Russell's teapot a great reference here but I think sometimes it's a human fallacy of logic, or technically an "Argument from ignorance"[1]. Absence of evidence

Russell's teapot a great reference here but I think sometimes it's a human fallacy of logic, or technically an "Argument from ignorance"[1]. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In this context, the "absence of evidence" is that we don't currently understand the full cause/effect intricacies of many human ailments. When there are many unknowns, it's somewhat of a straw-man argument to argue based on Russell's teapot example. For example, look at how yellow fever played out in the past. The fever swept across large populations, killing many....then people started to pick up on the fact that individuals drinking from private wells (or cisterns) weren't getting sick as often. Conspiracy theorists back in the day would have said "The public water is making us sick!", and anti-conspiracy-theorists would have said "Oh yeah? How about you prove it to me!". Considering they didn't have the technology to "prove it" (or at least it wasn't nearly as accessible as today), the anti-conspiracy-theorists were probably strutting around thinking they won the debate. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance