3 ms·
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
by tantalor 3y ago
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
- ceejayoz 3y agoIt's a pithy saying, but misused here. Not bothering to look into it would be "absence of evidence". Extensive looking into it and finding nothing much across many different people and many different scans by many different researchers is a form of evidence.
- ipaddr 3y agoEvidence we are not good at finding brain abnormalities.
- tantalor 3y agoWe can actually do a very good job at detecting damage to very tiny structures in the brain. The only problem is the brain needs to be removed from the patient and then sliced very thinly before it can be imaged.
- southernplaces7 3y agoOr just evidence that there were none in this case. If a bunch of scientists and astronomers directed their best instruments at finding a teacup orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mercury because a small number of people insisted it was there, but never locate it, the more reasonable conclusion wouldn't be that we're not good at finding orbiting teacups. It would be that assertions of its existence were based on bad reasoning.
- diogenescynic 3y agoThis is a cop out argument in my opinion because you can never prove a negative. This is just more FUD. You can just always make this argument even if all evidence points to the contrary. "Well you just haven't found the right evidence yet." Right....
- coliveira 3y agoYes, this argument only works when there is no study of any kind. After a lot of research, a lack of evidence points to a lack of existence.