I cannot prove you are wrong, but that doesn’t prove you are right.
Source, wikipedia
In logic, an appeal to ignorantiam, also known as call to ignorance, is a fallacy which consist of keep the truthness (or falseness) of a proposition, arguing there is not probe against it, or arguing the incapacity of the opponent to show convincing probes of the opposite. They who argue like that, don’t sustain their argument in knowledge, but in ignorance, in the lack of knowledge. It is usually pointed with the sentence: absence of probe is not probe of absence. So you fall in this fallacy when you say something is true because of lack of acknowledge existing about it.
Examples
About God’s existence:
It is not possible to prove God’s inexistence.
Therefore, God exists.
Wikileaks has failed to demonstrate our conspiratory theory on the true masterminding of the 11-S, 11-M and 7-J terrorist attacks. Therefore Wikileaks is part of a disinformation campaign orchestrated by the USA government; It’s a controlled declassification of documents.
To refute it
Put the emphasis on the fact that even though something may not be known, if you make an affirmation about that something, that something has to be demonstrated. And also that being the case that we may not know something doesn’t imply or give way to made up allegations.
Whenever the source is not referenced, both definitions and examples have been extracted from a translation of Jaime Wilson jwilson@bytecr.com based on Stephen’s Guide to the Logical Fallacies. Copyright 1995-1998 Stephen Downes. Brandon, Manitoba, Canada.
These texts have been modified by Miguel A. Lerma and now by us to adapt them -and those taken from Wikipedia- to our format.