“What's Something You Suspect But Can't Prove?” (25 Answers)

Throughout our lives, we've all probably had some ideas that could have easily been turned into some kind of theory, maybe even a conspiracy one. Yet, to prove something like that you need evidence. 

After all, that’s how everything gets proven (or disproven) in life – through the scientific method. Depending on the field, the procedure itself can vary, but the essence of the process is rather similar. Basically, it is coming up with an idea or hypothesis and testing it through experiments and analysis, which later serve to confirm or refute the evidence. 

Technically, evidence is proof of something being true or false. Yet, some argue that strictly speaking, science doesn’t provide proof, only evidence. Sound confusing? Bear with us. 

As this article claims, proof implies there’s no room for error, and that something is 100% for sure. With the proper amount of evidence, we can make educated guesses, but it can never be 100%. There’s always a risk some new evidence can come in and destroy (or at least damage) everything we knew up to that point. 

Still, it doesn’t negate the fact that some form of evidence is important when trying to prove something. Yet, in some cases, the hypothesis can seem rather likely (at least in someone’s mind) and doesn’t have that much confirmation behind it. 

Today’s list is made exactly of such ideas. All of them were generated and shared by netizens in an online thread under the question "What's something you suspect but can't prove?" which, within 21 days on the internet, gathered over 1.7K responses. 

Of course, we picked out the most intriguing ones for you to enjoy. For instance, someone believes, but has no way to prove, that our phones listen to everything we say. Probably quite many of us have thought a similar thing after we said something and eerily soon saw an ad about it. 

While our phones have the capability to listen, they do not do that constantly. They are only activated by turning on the microphone in certain apps while using them or by triggering voice-activated features with wake words or buttons. 

Then, how to explain those ads that seem to be just about what you discussed near your phone? Well, apparently it has more to do with advanced data collection and algorithms instead of eavesdropping. Usually, we don’t even realize how much tech companies collect data and how it tells so much about us that algorithms can be eerily predictive and convincing. 

Well, who knows, maybe in the future someone will prove this explanation wrong and it will turn out that this person was right all along. And even if they don’t, knowing how much our phones know about us even without listening is quite scary, isn’t it? Well, that’s the price we pay for most free stuff online – as the saying goes, “If it’s free, you’re the product.” 

Do you have your own theories you have no proof for? Share them in the comments!