Absence of Evidence

[Darth Wong]

Note: for all the annoying little fucks who use the line "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", guess what:

YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT. See Occam's Razor. You are engaging in blatant sophistry; there is NO SUCH THING as "evidence of absence"; that would be proof of a negative!

If there is no evidence, then there is no reason to believe something exists. So when somebody points out to you that there is no shred of evidence for one of your ideas and you retort that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", you are engaging in the "burden of proof" fallacy: demanding an impossible proof of negative from your opponent as a way of evading perfectly reasonable demands for proof of your positive.

I am sick and goddamned tired of people using that fallacious, irrational, stupid line.

[Master of Ossus]

Thanks, Mike. Is this in response to Tharkun, or some other idiot? I've been trying to tell people that almost since the board's inception and very few people believe me.

[Stormtrooper THX-1138]

*lol*

What's Sagan's line?

"There's a fire breathing dragon in my garage"

"Really ? But I can't see it."

"Well, its invisible."

*Waves arms about* "Well, I can't feel it either."

"Well, its incorporeal , so you can't"

"Well... Ok, I don't hear anything large moving about, but I guess since its incorporeal, then I wouldn't, right?"

"Exactly."

"Is there ANY way of detecting this thing? Heat? Radiation? Anything?"

"Nope, its 100% beyond your ability to detect."

"Well, then as far as I'm concerned , its not there, and you're full of it."

"Wait ! How can you say that ?! Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence ! There's a dragon there , I swear !"

This is classic pseudoscientific reasoning, be it creationist, Trekkie, flat-earth society, "UFO-ology", whatever.

*chuckles* It amazes me that it had to be pointed out, but I guess it did.

[Kamakazie Sith]

flat-earth society

Never utter that name here.

[tharkûn]

Well let's see there is no evidence of toilets in DS9. Therefore they don't exist.

No evidence of them in ANH either ... guess they don't have those either.


Abscence of evidence is valid when you are dealing with a LIMITED DATA SET which precludes EXPERIMENTATION. The logical conclusion is to:
1. Go with precedent. If something similar happened before in similar circumstances it is likely to occur here ... the advantage of the status quo.
2. Go with common sense.
3. State that we have insufficient data.

The whole proving a negative is BS. Negatives have been proven, there are no integer solutions for a^z+b^z=c^z for z >2 (see Fermat's last theorem). There are no localistic hidden variables in quantum mechanics (at least that's how my half-assed understanding of Bell's inequality reads). You cannot prove a general negative (i.e. there is no God), you can readily prove a specific negative (i.e. there is no greatest prime integer); just show:
Prove A implies B
Prove A imples C
Prove B implies not C

You have just proven "not A" assuming your proofs above were correct and rigorous.

There are several logical pathways for disproving specific negative statements, another is to prove:
not A implies not B
and prove that B is true.

And what classifies as a "negative"? "There is no greatest positive prime integer" is equivalent to "The number of positive prime integers is infinite".
One is stated in the negative, the other in the affirmative. Or how about: "There are no localistic hidden variables" and "Localistic quantum mechanics is a complete theory"? Or from Star Trek: "There was no resistance on Betazed" and "The betazoid population submitted to a man."

Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't think of a specific negative ascertain that cannot be reworded as a positive ascertain.


Further this should go both ways. In one recent debate, I assume you are refering to I state that feddie resistors might use a bioweapon. I never say they will, but I do put forth their best shot.

Now the following exchange occurs:
1. The Imps are human.

In appearance and name, but are they exactly like us? Even though they're from another galaxy?

Now I state the bold, its an obvious fact to anyone who watches the movies, in my opinion. My opponent states the latter. Does he provide any evidence it is not the case? Nope. But hey it doesn't matter,he's toeing the rabid warsie line.

and another:

True, but please demonstrate that SF has a bio-weapon that kills humans, is contagious (preferably aeresol), and has a contagious but asymptomatic period, AND that the Empire would not be looking for such things despite being in a new environment rife with diseases, AND that the Empire would not be able to cure quickly and effectively.

Now note the the only positive proof asked for was if the federation has bioweapon that can kill humans. Now we know that SF has bioweapons ... Quark sells them, both Eddington and Sisko use them in "For the Uniform", and its perfectly consistent with general microbiology (bioweapons are natural bacteria, virii, etc. that have been egineered to kill in specific ways ... they can be created from natural stock) ... whatever that is debatable.

After this though I am asked to prove TWO negatives. Funny isn't it, the guy who says he's been telling people this since the boards inception, demands proof of a negative himself.

As for the line where the abscence of evidence quote comes from a debate over the importance of a LACK OF EVIDENCE regarding resistance on Betazed during the war. My opponent says we heard of no resistance in the run of the show, therefore the population must have aquiesced without any resistance. He further implies that this means the federation would not resist at all against the imperials.

I state:
3. Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscense. We see plenty of Maquis, far in EXCESS of the CONSERVATIVE figure of 1 in 1/10,000 I've been playing with.
Earlier I had provided specific examples of where we do see Feddie resistance against the occupiers (the Cardassians). I named several cannon examples; "The Maquis", "For the Uniform", and a slew of known Maquis from Voyager.

In short I have provided "positive evidence", yet my opponent feels that any abscence of evidence MUST be caused by his specific reasons (that the feds don't resist), nevermind there are any dozen of reasons why that abscence might be there (classification, disinterest, no news coming out of occupied territory, etc.).

So please do look at the specifics of the debate.

[Master of Ossus]

Tharkun, do yourself a favor and stop talking. You cannot demand proof of a negative. That is in violation of burden of proof. You repeatedly insist that other people do provide evidence of negatives in order to disprove your theories and conjectures, and you repeatedly state that because we have no evidence something does not exist, it must exist. In any case, dumbass, there is a BUNCH of official evidence in SW of toilets, and their existence may be inferred by basic human biological needs, anyway. Further, in Enterprise they had a long discussion about toilets on the ship, but since you ignore almost all evidence, anyway I guess that I should not be especially surprised by your idiotic claims.

In any case, during the last debate I saw you involved in, you repeatedly used invalid historical precedents that had little or nothing to do with anything in order to justify your stupid opinion.

Now, if you had bothered to pay any attention to the debate you vaguely allude to, you will know that I DEFENDED YOU when your opponent said that Imperials were not biologically human. This is because of an even better reason than the one you came up with (since some biological structures appear similar but function differently). The reason I came up with was the assumption of parity, which is always reasonable during a debate. Clearly I understand that this proof of a negative thing does go both ways. I cannot force you to prove that SW does not have weapons that can destroy a Galaxy in a fraction of a second, and you cannot force me to disprove the existence of similar weapons in ST.

Further, during that debate I was asking you to prove a positive, as you claimed that a biological pathogen would be:

1. Readily available to terrorist factions of SF after the Empire had conquered them, and they had surrendered.
2. Would propogate quickly and the Imperials would not be able to stop it.
3. That said pathogen would selectively target Imperial humans, though you acknowledged that some SF casualties might result, you also came up with some idiotic ideas for how they could easily communicate with everyone else in the AQ that they were to quarantine themselves without the Imperials recognizing what the problem was.
4. That said pathogen would be able to infect large numbers of stormtroopers, ignoring canon and official evidence during your justification.

You made the claims, according to Burden of Proof, you must back them up. Please do not continue to debate this issue, Tharkun, as this thread was clearly not intended to devolve into a flame war.

Also, if you look at the debate, the existence of a large number of Maquis (more than 1/10,000) actually HURTS your case, Tharkun. I can't believe you don't see this. If a large faction of SF, including some of its best officers and even entire starships, is willing to defect, this indicates that people are unhappy with SF and the way that the UFP is treating them. The idea that the Maquis supports UFP terrorist cells following the destruction of the UFP is ludicrous. If people are rebelling against the UFP, why would large numbers of frontier and border colonies support terrorist cells designed to reinstate a Federation-like government? Since your numbers estimates require spectacular numbers of frontier and border worlds to rebel against the Empire, please provide evidence that they would try to reinstate a government that they were unhappy with? Now, clearly, there would be dissidents, but you greatly exaggerate the magnitude of the ensuing conflict.

[Doomriser]

Well let's see there is no evidence of toilets in DS9. Therefore they don't exist.

No evidence of them in ANH either ... guess they don't have those either.

Many deck plans, such as the official Far Orbit [Nebulon-B Frigate] deckplans include toilets, though they are called "refreshers" in SW. Therefore, your SW argument is invalid in terms of evidence, and not just your irrational debating methods. I can't speak for Trek.

[Stormbringer]

Many deck plans, such as the official Far Orbit [Nebulon-B Frigate] deckplans include toilets, though they are called "refreshers" in SW. Therefore, your SW argument is invalid in terms of evidence, and not just your irrational debating methods. I can't speak for Trek.

well, every last Trek characters is full of shit.......

[CmdrWilkens]

Well let's see there is no evidence of toilets in DS9. Therefore they don't exist.

No evidence of them in ANH either ... guess they don't have those either.

Actually incorrect as has been pointed out elsewhere. Furthermroe we see rooms which appear to be bathrooms thus we can gather they will conform to normal bathroom standards and icnldue a toilet. This is called observation (evidence) coupled with deduction (logic). What you cannot do is make a deduction without any evidence to supprot your conclusion.

Abscence of evidence is valid when you are dealing with a LIMITED DATA SET which precludes EXPERIMENTATION.

Again unture, abscence of evidence simply means you must chalk certain things up as unknowns.

The logical conclusion is to:
1. Go with precedent. If something similar happened before in similar circumstances it is likely to occur here ... the advantage of the status quo.

Similair situations is caled evidence, however the onus is on you to show that the situaiton presented as precedent is relevant and that the precedent is likely to still be the case (i.e. it has not been "over-ruled.")

2. Go with common sense.

Common sense is nothing more than logical deduction which STILL requires evidence.

3. State that we have insufficient data.

Which is what you must do if you don't have enough data to make a conclusion. However in such circumstnaces the REASONABLE thing to do would be to assume lack of existence, to do otherwise is to force the proof of a negative by presuming existence...which goes right back to the point given.

The whole proving a negative is BS. Negatives have been proven,

Which doesn't change the fact that forcing a person to disprove something you have no evidence to prove is intellectually dishonest.

[/quote]What classifies as a "negative"?<snip>[/quote]

See here's the problem there is the "negative" in many senses but proving the negative means that you require a person to DISPROVE something which you have not PROVEN to exist (if it doesn't exist then it is just as likely no evidence exists to disprove it). Requiring disproof of a theorem nto already proven is, again, intellectually dishonest.

[Darth Wong]

<Tharkun's attempt to hijack the thread moved into another thread>

Tharkun, don't be a jackass. The phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is a tautology (empty, vacuous statement), since evidence of absence is impossible. That alone invalidates it from any rational discussion.

The examples you give do not validate your tautology. It is possible to deduce things from seemingly unrelated evidence (eg- we know there are toilets in DS9 because they are human, and we know enough about human physiology to deduce that they must eliminate bodily waste). In other words, there IS evidence. At no point is it ever reasonable to conclude that something exists without a shred of evidence; even what you might term as circumstantial evidence is STILL a form of evidence, but when there is no evidence at all, you haven't got a leg to stand on. Limited data sets do not change this fact; you still cannot conclude that something exists without evidence. You are appealing to ignorance.

If you want to hijack this thread to talk about specific issues while evading the basic point (that the tautology in question does not belong in a rational debate), then do it somewhere else, otherwise I'll delete your posts. I hate thread hijackers. This thread is about the basic LOGIC of the "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" tautology, not long-winded dissertations on the details of specific examples in which YOU happened to use it. Don't pull a Darkstar on us.

[Shadow]

Actually incorrect as has been pointed out elsewhere. Furthermroe we see rooms which appear to be bathrooms thus we can gather they will conform to normal bathroom standards and icnldue a toilet. This is called observation (evidence) coupled with deduction (logic). What you cannot do is make a deduction without any evidence to supprot your conclusion.

Actually, the inside Star Trek bathrooms have been seen, and they do not include toilets. They were mentioned in "Breaking the Ice"[ENT], but there is no evidence of their existance in later Star Trek, chronologically. Excepting, that humans would die if they did not go to the bathroom, of course.

[Master of Ossus]

No, there is evidence of toilets in ST. They talk about them extensively in Enterprise, while talking about how they recycle waste. That is direct evidence of their existence.

[VF5SS]

Maybe the evolved humans of ST have been bred to shit through their mouths since that's all you hear coming out of them

[Shadow]

No, there is evidence of toilets in ST. They talk about them extensively in Enterprise, while talking about how they recycle waste. That is direct evidence of their existence.

I said that in my post.

[tharkûn]

Mike-
I specifically said I don't want to hijack the thread. I'm just getting sick and tired of people like Master of Ossus claiming I said something I didn't and then other people running with that. It gets annoying when I am accused of something and the people making the accusation are blatently doing what they accuse me of. If people insist about LYING about what I've said, I insist on replying.

Could you do me a favor and move Master of Ossus reply to me to wherever you put my reply to him?

The phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is a tautology (empty, vacuous statement), since evidence of absence is impossible. That alone invalidates it from any rational discussion.
Now this is not true, and you know it. Some absences can be shown to exist through evidence. For instance the absence of an electron in a semiconductor. Its absence gives rise a to a positive charge.

Likewise the abscene of additional large planetary bodies near the earth can be shown through astronomy (namely very precise calculations of orbits).

Specific negatives can be proven (Fermat's last theorem) and specific abscences do exhibit evidence.

[Darth Wong]

Mike-
I specifically said I don't want to hijack the thread.

Then you shouldn't have done so. Your posts were pulling the thread off-topic and you know it.

I'm just getting sick and tired of people like Master of Ossus claiming I said something I didn't and then other people running with that. It gets annoying when I am accused of something and the people making the accusation are blatently doing what they accuse me of. If people insist about LYING about what I've said, I insist on replying.

Frankly, you sound just like Darkstar now. Stop it.

Could you do me a favor and move Master of Ossus reply to me to wherever you put my reply to him?

Too late. I can't move posts from one thread to another. I can only split them into a new thread.

The phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is a tautology (empty, vacuous statement), since evidence of absence is impossible. That alone invalidates it from any rational discussion.
Now this is not true, and you know it. Some absences can be shown to exist through evidence. For instance the absence of an electron in a semiconductor. Its absence gives rise a to a positive charge.

Wrong again. You do NOT have any direct evidence that the electron is not there; you only have the ABSENCE of the negative charge which would mean it IS there. Get it?

It is IMPOSSIBLE to prove a negative! What part of this don't you understand? I can't believe such a basic logical fact escapes you!

Likewise the abscene of additional large planetary bodies near the earth can be shown through astronomy (namely very precise calculations of orbits).

And you don't realize that this is done by showing ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE, ie- there is no evidence for these extra large planetary bodies (no orbital perturbations), therefore they don't exist?

Specific negatives can be proven (Fermat's last theorem) and specific abscences do exhibit evidence.

What you fail to realize is that in both of your examples, it was the absence of evidence which you used in order to prove that the phenomenon in question was not present. In other words, you confirmed what I have been saying: there is no such thing as direct evidence of absence; the closest you will come is absence of evidence. Absence of the negative charge which would otherwise prove the existence of a negatively charged particle, and absence of the orbital perturbations which would otherwise prove the existence of large extra planetary bodies. Get it now?

Fuck, you've always had a habit of playing games with evidence, but this is ridiculous; you are attempting to fight a basic principle of fucking LOGIC!

{EDIT: just as an addendum, thanks for confirming that you interpret absence of evidence as evidence of absence whenever the subject is NOT Star Trek}

[tharkûn]

Then you shouldn't have done so. Your posts were pulling the thread off-topic and you know it.
My apologies then, it was not my intention to pull the thread off topic.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to prove a negative! What part of this don't you understand? I can't believe such a basic logical fact escapes you!
Proof that there is NO greatest prime positive integer:

Assume the opposite, there is a positive prime integer which is greater than all the rest. Then the sequence of primes would be {2,3,5,7,11,13 ... P} where P is the greatest prime.

Multiply all the terms in that sequence togethor (PI notation), denote the result as Q.

Now all numbers are factorable into primes or are primes themselves; factors being evenly divisible into primes.

Now factor the number Q+1.

2 does not factor evenly ... there will be a remainder of 1
3 does not factor evenly ... there will be a remainder of 1

therefore Q is prime.

As Q > P (assumed to be the greatest positive prime)

then

There is no greatest positive prime.

QED

That is why I'm not following you. If you want to prove "Not A" you have several choices ... the one above is assuming the positive and showing it leads to a contradiction.

I was taught various methods for proving that a statement cannot be true in non-Euclidean geometry (for instance that there are no nonintersecting infinite "straight" lines on the surface of a sphere).

I'm not following you how the absence of a negative charge is not directly evidenced. You take your sample, wire it up to an electroscope and measure the deflection. If it deflects 4 degrees before and 3 when you think there is an absence of electrons is that not direct evidence?

Sorry, Mike I'm just not following you, should I just shut the hell up?

[Darth Wong]

It is IMPOSSIBLE to prove a negative! What part of this don't you understand? I can't believe such a basic logical fact escapes you!

Proof that there is NO greatest prime positive integer
<snip a lot of mathematical stuff>

Red herring. Absolute proofs are possible in math. They are not possible in reality.

I'm not following you how the absence of a negative charge is not directly evidenced. You take your sample, wire it up to an electroscope and measure the deflection. If it deflects 4 degrees before and 3 when you think there is an absence of electrons is that not direct evidence?

Don't be dense, Tharkun. Of course you can detect the absence of a negative charge. Since the negative charge would be evidence of an electron's presence, you have just detected an ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE, which you interpreted as evidence of absence! This is actually perfectly reasonable (see Occam's Razor), but it highlights the hypocrisy of your approach.

Sorry, Mike I'm just not following you, should I just shut the hell up?

No, you should think very hard about what you're saying. Calm down, stop worrying about defending your reputation and trying to win a clearly untenable point, and contemplate the situation:

• An electron produces a negative charge
• Therefore, the negative charge is evidence of an electron's presence.
• You can detect this charge, (ie- evidence) in various ways
• If the charge (ie- evidence) is NOT present, you conclude that there is no electron.

Don't you see what you're doing? You are doing EXACTLY what you claim to be unreasonable; you are concluding that a phenomenon is not present because of the absence of evidence, ie- absence of negative charge which would indicate its presence.

Again, I point out that you seem to realize how this works whenever the subject is NOT Star Trek. You are inadvertently revealing a rationally inconsistent approach.

[tharkûn]

Calm down, stop worrying about defending your reputation
What reputation? Those whom I debate regularly call me an idiot, and I call them the same. If I cared about my reputation I wouldn't be on your boards nor would I EVER contradict his Wongness, I have yet to see some one contradict you and survive with any good reputation intact.

Anyway I'll think it over, drop back tommorrow.

One final thing, though. I read through an article for my philosophy of science class titled something like "Proving Hidden Variables do Not Exist; Bell's Inequality". When I tried to follow the math (with my VERY limited understanding of quantum mechanics) and it looked like they showed that if A (some type of hidden variable(s) exist) was true then a certain inequality must be true. They later showed the experimental results which clearly (at least in the way they represented them) violated the inequality. I always thought that was proving a negative, am I wrong there also?

[note if I screwed the explanation the hell up, it was a few years ago and it was an 8:00 class on a monday morning so I plead poor memory/attendance]

[Darth Wong]

One final thing, though. I read through an article for my philosophy of science class titled something like "Proving Hidden Variables do Not Exist; Bell's Inequality". When I tried to follow the math (with my VERY limited understanding of quantum mechanics) and it looked like they showed that if A (some type of hidden variable(s) exist) was true then a certain inequality must be true. They later showed the experimental results which clearly (at least in the way they represented them) violated the inequality. I always thought that was proving a negative, am I wrong there also?

Assuming you're recounting it correctly, we have precisely the same situation. A would produce inequality B. Therefore, inequality B would be evidence of A. If inequality B (ie- evidence for A) is not present, then you conclude that A itself is also not present.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? You consistently interpret an absence of positive evidence as evidence of absence whenever the subject is NOT Star Trek. This is GOOD, since it is the only logical conclusion. However, your refusal to allow the same method to be applied to Trek indicates some sort of mental block.

[Isolder74]

The phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is a tautology (empty, vacuous statement), since evidence of absence is impossible. That alone invalidates it from any rational discussion.
Now this is not true, and you know it. Some absences can be shown to exist through evidence. For instance the absence of an electron in a semiconductor. Its absence gives rise a to a positive charge.

You are about to get an Electronics Engineer's blood boiling! This "example" of yours has nothing to do with this principle.

1: We KNOW what a electron is

2: We KNOW what a Proton is.

3: We KNOW how a Silicon atom works

4: A P-type material is made by inducing into a atom with only 3 electrons in its outer shell thus making a "hole" in the crystalin matrix. Until we add a electric current the material is still very electrically stable. There are no missing electrons in this matrix they are all there. There is simply now a place for an extra electron to go making conduction though the normally non-conductive Silicon possible.

5: A positive charge is direct evidence that we have a missing Electron.

6: This phrase simply states that if you have no evidense that something is there doesn't mean you can assume that it is there.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Oh God, this better not turn into another debate thread where tharkun and two other members make 20,000-80,000 word posts, going back and forth, which results in everyone else forgetting what the fuck they're talking about.

[Isolder74]

Oh God, this better not turn into another debate thread where tharkun and two other members make 20,000-80,000 word posts, going back and forth, which results in everyone else forgetting what the fuck they're talking about.

My sediments exactally

[Master of Ossus]

Oh God, this better not turn into another debate thread where tharkun and two other members make 20,000-80,000 word posts, going back and forth, which results in everyone else forgetting what the fuck they're talking about.

My sediments exactally

I know. I always want to tell Tharkun that I'm tired of debating him. It always bugs the heck out of me having to respond to his uber-posts.

[tharkûn]

Master of Ossus:
Then don't nobody puts a gun to your head and says debate. I'm tired of you outright lying when you debate, but whatever. Anyway let's not hijack the thread ... if you want to piss about me ... different thread.

Mike:
I've thought it over some more so here's what I don't like:

What classifies as "evidence" and what classifies as "abscence of evidence" is dependant on what you are looking for.

For instance take an object, don't care what it is ... its in the black box. You wire it up to an electroscope. The deflections is 5 degrees. I do something to the object (again under the black box). And when you measure the deflection again it is 4 degrees. So what is observed is a change of -1 degree. This is said to be an "absence of evidence". If you got a change of +1 degree it would be evidence of new electrons being present.

However if I tell you that instead of removing electrons, I was loading it with Na+ ions they are reversed. A change in deflection of -1 degrees would be classified as "evidence" and +1 as "absence of evidence".

Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong but something which is "absent" should be independant of what is causing it. If an observation is "absence of evidence" it should be such regardless of what happens in the black box.


As far as Bell's Inequality ... I looked it up a Quantum Mechanics book. If the inequality (which is a relation based on the expectation values of spin from a paired positron and electron from pion decay as found in the EPR paradox... and yes I don't understand all that) holds you know nothing. You could have hidden variables (like Einstein thought existed) or not ... if the inequality was followed ... either fit the data. If the inequaility was violated then the only possible conculsion was that there were no hidden variables. Don't know if this changes things, but the idea was if:
A is true then B would have to occur.
A is false then B would not have to occur (but could).

So the only time anything was "proved" was in the case of:
B does not occur (hence A must be false).