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I'm having trouble understanding the idea that "the onus is on the person making the positive claim to provide sufficient evidence to prove their case". It looks obvious why this is a good idea, but it seems completely open to the rhetorical trick of putting the onus on the other party to prove you wrong even if your own case is unproven (perhaps because the question is a hard one and whoever is tasked with proving anything will have a hard time).
What got me thinking about this was an internet argument on immigration and crime. Half a century ago the status quo was restricted immigration and the onus would be on the person advocating for more to prove that it was a good thing, nowadays the status quo is liberal immigration and the onus is on the person advocating restrictions to prove that it is a bad thing. No scientifically relevant change has taken place, only a change in government policy, but one side can now quote a basic principle of science to bolster their case in an argument even if they know nothing more than the other party.
The due diligence question is obviously is this actually a fundamental aspect of science as stated or is it misrepresenting a more nuanced principle?
Politically, this is the instrumentalization of Chesterton's Fence (and the related concept I've taken to calling "Chesterton's Ruins"). The status quo bias presumes the wisdom of the past, in a Panglossian logic, isn't so bad, so you need to justify any changes. It's the conservatism of the comfortable.
I just watched this happen at a local courthouse. A new young judge was just seated. He wants everyone to think well of him, he wants to be seen to be energetic not lazy, he looks at his schedule and his first trial isn't until the end of next month! So he calls the two lawyers in the case and says, can you do Friday? They, of course, say yes, because judges never reschedule anything unless it is really important and they don't want to piss off the new guy.
But now those two lawyers are calling everyone else they're working with and rescheduling things to make Friday work, and the ripple effects are felt throughout the courthouse. And all the other judges are mad at the new judge, for fucking with the system. But he had no idea, he just saw an opportunity to do something and did it.
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