Prof. Weissman, excellent post, however, just because you are a white guy with a PhD doesn't mean you can make an argument from authority, because as a member of a marginalized group, I have access to non-Western, non-cis-hetero-patriarchal ways of knowing from my lived experience.
Besides, everything you discussed was just the exception that proves the rule, and even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Plus, of course, even though you gave a lot of examples, the plural of anecdote is not data.
Also, how do I know your post wasn't AI generated and if I don't know that how can I possibly evaluate the claims therein?
Excellent list. Burden-of-proof shenanigans, denials about the possibility of nonexistence claims, and braindead skepticism about induction are my top three, and you already have them. Karl Popper is indirectly the source of much of this mischief, as he flatters scientists by giving them a heroic self-image and sells a border wall falsely advertised as foolproof against non-science. Darwin, Einstein, Dewey, Carnap, Van Fraassen, and others remain in detention to this day. Meanwhile, Feyerabend continues to overstay his visa. smh
Strangely enough, I saw a lot of this during the days of Gnu Atheism. Atheists would enter debates with a winning hand, and instead would absurdly try to rig the conversation in their favor using these shabby slogans, and then smugly act as if they won, as if any of this is intelligent.
Yes! I was thinking of going on about extreme Popperianism and then putting in a good word about Lakatos (not on a personal level) but it seemed too complicated for the rant.
Glad I read Joe Schaefer's post before repeating the same point, which is of course that there is no absence of evidence in the street crossing scenario.
However there are cases where the absence of evidence proves nothing because the restriction of evidence is deliberate, as when some US states restrict gun-related data collection to avoid providing fodder for the culture wars
Then there is absence of evidence from not too benign neglect, when medical trials of new medication is restricted to white males, so that the complete profile of risk and benefit is unknown for other genders, ethncities and races.
But also of course, absence of evidence may exist because the searchers are looking in the wrong place or not asking the right questions or using flawed proxy questions. Example of the latter in cross-national studies of legislative representation using female gender as a substitute for harder to discern and code racial and ethnic representation. And then finding no evidence of the effect the researchers expected.
But I agree with Michael that the absence of evidence argument is often specious in public discourse. and in culture wars. My lateral examples are from my field of political science and not sure whether Michael is saying the so-called STEM sciences are guilty of this.
The distinction between different degrees of absence of evidence is not sharp. What if you aren't paying much attention but are used to hearing cars or picking them up out of the corner of your eyes and don't notice anything? Does that count as evidence? What I've seen a lot of is people saying that missing parts of the market covid zoonosis story (no sick host animals, no sick wildlife vendors, no identified possible host,...) are not evidence of anything because "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". It is evidence- sometimes strong, sometimes weak. The saying just gets in the way.
On the "correlation is not causation", about which you wrote me, I should have made clearer that "correlation is not causation" is a good starting point, better than a lot of people's first reactions. But it's not a good stopping point because there are ways of using collections of correlations to sort out some probable causes.
Frivolously entertaining. However your absence of evidence analysis of the street crossing scenario is wildly misplaced. Observing no cars on the street is a positive epistemic fact, not the absence of one.
Prof. Weissman, excellent post, however, just because you are a white guy with a PhD doesn't mean you can make an argument from authority, because as a member of a marginalized group, I have access to non-Western, non-cis-hetero-patriarchal ways of knowing from my lived experience.
Besides, everything you discussed was just the exception that proves the rule, and even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Plus, of course, even though you gave a lot of examples, the plural of anecdote is not data.
Also, how do I know your post wasn't AI generated and if I don't know that how can I possibly evaluate the claims therein?
“Why don’t you publish in a peer-reviewed journal?” has to be a runner up here.
Excellent list. Burden-of-proof shenanigans, denials about the possibility of nonexistence claims, and braindead skepticism about induction are my top three, and you already have them. Karl Popper is indirectly the source of much of this mischief, as he flatters scientists by giving them a heroic self-image and sells a border wall falsely advertised as foolproof against non-science. Darwin, Einstein, Dewey, Carnap, Van Fraassen, and others remain in detention to this day. Meanwhile, Feyerabend continues to overstay his visa. smh
Strangely enough, I saw a lot of this during the days of Gnu Atheism. Atheists would enter debates with a winning hand, and instead would absurdly try to rig the conversation in their favor using these shabby slogans, and then smugly act as if they won, as if any of this is intelligent.
Yes! I was thinking of going on about extreme Popperianism and then putting in a good word about Lakatos (not on a personal level) but it seemed too complicated for the rant.
Also, agreed about Feyerabend.
The 'absence of evidence' should really be stated as, "absence of evidence is usually not conclusive evidence of absence" but that's not as pithy.
I like the cut of your jib.
Glad I read Joe Schaefer's post before repeating the same point, which is of course that there is no absence of evidence in the street crossing scenario.
However there are cases where the absence of evidence proves nothing because the restriction of evidence is deliberate, as when some US states restrict gun-related data collection to avoid providing fodder for the culture wars
Then there is absence of evidence from not too benign neglect, when medical trials of new medication is restricted to white males, so that the complete profile of risk and benefit is unknown for other genders, ethncities and races.
But also of course, absence of evidence may exist because the searchers are looking in the wrong place or not asking the right questions or using flawed proxy questions. Example of the latter in cross-national studies of legislative representation using female gender as a substitute for harder to discern and code racial and ethnic representation. And then finding no evidence of the effect the researchers expected.
But I agree with Michael that the absence of evidence argument is often specious in public discourse. and in culture wars. My lateral examples are from my field of political science and not sure whether Michael is saying the so-called STEM sciences are guilty of this.
Carol-
Two points:
The distinction between different degrees of absence of evidence is not sharp. What if you aren't paying much attention but are used to hearing cars or picking them up out of the corner of your eyes and don't notice anything? Does that count as evidence? What I've seen a lot of is people saying that missing parts of the market covid zoonosis story (no sick host animals, no sick wildlife vendors, no identified possible host,...) are not evidence of anything because "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". It is evidence- sometimes strong, sometimes weak. The saying just gets in the way.
On the "correlation is not causation", about which you wrote me, I should have made clearer that "correlation is not causation" is a good starting point, better than a lot of people's first reactions. But it's not a good stopping point because there are ways of using collections of correlations to sort out some probable causes.
Frivolously entertaining. However your absence of evidence analysis of the street crossing scenario is wildly misplaced. Observing no cars on the street is a positive epistemic fact, not the absence of one.
Bayesians are so full of themselves!