Some try to argue that Science deniers also misapply legalistic thinking to science.
This is the legal principle of "falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus".
This means "false in one thing, false in all things". It’s a legal principle that dates back to ancient Rome that indicates that a witness who is false about one matter can be considered to be not credible in all matters. This principle is why lawyers are often so aggressive at trying to impeach the credibility of a witness and lawyers on the other side labor so hard to prevent that from happening. If a witness can be shown to have been badly mistaken or to have lied about one thing, then by the principle of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, it is reasonable to question everything else in that witness’ testimony. In a criminal case such questions could easily be enough to cast “reasonable doubt” on the testimony.
Now, there are two things to remember about this principle. It generally applies only to the evaluation of the testimony of one witness, not to the entire case. Second, it’s a legal principle, not a scientific principle. Science doesn’t work that way, as I’ll elaborate on in a moment. Of course, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is, at its core, dichotomous thinking. Either every part of an argument is 100% true and correct, or it’s false. Either all evidence supports a conclusion, or the conclusion is false, and if anyone ever in history involved in supporting an argument has ever lied about anything or been very much mistaken, then the whole body of evidence is invalidated.
