šŸ›”ļø Debate Believers or skeptics

Basically you are trying to prove a positive statement (<x> does not exist) by appealing to your lack of data. That only really works when you know the entire population of whatever it is you are observing. As you get closer to 100% observation your confidence in that positive statement increases.

But that's not how you are using it.


The analog would be like saying a defendant is guilty because we can't find evidence of his innocence. It just doesn't make any sense and is obviously fallacious. I am not sure why so-called "skeptics" keep repeating it, but it really sounds stupid to rational people.
 
A search of your house that doesn't turn you up is evidence (not proof) that you are not in your house.
Not sure how many times I need to explain this very basic and elementary fact.

Harte
 
Harte said:
A search of your house that doesn't turn you up is evidence (not proof) that you are not in your house.
Not sure how many times I need to explain this very basic and elementary fact.

Harte
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Well, sure, because you can pretty well search my entire house. That was the entire point of the fallacy. You cannot search the entire wilderness area of North America for some kind of primate. All you can say is that no evidence has been demonstrated that one definitively exists here. The lack of that evidence is not evidence the primate does not exist. Mountain gorillas existed before white people discovered them in the 1890s or whenever it was, but if your fallacy were true, then we'd have to say that mountain gorillas did not exist until they were discovered. That's a contradiction in case you are paying attention. It's a fallacy.
 
Kairos said:
Basically you are trying to prove a positive statement (<x> does not exist) by appealing to your lack of data. That only really works when you know the entire population of whatever it is you are observing. As you get closer to 100% observation your confidence in that positive statement increases.

But that's not how you are using it.


The analog would be like saying a defendant is guilty because we can't find evidence of his innocence. It just doesn't make any sense and is obviously fallacious. I am not sure why so-called "skeptics" keep repeating it, but it really sounds stupid to rational people.
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Do you see why I've said multiple times here that you are confused about the difference between "evidence" and "proof?"

I've not tried to prove a single thing here, yet here you assert that I am. I'm not talking about ANY level of confidence at all. Just the basics of what evidence actually is. You could have a 0.000001% confidence level in a piece of evidence, but it is still evidence.

I'm telling you that absence of evidence is evidence of absence because there can be no other evidence of absence.

If you don't get that, then I suggest you study up on the meanings of those two words.

Harte
 
Kairos said:
Well, sure, because you can pretty well search my entire house. That was the entire point of the fallacy. You cannot search the entire wilderness area of North America for some kind of primate. All you can say is that no evidence has been demonstrated that one definitively exists here. The lack of that evidence is not evidence the primate does not exist. Mountain gorillas existed before white people discovered them in the 1890s or whenever it was, but if your fallacy were true, then we'd have to say that mountain gorillas did not exist until they were discovered. That's a contradiction in case you are paying attention. It's a fallacy.
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I can stand outside and yell your name. If you don't answer even that is evidence that you are not home.

Harte
 
Harte said:
Do you see why I've said multiple times here that you are confused about the difference between "evidence" and "proof?"

I've not tried to prove a single thing here, yet here you assert that I am. I'm not talking about ANY level of confidence at all. Just the basics of what evidence actually is. You could have a 0.000001% confidence level in a piece of evidence, but it is still evidence.

I'm telling you that absence of evidence is evidence of absence because there can be no other evidence of absence.

If you don't get that, then I suggest you study up on the meanings of those two words.

Harte
Click to expand...


No. I am not confusing evidence and proof. I have explicitly and resoundingly proven that your assertion that absence of evidence is evidence of absence is fallacious.

The lack of evidence is not in itself evidence.

Mountain gorillas existed the whole time we had zero evidence of them, and our lack of evidence for their existence was not evidence of their nonexistence.

I could go on with endless examples of how this fallacy fails, dude. Do you really want this?
 
Yes, it was.
It was not proof, but it was evidence.

Or, again, will you assert that the Inuit vacationed in South Florida?

Harte
 
It is better to simply state that you don't believe some proposition is true, giving affirmative reasons based on what we actually know and have observed.

Saying something does not exist because we have not yet discovered the evidence is fallacious. Literally every species we discovered didn't suddenly come into existence when we discovered evidence of them.
 

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