Appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam)

Biological Parallel

Prey animals assume predators are present in tall grass or dense cover—absence of evidence for safety is treated as evidence of danger. This precautionary principle is asymmetrically adaptive: the cost of assuming a hidden predator (wasted vigilance) is trivial compared to assuming safety incorrectly (death). The appeal to ignorance exploits this evolved precaution: we're wired to treat uncertainty as threat-confirming because, ancestrally, unknown spaces and situations concealed most dangers. Skepticism about absence was survival insurance.