What does the phrase “you can’t prove a negative” actually mean?
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If I want to prove something, for example that Keanu Reeves has ever uttered the word “rice” in Turkish, that’s relatively simple. All I need to do to prove it is provide video evidence.
If I want to prove the negative of the above statement it’s basically impossible. I would need to have constant 24/7 video and audio coverage of his mouth from the moment he was born and hire tens of thousands of people to carefully watch and listen to the footage to ensure he never whispered the word. Such footage doesn’t exist.
So it’s basically impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that something *didn’t* happen. It’s possible to make an educated guess about the likelihood of it – has Reeves ever been to Türkiye? Is there evidence of him attempting to order at restaurants in the native language when he travels? Has he ever had a Turkish girlfriend? etc. – but “probably true” or “probably false” isn’t **proven**.
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