Mueller and the Celestial Teapot

It is impossible to disprove a negative assertion.

Kudos to British mathematician Bertrand Russell for the excellent illustration of this principal.

"Bertrand Russell proposed his teapot analogy as a way of explaining where the burden of proof lies, particularly in debates about religion."

 "In the teapot analogy, Russell asks to us to imagine a man claiming that there is a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars. The teapot is too small for us to see, and, since we can’t journey out into space (Russell wrote this in the 1950s), there’s no way to show that the teapot isn’t actually there. “Ah,” says Russell’s hypothetical man, “since you can’t prove the teapot isn’t there, you must assume that it is there.”

Of course, it’s patently ridiculous to claim that that we must believe in a teapot orbiting the sun simply because we have no means to prove it isn’t there. The burden of proof, Russell argues, is on the person claiming the teapot is there, since the default assumption is that no such teapot exists; the person claiming the existence of the teapot needs to provide positive evidence for us to believe his claim. He can’t just insist that we accept his belief as the default position."

 https://www.gotquestions.org/Russells-teapot.html

 Mueller writes in his report that based on the evidence available, his investigation cannot conclude that Trump didn't attempt to obstruct justice in the Russia collusion investigation.

Russell's analogy above tells us why Mueller could not reach that conclusion... because it's IMPOSSIBLE to do so.

Mueller knows this.

This concept of disproving a negative claim being impossible, is one of the first things students of logic learn, and is essential to modern systems of justice. It is the basis for the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". Absent this presumption of innocence, basically everyone so accused is guilty, because it is impossible to disprove a negative assertion.

Since you cannot prove you didn't do it, we presume you did it.

As an apparently educated man Mueller certainly knows this basic concept of justice, and yet made the assertion anyway.

Why?

Any answer is speculation of course, but we are left with only two reasonable possibilities:

1. Mueller is not aware of the logical fallacy of his assertion.
2. Mueller chose to ignore the logical fallacy of his assertion.

Which of these seems more likely?

"Did IQ's just drop suddenly while I was away?" -Ripley

The deafening silence when faced with this absurdity is impossible to ignore.

And yet... here we are.

1215 A.D. called and they want their Magna Carta back, since we aren't going to use it.

I weep for the future.