell

You can't prove this will kill me" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this argument.

That's the Appeal to Ignorance. Duchess has shifted the goalposts. Instead of asking "is this safe?", she's asking "can you PROVE it isn't?" And when Bruno can't produce a signed, notarised certificate of imminent ice cream death, she counts that as a win.

The problem is that absence of proof isn't proof of safety. Just because something hasn't been proven harmful in this exact moment doesn't mean it's fine. The doctor, the poster of the crossed-out ice cream cone, and the diagnosis of two months to live were all fairly strong hints.

Duchess is choosing to ignore those too.

See all 24 fallacies in What Are the Most Common Logical Fallacies?

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