What does Veeky Forums think of this?
Absence of evidence is evidence of absence
Christopher Foster
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Nicholas Mitchell
>absence of evidence: a = -A
>absence: b = -B
Christ
Adrian Wright
And?
Angel Phillips
"Evidence" is a tangible noun -- there is something substantial there. "Absence" is an intangible. There is no substance in absence. It is a condition of being that I think mathematicians refer to as the "null set". A void. So it does not seem reasonable nor appropriate, in my little pea brain, to draw comparisons between substance and absence.
Ryder Williams
An argument from incredulity doesn't really work against a proof. Also, I don't think anyone has applied this phrase to mean an absence of everything. Rather it is used for a specific absence of something.
Benjamin Sanchez
>An argument from incredulity doesn't really work against a proof.
I fundamentally disagree with the definitions, and I would never call something like that a proof.
Carter Foster
OK so what's wrong with definitions or the proof?
Alexander Powell
>OK so what's wrong with definitions or the proof?
Definition 2 does not actually correspond to any "absence of evidence", nor does definition 3 correspond to any "absence".
Jace Lopez
Why not?
Caleb Torres
Because -A means "it is not the case that A" which obviously does not correspond to absence. To say that evidence is absent is to say that evidence has so far been undetected. If you define absence to correspond to non-existence, any proof for the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence will have employed circular logic.