[Sprocklem]

We also have no surviving Egyptian accounts of Atlantis. It was not uncommon, however, for Greeks to attribute fictional and fabricated information to the Egyptians due to how relatively ancient – and therefore, wise – they were believed to be.

[TheCleric]

To be fair, if there were any Egyptian accounts, they could very well have disappeared with the Library of Alexandria.

Not that it means that Atlantis WAS historic, just we can't use absence of evidence to infer evidence of absence.

[ffgjgf1]

> Library of Alexandria.

Was greek, staffed by Greek speaking scholars and stored works written in Greek. I’m not aware that they had many Ancient Egyptian texts there

> just we can't use absence of evidence to infer evidence of absence.

Can we apply this to pretty much anything we can’t disprove beyond a shadow of doubt? So pretty much everything including loads of conspiracy theories..

[TheCleric]

> Can we apply this to pretty much anything we can’t disprove beyond a shadow of doubt? So pretty much everything including loads of conspiracy theories..

Honestly, I don't have a good answer for you. I just simply don't know. It's a problem that much smarter people than me have likely already wrestled with. I'm with you in that a blanket application of this can lead us to accepting all kinds of crackpot theories.

However there are things where it's literally true that just because we didn't have evidence of something doesn't mean it didn't exist, such as the coelocanth.