Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence

[Koyaanisqatsi]

We’re standing outside on a bright sunny day with no clouds in sight. The automatic lawn sprinkler cuts on, and we all know the reason for the water falling on our heads is because of the water sprinkler. Joe makes the assertion, the absurd assertion, that it’s raining. Someone speaks up and says, what can you present to support that assertion? He says, “I have crayons in my car.” That is presented for the purpose of supporting his assertion. Another exclaims, “there is no relevance between having crayons in your car and rain.” So, despite that it was brought forward for the purpose of supporting his assertion, no one wants to accept the irrelevant facts as evidence for the assertion.

Wrong. They are all rejecting the notion that "crayons in my car" constitute evidence. It's not necessarily specific to his "assertion" in any formal sense; the crayons--in and of themselves--have no correlation with rain, let alone the further observation that they are in his car.

They are, simply, NOT evidence, no matter how strenuously Joe might insist that they are. Thus, Joe has made a mistake.

Fine, but Bob speaks up and says, “the ground is wet.” That’s actually consistent with rain. Had it been raining, it would be expected and consistent for the ground to be wet. That actually supports the assertion.

What assertion? That it is raining because Joe has crayons in his car? As that would be the full assertion Joe is actually making.

Quite obviously, it doesn’t prove the assertion, and besides, we all know it’s not raining and that the cause of the ground being wet is the sprinkler and not rain.

There is clear and indisputable evidence for why the ground is wet, but the issue isn’t how easily defeated the extremely week evidence is but rather it’s actual status as evidence. Both the facts “crayons in the car” and “the wet ground” are presented for the purpose of supporting the assertion, but while one fails to support the assertion, the other succeeds.

Exactly. Hence, it is a perceptual mistake, not anything objective/inherent to the evidence.

Successfully supporting an assertion is not remotely the same as successfully proving the assertion true.

Yes it is, since, once again, you are making absolute conditionals. "Successfully" being the operative term in this case. Successfully supporting an assertion is the same thing as successfully proving the assertion true. You're just equivocating in regard to what it CAN mean to "support an assertion" (i.e., that the standard of evidence to "support" may not be as high as it would in regard to a more formal "proving" situation). But the word "successful" counters that ambiguity, since the "success" of "supporting an assertion" would necessarily mean the assertion was proved.

Nobody goes around saying, "I successfully kind of semantically sort of have pretty good evidence that I think generally backs up my assertion." To "successfully support" one's assertion is to prove it.

We know, and quite well, that the assertion is false, but knowledge of that fact has no bearing on whether the assertion is supported

Equivocation. And directly contradictory. If we do, in fact, know "quite well" that the assertion is false, then knowledge of that fact absolutely would bear on whether or not the assertion that is is true has any evidence to support it.

You're playing meaningless--and outright false--semantics games, but for what reason? None of this gets you anywhere as you can clearly see.

There is often supporting evidence that fails to guarantee the truth of an assertion.

Iow, the evidence does not support the assertion. Again, you're playing meaningless semantics games in trying to split irrelevant hairs. Why? Where does it get you?

Small tracks the size of mice may be brought forward and presented as evidence for a gigantic Sasquatch, but while it might be okay to dismiss such a presentation as evidence because of inconsistency, it would be inaccurate to deny the presentation of very large tracks as being evidence because it’s consistency stands good for support

What? Are you trying to say "large tracks are evidence of a Bigfoot"?

knowing full well there is no Bigfoot doesn’t alter the status of the tracks as evidence

Once again, it is the absolute conditions that do that. You just said--again--"knowing full well there is no Bigfoot." If we know "full well" that there is no Bigfoot, then we know that if we find large tracks in the woods, they cannot be from a Bigfoot.

What you MEAN to say is, "Since we do not know to an absolute degree of certainty that there could not exist something like a Bigfoot, then if we find large tracks in the woods, we should entertain the possibility that they are Bigfoot tracks and investigate further." Or words to that effect.

But if you are stipulating that we already have absolute knowledge, then that dictates all else.

but not it’s status as evidence.

By "status as evidence" do you mean strength of evidence, or are you simply using the term "evidence" to mean "anything we damn well want it to be just for the fuck of it"?

The crayons nor the mice tracks support the assertions, but the wet ground and the large tracks do.

Not if we already know the conditions for either the rain or the tracks.

Again, what is it you're trying to get at? That there are degrees of strength for what we consider to be "evidence" of something or event? No one would dispute that. That we are prone to making mistakes? Again, no one would dispute that. Perceptual mistakes vs. objective evidence.

And....?

 

[Speakpigeon]

I have evidence that somebody here is keeping his crayons stuck in his ears to work as plugs.

My evidence is that there's no evidence of any car here, unless "car" is a typo. Did you mean "ear", by any chance?

The evidence is also that crayons are also extensively used here to redraw arbitrarily the boundary of one's semantic interpretation of what has been said and was offered in good faith by the other one.

Rational debate requires taking what people say at face value, you'd better unplug, Bob.
EB

 

[Treedbear]

Yes, here someone did:

It's self contradictory

...

I wasn't saying the evidence had to be undeniably guaranteed. I'm saying that you're claiming there is in fact evidence, and that it's in the form of the lack of evidence. If you don't see how that's a logical contradiction I give up. You'll need to explain how you can deduce that there is a lack of evidence without in the process presenting some kind of supporting evidence.

Suppose I tell you there's a dangerous lion in your bathroom.

How do you prove me wrong? You go look. You find that there is no smell of lion, no sight of lion, no sound of lion, and nothing tears you apart and eats you.

Because of the lack of evidence, you conclude that there is no lion.

That's common sense, not contradiction.

All of the senses you mentioned I'd consider to be evidence, whether they detect something or not. Evidence would be absent only when the ability to use them is absent.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I'm not sure how to read this. So, perhaps, you mean that you don't accept that absence of conclusive evidence is conclusive evidence of absence...

Me, I do.

And I think we all do simply because we don't have the choice, because we don't have the time to look for better evidence than absence of evidence and that we nonetheless have to go about our lives and therefore accept as conclusive evidence whatever bad evidence we have, including absence of evidence, including absence of conclusive evidence.

Oh. I see. We're using conclusive differently. You mean supporting you coming to what i would call a working conclusion.
I use it for something i can use to convince someone else or at least to judge someone else's resistance to a conclusion.

I mean, i have very subjective experiences that lead me to believe in ghosts, but i don't think anyone else has to take it as anything more than my testimony, like Grandpa MacLean's story of the Bear Lake Monster, or Grandma Hazel's claim we have Cherokee ancestry.

But when we are troubleshooting the Module Operating Test Set, and the Chief insists that the problem is operator error, but i have three reasons to think it is hardware, probably in the Measurement Subsystem, then when i pull out a module with actual smoke rising from the black goo that used to be a capacitor, that would be, to me, conclusive.

When he insisted that replacing the module probably would not correct the original fault, i judged him much the way some people look at Flat Earthers rejecting all evidence for an oblate spheroid...

 

[Wiploc]

Suppose I tell you there's a dangerous lion in your bathroom.

How do you prove me wrong? You go look. You find that there is no smell of lion, no sight of lion, no sound of lion, and nothing tears you apart and eats you.

Because of the lack of evidence, you conclude that there is no lion.

That's common sense, not contradiction.

All of the senses you mentioned I'd consider to be evidence, whether they detect something or not. Evidence would be absent only when the ability to use them is absent.

Nonetheless, you now understand what is meant when people say that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

We aren't saying we went blind and deaf. We're saying that, even after looking, we see nothing that would encourage us to believe in gods.

 

[fast]

A guy walks into a satellite office of the Social Security Administration to apply for a social security card. The new hire behind the counter has the gentleman fill out an application for a social security card. He fills it out and hands it in. The new hire, Abigail, asks for two forms of ID, and the guys hands over both a drivers license and a pass port.

The two forms of ID were presented as evidence to prove who he is.

The manager reviews the [two forms of ID] collected by the new hire, Abigail.

I want to be able to replace “two forms of ID” with “evidence,” no matter the outcome of the review. Not even knowledge of the outcome ought to change matters.

A car that doesn’t drive is still a car. Evidence that has no strength is still evidence, invaluable as it might be.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm not sure how to read this. So, perhaps, you mean that you don't accept that absence of conclusive evidence is conclusive evidence of absence...

Me, I do.

And I think we all do simply because we don't have the choice, because we don't have the time to look for better evidence than absence of evidence and that we nonetheless have to go about our lives and therefore accept as conclusive evidence whatever bad evidence we have, including absence of evidence, including absence of conclusive evidence.

Oh. I see. We're using conclusive differently. You mean supporting you coming to what i would call a working conclusion.
I use it for something i can use to convince someone else or at least to judge someone else's resistance to a conclusion.

I mean, i have very subjective experiences that lead me to believe in ghosts, but i don't think anyone else has to take it as anything more than my testimony, like Grandpa MacLean's story of the Bear Lake Monster, or Grandma Hazel's claim we have Cherokee ancestry.

But when we are troubleshooting the Module Operating Test Set, and the Chief insists that the problem is operator error, but i have three reasons to think it is hardware, probably in the Measurement Subsystem, then when i pull out a module with actual smoke rising from the black goo that used to be a capacitor, that would be, to me, conclusive.

When he insisted that replacing the module probably would not correct the original fault, i judged him much the way some people look at Flat Earthers rejecting all evidence for an oblate spheroid...

OK, why not.

So, when you look into your bathroom and there's no evidence of any dragon in there, how do you react?

(a) You think the absence of evidence of any dragon is not conclusive evidence that there is no dragon and so you keep out of your bathroom for ever?

Or

(b) you'll take every time the absence of evidence of any dragon as conclusive evidence that there's no dragon and you damn well go in there because you have to.​

EB

 

[Keith&Co.]

our bedroom dragons are named Sensei, Puff, Puck, Maleficent, Peaches and Drake.

But, B. Except for the terminology. As I explained.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I want to be able to replace “two forms of ID” with “evidence,” no matter the outcome of the review. Not even knowledge of the outcome ought to change matters.

So, you're saying you don't understand the objection to your previous story problem.

 

[Speakpigeon]

our bedroom dragons are named Sensei, Puff, Puck, Maleficent, Peaches and Drake.

Yeah, me I always made sure I was the only dragon in there.

But, B. Except for the terminology. As I explained.

Sooo, you do accept that absence of evidence is conclusive evidence of absence?

So, do you accept that absence of evidence is evidence of absence?

Yeah, evidence towards, not conclusive evidence of...

EB

 

[Keith&Co.]

Sooo, you do accept that absence of evidence is conclusive evidence of absence?

The way you use conclusive, yes.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Sooo, you do accept that absence of evidence is conclusive evidence of absence?

The way you use conclusive, yes.

So, nothing conclusive.

Or, are you hiding the evidence from me?

Show

Show

Nothing conclusive

Show

Nothing conclusive

Show

Nothing conclusive

Show

Show

Nothing conclusive

Show

What are you looking for?

Show

Nothing conclusive

Show

Nothing conclusive

Show

Dragon

EB

 

[Keith&Co.]

Evidence? For my opinion?

Not sure how you conclude that...

 

[Treedbear]

Suppose I tell you there's a dangerous lion in your bathroom.

How do you prove me wrong? You go look. You find that there is no smell of lion, no sight of lion, no sound of lion, and nothing tears you apart and eats you.

Because of the lack of evidence, you conclude that there is no lion.

That's common sense, not contradiction.

All of the senses you mentioned I'd consider to be evidence, whether they detect something or not. Evidence would be absent only when the ability to use them is absent.

Nonetheless, you now understand what is meant when people say that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

We aren't saying we went blind and deaf. We're saying that, even after looking, we see nothing that would encourage us to believe in gods.

I understand many are confused about what evidence is comprised of as it pertains to the case of the absence of any lions. The evidence being that there is no smell, sight, sound or sensation related to a lion being present. If the case were the reversed then the evidence to support it would be reversed and both would likely be present. But there can be cases in which proof of some presence comes from the absence of particulars. For instance the proverbial dog that didn't bark.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I want to be able to replace “two forms of ID” with “evidence,” no matter the outcome of the review. Not even knowledge of the outcome ought to change matters.

So, you're saying you don't understand the objection to your previous story problem.

Clearly. But what evidence do we have of this? He did not respond to anything I countered, so the evidence was his absence .

 

[fast]

Something is either evidence or it’s not. If we don’t have strong evidence, then that doesn’t mean what we have is not evidence. In some cases, we don’t have evidence whereas in other cases we have weak evidence.

Knowledge of the facts can degrade the strength of evidence, but it doesn’t magically make it non evidence. If the analysis of the ID’s result in positive identification, the ID’s are unquestionably evidence, but you don’t get to alter the status of what was analyzed as only mistaking being evidence when the review results contrari-wise.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Something is either evidence or it’s not. If we don’t have strong evidence, then that doesn’t mean what we have is not evidence. In some cases, we don’t have evidence whereas in other cases we have weak evidence.

Knowledge of the facts can degrade the strength of evidence, but it doesn’t magically make it non evidence. If the analysis of the ID’s result in positive identification, the ID’s are unquestionably evidence, but you don’t get to alter the status of what was analyzed as only mistaking being evidence when the review results contrari-wise.

Lovely word salad. What you mean is what everyone else has already pointed out to you repeatedly. Evidence is on a spectrum from strong to weak. So the fuck what? A spectrum does not offer the ability to equivocate strong evidence with weak evidence. That defeats the whole point of “strong to weak.”

Iow, no one gets to say, “well, there is evidence, it’s just very weak” and then bypass the “it’s just very weak” part to instead keep pointing at the word “evidence” as if that is sufficient to “support” or prove a truth claim, the way cult members always do.

In short, honest seakers of truth simply reject an assertion because the “evidence” is shit. Shit evidence; shit assertion.

It’s not fucking rocket science. So what is your endgame if not to be able to falsely equivocate?

 

[fast]

Something is either evidence or it’s not. If we don’t have strong evidence, then that doesn’t mean what we have is not evidence. In some cases, we don’t have evidence whereas in other cases we have weak evidence.

Knowledge of the facts can degrade the strength of evidence, but it doesn’t magically make it non evidence. If the analysis of the ID’s result in positive identification, the ID’s are unquestionably evidence, but you don’t get to alter the status of what was analyzed as only mistaking being evidence when the review results contrari-wise.

Lovely word salad. What you mean is what everyone else has already pointed out to you repeatedly. Evidence is on a spectrum from strong to weak. So the fuck what? A spectrum does not offer the ability to equivocate strong evidence with weak evidence. That defeats the whole point of “strong to weak.”

Iow, no one gets to say, “well, there is evidence, it’s just very weak” and then bypass the “it’s just very weak” part to instead keep pointing at the word “evidence” as if that is sufficient to “support” or prove a truth claim, the way cult members always do.

In short, honest seakers of truth simply reject an assertion because the “evidence” is shit. Shit evidence; shit assertion.

It’s not fucking rocket science. So what is your endgame if not to be able to falsely equivocate?

If something is evidence, we need to own up to it, even if it’s extremely weak. That being said, weak evidence ought not be regarded as non-evidence. Simply own up to the fact that evidence is evidence irrespective of its strength. Testimony (if presented to support a claim) is evidence, even if its notoriously considered to have little strength.

Another issue is the importance of understanding what support entails. Recall the wet ground example. A wet ground is consistent with there having been rain. Prove such that it guarantees, no way, but support, yes. A ground being wet supports the assertion it has rained. Knowledge of the fact that it has not rained changes that not one iota. It’s still supporting evidence; not only is it evidence, it supports the assertion. Our knowledge that it was not rain is what undermines its strength.

Also, a third element not even mentioned thus far (but I stay mindful of it) is that evidence is assertion dependent. It’s silly to go around calling everything (anything) evidence.

To explain this, we need to consider the difference between what can be (can be, I say) presented to support an assertion and whether it has been. Everything (anything) can be presented as evidence for something, but that doesn’t make everything (anything) evidence. If there is no assertion that there are some things that grow, the fact that grass grows is not evidence. It’s only evidence if presented to support the assertion. Simplistically, no assertion, no evidence. If you look to support the contention, anything that does is evidence. If it does support (minimally support, not prove) the assertion, then facts can be escalated to that of evidence.

 

[DBT]

The absence of evidence - where evidence should be found - is evidence for absence.

 

[Wiploc]

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"We have evidence that you robbed a bank in Montreal."

"I've never been to Montreal."

"We still have evidence."

"And I've never robbed a bank."

"But you do have feet."

"Well, yes. I have feet."

"And your feet leave prints."

"Okay."

"And we have the footprints of the person who robbed the bank in Montreal."

"Not my footprints!"

"Footprints nonetheless. And you have feet. Therefore, we have some evidence that you robbed the bank in Montreal."

"I wasn't there!"

"I'm not saying you were there. I just want you to acknowledge that there is some evidence that you were."

"Wait. Robbed a bank? There would be cameras. The whole thing would be caught on film. You have to know it wasn't me."

"Not the point. The point is that there is some evidence that it was you."

"You have proof that it wasn't me."

"Sure. We caught the guy. He didn't even get out of the bank."

"So... What is this about?"

"I am informing you that you are suspected of bank robbery."

"But you know I didn't do it."

"That's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"The point is that we have some evidence that you robbed that bank."

"I didn't rob it. You know I didn't rob it."

"Don't confuse weak evidence with no evidence. We have some evidence, no matter how weak. You are legitimately a suspect."