Witness chain:
| Definition | Example |
| When a witness attempts to bolster their own testimony by claiming, with no independent substantiation, that there were other witnesses. | I saw a ghost 5 years ago, and my uncle who died last year told me he also saw it! |
| Notes | |
| If an alleged witness to an alleged event claims that there are inaccessible additional witnesses to that alleged event, that claim constitutes no evidential weight for the truth of the alleged event. | |
Case Study One
”I have personally witnessed irrefutable miracle healings (i.e. stunted limbs growing out to full length spontaneously in a matter of seconds,) in response to prayer in the name of Jesus. I would guess there were close to 40 witnesses to this miracle healing, many of whom, including myself, were standing only 2 or 3 feet away from the man who was healed; some of whom I still know by first and/or last name.”
[Source]
Case Study Two
After that, he [Jesus, after his alleged resurrection] appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
1 Corinthians 15:6These 500 witnesses are often invoked by Christians as additional evidence for the resurrection.
[Example]
Keep in mind that a fallacious argument does not entail an erroneous position.
