4 ms·

> “But absence of evidence does not mean the phenomenon itself was absent.” If you believe things for which you have no evidence, you're liable to believe ever

by okl 5y ago

> “But absence of evidence does not mean the phenomenon itself was absent.” If you believe things for which you have no evidence, you're liable to believe everything.

thwave 5y ago
There's always inference.
torstenvl 5y ago
I've seen this form of argument a lot lately. It's epistemologically unsound. Both the claim "Spartans did this" and "Spartans did not do this" are affirmative claims that require evidence. Insufficient evidence leads solely to the conclusion "We do not know with any confidence whether Spartans did this or not." You cannot just assume that one of the affirmative positions is true because the other one lacks sufficient evidence.
- okl 5y ago
  That's true but as you see, whether or not the other party argues from that understanding is difficult to identify from a single sentence. I understand that it being convinced of something or not is a false dichotomy. However, there's a difference between objective reality and knowledge: Either the phenomenon was absent or not -- that's a fact. Whether or not we are convinced of it being absent or not is the other question.
- rendall 5y ago
  > Both the claim "Spartans did this" and "Spartans did not do this" are affirmative claims that require evidence. Hmm. That is an interesting perspective, but I do not agree. Isn't "Spartans did not do this" actually a negative claim? And aren't negative claims notoriously difficult to prove? What if this were consorted with extraterrestrials or some other random claim? Then it's easy to dismiss lack of evidence with "does not mean the phenomenon itself was absent". Do we really need to find evidence that Spartans did not do this for every claim? Or rather, perhaps we should insist on proving the negative only of claims for which the evidence is strong in the first place. Shouldn't we take as the null hypothesis "Spartans did not do this" and then evaluate evidence that they did? In this specific instance, because of 2000 years of tradition, the unchallenged null hypothesis has been "Spartans suffered only healthy, well-formed children to live". This is the only reason people are saying anything like "We need more evidence they did not" despite the weakness of the evidence for its being true.
  - okl 5y ago
    Null hypothesis should be: we don't know!
    - rendall 5y ago
      Well, sure, we don't know for sure that they did not kill deformed newborns, but we also don't know for sure that Spartans were not magical invisible goats, either. After all, there's no proof they weren't, am I right?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - okl 5y ago
        Confidence is a scale, not binary. What does "sure" mean for you and how much of it do you need to be convinced? Does it depend on the situation? For example, how sure do you need/want to be when you cross the street? Before I consider that, you'd have to show that magical invisible goats (can) exist.

by okl 5y ago

> “But absence of evidence does not mean the phenomenon itself was absent.” If you believe things for which you have no evidence, you're liable to believe everything.

thwave 5y ago

There's always inference.

torstenvl 5y ago

I've seen this form of argument a lot lately. It's epistemologically unsound. Both the claim "Spartans did this" and "Spartans did not do this" are affirmative claims that require evidence. Insufficient evidence leads solely to the conclusion "We do not know with any confidence whether Spartans did this or not." You cannot just assume that one of the affirmative positions is true because the other one lacks sufficient evidence.

okl 5y ago
That's true but as you see, whether or not the other party argues from that understanding is difficult to identify from a single sentence. I understand that it being convinced of something or not is a false dichotomy. However, there's a difference between objective reality and knowledge: Either the phenomenon was absent or not -- that's a fact. Whether or not we are convinced of it being absent or not is the other question.
rendall 5y ago
> Both the claim "Spartans did this" and "Spartans did not do this" are affirmative claims that require evidence. Hmm. That is an interesting perspective, but I do not agree. Isn't "Spartans did not do this" actually a negative claim? And aren't negative claims notoriously difficult to prove? What if this were consorted with extraterrestrials or some other random claim? Then it's easy to dismiss lack of evidence with "does not mean the phenomenon itself was absent". Do we really need to find evidence that Spartans did not do this for every claim? Or rather, perhaps we should insist on proving the negative only of claims for which the evidence is strong in the first place. Shouldn't we take as the null hypothesis "Spartans did not do this" and then evaluate evidence that they did? In this specific instance, because of 2000 years of tradition, the unchallenged null hypothesis has been "Spartans suffered only healthy, well-formed children to live". This is the only reason people are saying anything like "We need more evidence they did not" despite the weakness of the evidence for its being true.
- okl 5y ago
  Null hypothesis should be: we don't know!
  - rendall 5y ago
    Well, sure, we don't know for sure that they did not kill deformed newborns, but we also don't know for sure that Spartans were not magical invisible goats, either. After all, there's no proof they weren't, am I right?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - okl 5y ago
      Confidence is a scale, not binary. What does "sure" mean for you and how much of it do you need to be convinced? Does it depend on the situation? For example, how sure do you need/want to be when you cross the street? Before I consider that, you'd have to show that magical invisible goats (can) exist.