There is another way: Look really really hard with tools that would be expected to work. If you find something? Yay, your hypothesis is confirmed. If you don’t? You’d better start doubting your hypothesis.
You already do this in many situations I’m sure. If someone said, “You have a million dollars!” and you looked in your pockets, your bank accounts, your stock accounts (if any), etc. and didn’t find a million dollars in them (or collectively in all of them put together), you would be pretty well convinced that the million dollars you allegedly have doesn’t exist. (In fact, depending on your current economic status you might have a very low prior in the first place; I know I would.)
There is another way: Look really really hard with tools that would be expected to work. If you find something? Yay, your hypothesis is confirmed. If you don’t? You’d better start doubting your hypothesis.
You already do this in many situations I’m sure. If someone said, “You have a million dollars!” and you looked in your pockets, your bank accounts, your stock accounts (if any), etc. and didn’t find a million dollars in them (or collectively in all of them put together), you would be pretty well convinced that the million dollars you allegedly have doesn’t exist. (In fact, depending on your current economic status you might have a very low prior in the first place; I know I would.)