"True until proven False" in Science and Religion

Students in schools throughout the world must pass examinations on theories that scientists themselves admit are unproven. Why? The answer is that a theory is accepted not on the grounds of its certitude, but on the grounds that nobody has yet disproved it.

"The best anyone can say of a theory is that it has not been disproved." (Ferguson, page 26) This principle forms the basis of modern scientific knowledge.

This same principle, ironically, is considered a fallacy in classical philosophy: *argumentum ad ignorantium*, the fallacy of argument from ignorance. An argument that says something is true because nobody has proved it false, or that something is false because nobody has proved it true, is held to be invalid according to this rule of fallacy.

(Source: Substance and Shadow
Introduction, References)