Negative evidence

Negative evidence, in its most significant meaning, is data expected to be available but which is not. Its non-existence implies that the data would discredit a theory, particularly when promoters of the theory (such as academic science) control access to data about the theory.

For example, negative evidence concerning the Theory of Relativity includes:

1. Far better data using far more advanced equipment, on dry land during an eclipse, since the crude 1919 eclipse observations of starlight deflection as made on a boat with flawed results by Sir Arthur Eddington.
2. Updated, more accurate data about the advance of Mercury's perihelion, whose data began to diverge from predictions about two decades ago.
3. Updated, more accurate data about the binary pulsar PSR B1913 16, for which the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded, but afterward the data began diverging from the predictions by the Theory of Relativity such that a special "galactic acceleration term" was created to try to fit updated data to the theory.

Negative evidence fallacy

The negative evidence fallacy is when one side controls the data and then points to a lack of evidence for the other side as though that should be persuasive. Claims of man-made global warming based on an argument that there is no data to provide it is not man-made is an example of the negative evidence fallacy.