Sorry, I have to disagree. In skepticism the burden to provide evidence for a claim should be on those making the claim, not on those challenging it.
Not if the challenge is irrational. Or if the challenge is a rhetorical technique, say, to derail a debate that's not going your way. And it's not as if the burden of production was abrogated in this case. If the premise to an argument is that X exists, and a challenge is made to produce evidence that X exists, it's perfectly legitimate to instruct a person what to do in order to find that evidence himself, especially if those instructions work out to be faster and easier than someone else composing a presentation of it. A request to produce substantiation does not necessarily have to be satisfied in the form demanded by the supplicant if easier and better ways exist. If I got my information from a Google search, then it's perfectly legitimate to ask someone to conduct a similar search themselves rather than waste my time repackaging the information.
And if there is a question of properly characterizing the material, I'm perfectly willing to remove my editorial influence form the loop if possible. That's certainly not to say that all search results have the same value. Bit it is to say that I'm not imposing any selection or interpretation criteria on the information. Any subsequent debate on applicability of results therefore starts on equal footing.
That's why it's important to actually check some of the hits, see if they actually support the claim...
And I did that, and I encouraged him to do that. You did that too, and look at how much in agreement you and I are over what we found overall. You're right, of course. A search results page alone doesn't mean anything.
...and if so present the examples, rather than just saying that a search will turn up lots of Google hits.
But in this case that opens the door to a charge of cherry picking. "You only showed the examples that fit your claim." By relegating the production of evidence to a dispassionate third party, one can avoid seeming prejudiced. Now if the evidence were more difficult to find than this was, the situation would be different. Some information needs knowledgeable interpretation.
The method you're proposing -- that the burden is on those challenging a claim to find the evidence supporting the claim -- instead makes life easier for people promoting false claims.
That's not quite what I'm proposing. First, not all challenges have merit. If I propose an argument based on the premise that abortion is divisive social issue, and someone challenges that premise, it's not really a rational challenge. Abortion is unquestionably a divisive social issue and it requires little if any documentation to say so. The challenge would have to be more than bare denial, such as asking to clarify in what way the issue is divisive. I find the proposition "It is said there is a 'war on Christianity'" to be in the same category.
Even if it isn't, we live in an age where someone disputing that proposition has the easy means (and therefore the responsibility) to perform a modicum of due diligence before disputing it and imposing a burden of proof. If someone bases an argument on an allegation that Benjamin Franklin lived for a time in France, even if that fact isn't generally well known, I would have some responsibility to attempt to verify that fact myself before demanding documentation in knee-jerk fashion. The duty to response to a challenge is in direct responsibility to the diligence by which that challenge is tendered.
Second, I'm not opposed to finding the evidence that supports my claim, but I may be opposed to the manner in which I'm asked to present it. It's common practice in these sorts of debates to derail an opponent's line of questioning by demanding lengthy and difficult productions of proof in specific ways designed to force the opponent either to clear that bar or abandon the point. As I explained, and to which you have added clarification and comment, I don't find it inevitably impolite to ask a person to do a web search for facts that are amenable to such inquiry, in lieu of me presenting it myself. Even in other arenas, I have no compunction requiring an opponent to do basic background research to substantiate the legitimacy of his challenge.
For some questions that would be inappropriate, such as for obscure information that may be difficult to find or understand. That requires a diligent production of evidence in an affirmative, active form. But for questions of the form, "Is anyone saying this?" I think it is appropriate to determine at least how diligently the objector has been in determining whether it's been said. Lazy challenges incur little duty in satisfying them. The debate over whether what's being said is true is the interesting part, as we have seen. Discovering whether it's actually being said in public discourse is easy enough for either party, and shouldn't incur such a formal burden of proof.
