On the Principle “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”
In the law (for most countries), there exists the principle that the accused is presumed innocent until sufficient evidence is presented that shows otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. I emphasize the law, since it is there where the principle exists. Outside of the law, what people believe to be true rarely has anything to do with proof or evidence. The ubiquitous belief in the supernatural demonstrates this handily.
If we had to examine the evidence for every claim we hear, we'd likely never get anything else done. So we (us and our brains) have come up with a few shortcuts:
If a claim lines up with something we already believe to be true, we tend to believe the claim flat-out.
Conversely, if a claim challenges one of our existing beliefs, we tend to dismiss the claim flat-out.
If a claim comes from someone we trust (or someone who we identify easily with), we tend to believe it.
Conversely, if a claim comes from someone we don’t trust (or can’t easily identify with) we tend to dismiss it.
There are certainly other rubrics folks use to evaluate-but-not-really-evaluate claims, but these are the basics. Evidence of the claims matters little. In deed, when evidence is actually provided for a claim that would normally be dismissed (via the shortcuts), the pre-existing beliefs can often be bolstered via confirmation bias.
I think casual use of the phrase innocent until proven guilty (ie, referring to anything other than a criminal trial) is an expression used by someone pretending to engage in a debate, but who has actually already dismissed the claim. It’s pseudo-intellectualism, wherein the speaker is dressing up his/her a priori dismissal in the language of legalese, hoping to give an air of objectivity while hiding a prejudice.
The pretense is only made worse when one considers the standard to which the speaker is appealing. Our legal system is rife with systemic flaws where the innocent can be imprisoned and the guilty can walk free. One’s chances of falling on the right side of justice are often influenced by racial, cultural, gender, and social status. That is not just. Pretending there exists an infallible justice delivery system is a failure to recognize reality.
But don’t get me wrong. It’s appropriate to want evidence to support your belief/rejection of a claim. Chanting innocent until proven guilty though seems more like someone trying to cast a spell to maintain the status quo rather than engaging with the claim.
If you feel the need to publicly respond to a claim, yelling innocent until proven guilty is akin to making loud, nonsensical noises in hopes of drowning out some other speaker whose opinions you disagree with - it adds nothing to the discussion and grants undeserved attention to distraction. To actually engage in a public conversation of a claim, it would probably be more persuasive to state your belief/rejection of it, followed by the reasons you believe/reject it. I’d recommend doing this privately at first, as you are likely to discover one or more of your reasons are unjustified. And no one likes being called out publicly for being wrong.
Inevitably, we all discover we’ve been carrying around an unjustified belief. How we react to this realization is the difference between growth and stagnation. But if we merely resort to innocent until proven guilty, we rob ourselves of even the opportunity for self-awareness and growth.
