What makes people irrational thinkers?

[The Architect Of Fate]

what I question is whether meeting a “burden of proof” is a useful epistemic obligation for a couple of reasons.

It is and only people who would object are people who have an agenda to spew unfounded nonsense.

First, I agree with @Belacqua; it’s more of a debate tactic than tool of serious inquiry. If the goal is, as you wrote, to “separate fact from fiction” then reliving critics of a proposition from any obligation to defend their opposition to it. If the goal is to increase understanding, allowing "one side" to be a default position is literally half as effective.

People who make positive claims have to prove them. No one else has that obligation and only people who have nothing to back up their positions would object.


Ultimately you and Bel just want to give a blank check to quacks spewing baseless crap