Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (shifting the burden of proof fallacy)

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Jesus of Nazareth is evidence for God.

What is Rhett Butler evidence for?

 

[DBT]

...So stop beating around the bush and show us the evidence for god already.

Jesus of Nazareth is evidence for God.
You can read the historical evidence in this regard here.

I don't see the evidence. Sorry.

 

[Lion IRC]

Jesus of Nazareth is evidence for God.

What is Rhett Butler evidence for?

Was Rhett Butler a real historical person? Did he perform supernatural miracles?
Did he rise from the dead?

 

[bilby]

What is Rhett Butler evidence for?

Was Rhett Butler a real historical person? Did he perform supernatural miracles?
Did he rise from the dead?

Nope.

So he is just like Jesus in those respects.

Unless you have some evidence that one or both of these characters have some or all of these traits.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

What is Rhett Butler evidence for?

Was Rhett Butler a real historical person? Did he perform supernatural miracles?
Did he rise from the dead?

As authors go, everything has some historical context. It's impossible to otherwise engage in artistic expression. Even Smaug the dragon and Gandalf the wizard are inspired by something the author experienced.

What you seem to be implying is that unless the character is notable in some respect the character is not historical, but I certainly think accounts of wizards and dragons are notable.

All these stories are evidence of inspired authorship. Historicity is another thing entirely, particularly when it comes to unscientific and otherwise impossible accounts. Those accounts you can relegate to artistic license while at the same time knowing they do have some iota of historical reality. But supermen and wizards and dragons that breathe fire don't happen except as inventions by authors. Those inventions are meant to convey cultural information, they're getting into the mind of the author, they're obviously not meant to be taken literally anymore than you would literalize a fairy tale from your youth, a story you know is meant to teach, not be taken as factual.

 

[Lion IRC]

Was Rhett Butler a real historical person? Did he perform supernatural miracles?
Did he rise from the dead?

Nope.

So he is just like Jesus in those respects.

Unless you have some evidence that one or both of these characters have some or all of these traits.

I do have evidence that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead.
The bible is historical evidence for those events.

The writer of Gone With The Wind isnt pretending that the book is a documentary about a real person named Rhett Butler.

Surely you can't be that intellectually dishonest as to compare the two.

 

[DBT]

Nope.

So he is just like Jesus in those respects.

Unless you have some evidence that one or both of these characters have some or all of these traits.

I do have evidence that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead.
The bible is historical evidence for those events.

The writer of Gone With The Wind isnt pretending that the book is a documentary about a real person named Rhett Butler.

Surely you can't be that intellectually dishonest as to compare the two.

The bible is no more evidence for its own set of supernatural events, the miracles and wonders of Jesus, than the Gita is evidence for its own set of supernatural entities and events, Shiva the Destroyer, Shakti, Kali, etc.

 

[bilby]

Nope.

So he is just like Jesus in those respects.

Unless you have some evidence that one or both of these characters have some or all of these traits.

I do have evidence that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead.
The bible is historical evidence for those events.

The writer of Gone With The Wind isnt pretending that the book is a documentary about a real person named Rhett Butler.

Surely you can't be that intellectually dishonest as to compare the two.

There's nothing dishonest about it. Both are obviously fictional; The major difference being that Gone with the Wind doesn't describe events that are physically impossible.

The only intellectual dishonesty here is the pretence that the bible describes actual events.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I do have evidence that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead.
The bible is historical evidence for those events.

The writer of Gone With The Wind isnt pretending that the book is a documentary about a real person named Rhett Butler.

Surely you can't be that intellectually dishonest as to compare the two.

And the Jesus is real because it's a god in a story about gods where it gets to do impossible things whenever it wants. Interesting that you used the word "pretending." Freudian slip perhaps?

The gospel protagonist is an invented character same as the Hulk or Smaug or Rhett Butler. Lots of things about all four of those characters are historical enough, Rhett Butler obviously being at the top of the believability list because there's nothing impossible about his character.

BTW, lots of aspects of Smaug are historical - scales, wings, the ability to fly, fire, ferocious claws, teeth, great strength, not to mention that at one time people actually believed in these things. Nevertheless we know it is fiction because these thing just don't happen. And that's what's happened with the Jesus, lots of people now know these things just don't happen. It's not a big deal.

 

[Malintent]

An eye witness in court gives evidence that they saw the crime happen.
But is a claim that you saw something really evidence? Yes of course it is.

Whether or not the evidence is credible or persuasive is another question.

But since all evidence is derived from the senses, sooner or later you have to decide whether or not to trust your own eyes, ears, etc. and/or the eyes and ears of others who present evidence of what they have seen and heard (experienced.)

The uber-sceptic can, if they want, dismiss any evidence. They can say ghosts are hallucinations, concentration camp survivors are liars, global warming scientists are biased, 9/11 was a hoax...they can literally decide for themselves what 'evidence' they choose to accept AS evidence.

Personal testimony is a form of LEGAL evidence, as the word is used to describe assertions made in court. Scientific evidence (what we are talking about) cannot be a testimony, or 'eye witness'. The thing being asserted needs to be materially presented or otherwise shown to exist through more empirical means than, 'cause I said so and if you choose to believe me then it is so".

 

[atrib]

...So stop beating around the bush and show us the evidence for god already.

Jesus of Nazareth is evidence for God.
You can read the historical evidence in this regard here.

There is no historical evidence to suggest that Jesus was the clone of a supernatural entity. In fact, there is very little historical evidence to suggest that mythical Jesus even existed. Prove me wrong. Show us the evidence!

- - - Updated - - -

Nope.

So he is just like Jesus in those respects.

Unless you have some evidence that one or both of these characters have some or all of these traits.

I do have evidence that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead.
The bible is historical evidence for those events.

The writer of Gone With The Wind isnt pretending that the book is a documentary about a real person named Rhett Butler.

Surely you can't be that intellectually dishonest as to compare the two.

The Bible is a collection of stories unsupported by any historical evidence. Prove me wrong. Show me the evidence that Jesus existed and performed miracles. Go on, I dare you.

 

[ronburgundy]

An eye witness in court gives evidence that they saw the crime happen.
But is a claim that you saw something really evidence? Yes of course it is.

Whether or not the evidence is credible or persuasive is another question.

But since all evidence is derived from the senses, sooner or later you have to decide whether or not to trust your own eyes, ears, etc. and/or the eyes and ears of others who present evidence of what they have seen and heard (experienced.)

The uber-sceptic can, if they want, dismiss any evidence. They can say ghosts are hallucinations, concentration camp survivors are liars, global warming scientists are biased, 9/11 was a hoax...they can literally decide for themselves what 'evidence' they choose to accept AS evidence.

Personal testimony is a form of LEGAL evidence, as the word is used to describe assertions made in court. Scientific evidence (what we are talking about) cannot be a testimony, or 'eye witness'. The thing being asserted needs to be materially presented or otherwise shown to exist through more empirical means than, 'cause I said so and if you choose to believe me then it is so".

You are both off the mark, though Loin in a more fundamental way.
99.9% of what counts as scientific evidence is in fact what people claim they saw, heard (aka "witnessed") . The key is that it must be a repeatable event that anyone could witness by creating the same circumstances.
Thus, Loin IRC is wrong that you simply "have to decide whether or not to trust your own eyes, ears, etc. and/or the eyes and ears of others". With scientific evidence, you never simply trust your own or anyone else's senses. In fact, you assume they are all prone to error, which is why you only accept what is said to be seen, heard, etc.. when numerous independent observers, all employing the same rigorous methods of systematically sampling and recording observation events, record having made similar observations.

In sum, scientists use the same sense organs to witness specific events that is involved in legal eye-witness testimony. The difference lies in that the scientist takes specific steps to reduces the many sources of sampling and measurement/observation errors and biases, creating tangible records of what they observed at the time of observation. These particular methods are what increase "trust" in what they claim to have observed, and when combined with the fact that multiple observers using the same methods can and have observed something similar makes errors and biases even less likely.
This latter benefit of multiple observers depends on if the observers have motives to contradict other observers rather than share the same biased conclusion. That is the case in science within relatively free societies where exposing errors by others is the central path to professional success. Authoritarian systems, profit motives, and shared emotional biases all undermine the benefits of a consensus among multiple observers.

 

[Malintent]

Personal testimony is a form of LEGAL evidence, as the word is used to describe assertions made in court. Scientific evidence (what we are talking about) cannot be a testimony, or 'eye witness'. The thing being asserted needs to be materially presented or otherwise shown to exist through more empirical means than, 'cause I said so and if you choose to believe me then it is so".

You are both off the mark, though Loin in a more fundamental way.
99.9% of what counts as scientific evidence is in fact what people claim they saw, heard (aka "witnessed") . The key is that it must be a repeatable event that anyone could witness by creating the same circumstances.

That is what I meant by, "more empirical means".

 

[ronburgundy]

You are both off the mark, though Loin in a more fundamental way.
99.9% of what counts as scientific evidence is in fact what people claim they saw, heard (aka "witnessed") . The key is that it must be a repeatable event that anyone could witness by creating the same circumstances.

That is what I meant by, "more empirical means".

I just thought it important to point out that all of science is ultimately based in individuals reporting what they witnessed via their fallible senses. It isn't that the individual reports are any more "tangible", so much as the methodology that makes the ability to witness the same thing open to all, even if 99.99% of people never witness it themselves and just trust those that have.

The lower reliability we should have in legal testimony is due to the fact that by their nature, they are about singular specific events in the past and what caused them. Thus, they are not repeatable, regardless of how careful the witness was when making their observations.

 

[Underseer]

That is what I meant by, "more empirical means".

I just thought it important to point out that all of science is ultimately based in individuals reporting what they witnessed via their fallible senses. It isn't that the individual reports are any more "tangible", so much as the methodology that makes the ability to witness the same thing open to all, even if 99.99% of people never witness it themselves and just trust those that have.

The lower reliability we should have in legal testimony is due to the fact that by their nature, they are about singular specific events in the past and what caused them. Thus, they are not repeatable, regardless of how careful the witness was when making their observations.

Sorry, but you can't reduce all scientific evidence to eyewitness testimony. That's just silly. Eyewitness testimony is widely considered the weakest form of evidence in science. Independently verified facts are not the same thing as eyewitness testimony at all. That is why the conclusions of science are so much more reliable than the conclusions of lawyers.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I just thought it important to point out that all of science is ultimately based in individuals reporting what they witnessed via their fallible senses. It isn't that the individual reports are any more "tangible", so much as the methodology that makes the ability to witness the same thing open to all, even if 99.99% of people never witness it themselves and just trust those that have.

The lower reliability we should have in legal testimony is due to the fact that by their nature, they are about singular specific events in the past and what caused them. Thus, they are not repeatable, regardless of how careful the witness was when making their observations.

Sorry, but you can't reduce all scientific evidence to eyewitness testimony. That's just silly. Eyewitness testimony is widely considered the weakest form of evidence in science. Independently verified facts are not the same thing as eyewitness testimony at all. That is why the conclusions of science are so much more reliable than the conclusions of lawyers.

I think he's right, the difference being it is verifiable. Anyone can go check the facts with their own senses, with their own eyes, build their own machines with their own hands and see if they get the same results. Ultimately we are dealing with testimony.

 

[Juma]

Sorry, but you can't reduce all scientific evidence to eyewitness testimony. That's just silly. Eyewitness testimony is widely considered the weakest form of evidence in science. Independently verified facts are not the same thing as eyewitness testimony at all. That is why the conclusions of science are so much more reliable than the conclusions of lawyers.

I think he's right, the difference being it is verifiable. Anyone can go check the facts with their own senses, with their own eyes, build their own machines with their own hands and see if they get the same results. Ultimately we are dealing with testimony.

No. Ultimately we are dealing with reproducibility. The testimony is just a description if how to reproduce the results.

 

[Underseer]

Sorry, but you can't reduce all scientific evidence to eyewitness testimony. That's just silly. Eyewitness testimony is widely considered the weakest form of evidence in science. Independently verified facts are not the same thing as eyewitness testimony at all. That is why the conclusions of science are so much more reliable than the conclusions of lawyers.

I think he's right, the difference being it is verifiable. Anyone can go check the facts with their own senses, with their own eyes, build their own machines with their own hands and see if they get the same results. Ultimately we are dealing with testimony.

If you can't see the difference between some guy claiming he was kidnapped by aliens and a reproducible experiment, then I'm not sure I can explain it in a way that will make sense to you.

 

[ronburgundy]

I think he's right, the difference being it is verifiable. Anyone can go check the facts with their own senses, with their own eyes, build their own machines with their own hands and see if they get the same results. Ultimately we are dealing with testimony.

If you can't see the difference between some guy claiming he was kidnapped by aliens and a reproducible experiment, then I'm not sure I can explain it in a way that will make sense to you.

He can see the difference, but that difference is not that one involves testimony about what was observed and the other does not. They both do.
Legal testimony could easily involve a person testifying that they conducted a scientific test on a blood sample and it did not match what was found at the crime scene. At that point, it is no less testimony and just as open to lies and error as any other type of legal testimony. The fact that it is in principle a result that others could in theory replicate does not magically mean it is not testimony about what they observed. And yet, it is also no less scientific than when the results of an experiment are reported at a scientific conference. The processes of peer review and replication are filters that weed out the unreliable testimonies, preserving those testimonies that specify having used correct observational procedures (which itself does not rule out errors or lies) and are corroborated by independent testimony from others. But note that a large % of published science, including what gets widely accepted and put into textbooks has little to no actual replication attempts, just the possibility of reproducability.

Also note, that non-scientific legal testimony can even have some degree of reproducability. A case could rest on the claim that a particular person involved always visits a particular coffee shop every Wednesday and orders a non-fat soy Latte. In principle, others could go observe this and verify it. Note that while you might argue that the person could change their routine, one could argue that maybe the causal relations in nature changed when someone went to try and verify a result. We reject that possibility, not because the nature of the testimony is fundamentally different, but because our general assumptions about causal relations don't allow for that kind of instability, except where the causes of human action are concerned.

In sum, science is ultimately a body of testimonies about what was observed, selected because they claim to use proper observational methods, and because they refer to the type of events that should remain stable and thus allow any others who use those methods to reproduce the observation.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

In sum, science is ultimately a body of testimonies about what was observed, selected because they claim to use proper observational methods, and because they refer to the type of events that should remain stable and thus allow any others who use those methods to reproduce the observation.

Yes. That is what I was attempting to say. Ultimately scientific testimony is the opposite of revelatory testimony because it is reproducible and verifiable. Sure, you can get a bunch of people blathering and writhing on a stage saying they are channeling a god and talking in tongues, and there is definitely something scientifically observable about that behavior, but it has nothing to do with gods.