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You are misunderstanding. They're saying that there's an absence of evidence, not evidence of absence.
by hackerlight 4y ago
You are misunderstanding. They're saying that there's an absence of evidence, not evidence of absence.
- tgv 4y agoOTOH, people have been looking for evidence of nudging, and didn't find it. Since the a priori probability of a more than marginal effect of nudging is unlikely, we can conclude that it's much more likely that nudging doesn't "work" than that it does.
- IshKebab 4y agoAbsence of evidence is evidence of absence. It's just not proof of absence. For example, if I search your entire house for drugs, using drug sniffing dogs and so on and I don't find any at all, that's pretty good evidence that you don't have any. It's not proof though - you might have just stashed them really well. Similarly, if people have been looking for nudge effects for ages, doing loads of studies on it for years, and none of them have found any effect, then that's pretty good evidence that the effects don't exist. It's not proof though; they might just have not been very good experiments.
- hackerlight 4y agoWell said. I'd just change your first sentence to "Absence of evidence can be (but isn't necessarily) evidence of absence.", which is more in line with the rest of your post.
- IshKebab 4y agoGood point.