How are scientists able to say that a random species is extinct? Did they have to look everywhere?
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When it comes to declaring a negative (that something is not true, does not exist, no longer exists, etc) most scientific conclusions are about looking long and in depth enough to say with confidence that we’ve investigated every reasonable possibility and can draw the conclusion that it is *overwhelmingly likely* that things are the way we’re concluding.
Confirming the positive is a lot easier. You know you’re 100% correct the first time you see a giraffe that giraffes are not currently extinct. Not finding a giraffe doesn’t mean you can confidently say it’s extinct just on its own, but eventually when you look long and thoroughly enough to say you’ve checked every place a giraffe could plausibly survive and found no evidence of one, you can say giraffes are likely enough to be extinct that you can treat it as they are.
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