The Absence Of Evidence

[notdej]

It's great to believe- why not...

I did for many years until I started to look at it without the fantasy glasses on. I had to take mine off for a while to see what I was really looking at regarding the so called evidence. It seamed to be the logical thing to do due to the frustration of the lack of REAL proof/ evidence after (in my case) 40+ years of faith, hope & fantasy! Now they are off all the time. But I haven't thrown them away YET.....
For all the years us homosapiens have existed on this planet; not one piece of evidence has ever been submitted that would make a- <now skeptical> like my good self think again about the supernatural in general. You know: <REAL EVIDENCE> -- not a story told by someone we should believe (via some form of lucrative media) because of who they are/ their position in life etc!> believe what you're told or don't kinda thing.
I'm here to find the truth/ real evidence of the supernatural in all it's diverse shapes & forms. Why are you here? Due to my opinions & approach; this is a question that's been asked of me many times over the years.
<the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence> is a phrase well used in discussions regarding ufos/ aliens & the supernatural. If you're here to try & find the truth via debate regarding the supernatural , as am I, then isn't it about time to re-evaluate this well used phrase? What needs to happen or not happen or how long will it take, 10/100 years before the well used phrase will be: <the absence of evidence can only mean evidence of absence>?
By all means keep the fantasy glasses on when reading through this thread. But out of respect for different opinions & approaches at least take one lens out for some kinda balance. See how it goes

Peace.
dej...

 

[dr wu]

Fair enough and I agree with you in general that without something to work with it's hard to make a solid case.........but then I would ask you to define what you consider to be evidence and what kind of ufo evidence would prove it for you.

 

[Analogue Boy]

Fair enough and I agree with you in general that without something to work with it's hard to make a solid case.........but then I would ask you to define what you consider to be evidence and what kind of ufo evidence would prove it for you.

Why are you bringing just UFOs into this? You've already limited your parameters right there.

 

[Analogue Boy]

I'm guessing that everyone on this site has at least one incident in their past they can't explain. Many of us have posted our experiences here already. If you're here to find the truth, read through the threads where you'll find a lot of wheat and much more chaff.
Sorry, it'll be a catch up for you but a lot of us have been through this before.

When it comes to proof, you can only read as widely as you can and reach your own conclusion and then realise that conclusion is subject to change.

 

[notdej]

Fair enough and I agree with you in general that without something to work with it's hard to make a solid case.........but then I would ask you to define what you consider to be evidence and what kind of ufo evidence would prove it for you.

Yeah, good question, wu................

hmmmm:

video evidence that IN MY OPINION is not faked...

Physical evidence that has been proven to be unknown to science...

Difficult to answer... That's why I'm still interested in this enigma because it might be there for all to see & understand one day

 

[notdej]

I'm guessing that everyone on this site has at least one incident in their past they can't explain. Many of us have posted our experiences here already. If you're here to find the truth, read through the threads where you'll find a lot of wheat and much more chaff.
Sorry, it'll be a catch up for you but a lot of us have been through this before.

When it comes to proof, you can only read as widely as you can and reach your own conclusion and then realise that conclusion is subject to change.

Sorry, I'm missing your point...

Places like this wouldn't exist if people didn't put forward their 'conclusions' for debate! This is what it's all about, isn't it!?

 

[Ermintruder]

video evidence that IN MY OPINION is not faked..

This is the shakiest of straw-man situationalism, and you know it (in your heart, and in your capitalized capitulations).

Although terrestrial technologies exist that can officially-identify video falsity, there is neither any longer a first/second-line human perception-of-veracity threshold that matches that, nor has that detection technology kept pace with the intrinsic realism of falsely-depicted reality.

Where does that leave your opinion? Sadly, it leaves it in the realms of belief, hope and exposition....empty echoes of sunlit shadows.

Evidence needs to be close, of the third kind, and irrefutable. Representational imagery (especially of the single-perspective highly-realistic variety) is worse than multiple independant witness statements. Give me scorch marks, radioactive counts, buzzing devices and rotting bizarre corpses.

Extraordinary extraterrestrials requires extraordinary....evidence.

 

[EnolaGaia]

...
<the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence> is a phrase well used in discussions regarding ufos/ aliens & the supernatural. If you're here to try & find the truth via debate regarding the supernatural , as am I, then isn't it about time to re-evaluate this well used phrase? What needs to happen or not happen or how long will it take, 10/100 years before the well used phrase will be: <the absence of evidence can only mean evidence of absence>? ..

I suppose it's possible to spin this well-worn phrase several different ways. In relation to Fortean topics, it usually surfaces as an excuse to continue believing even if no tangible or otherwise compelling evidence can be produced (for now).

Phrased another way ... Invoking this phrase defensively, in response to (e.g.) a 'put up or shut up' challenge from someone else, only goes so far as claiming:

"I can't demonstrate X (occurred; is like this; exists at all; etc.) with tangible evidence, but that doesn't mean X is thereby disproven."

To overturn this implication and claim that absence of evidence IS evidence of absence is to claim proof for a negative . which doesn't end the debate, but instead merely shifts the burden of proof to the skeptical other.

This other may still be able to leverage absence of evidence so as to constitute a reasonable argument that X doesn't exist / didn't occur / etc., but only in a well-defined and relatively closed context within which absence of evidence necessarily and unequivocally signifies the negative claim.

Narrowly defined contexts in which all possible outcomes (and a mapping of all their respective implications to all possible explanations) can be specified, even (I would say especially ...) in the hard sciences. However ...

Human experience and (IMHO) the universe / multiverse at large, do not provide such a 'well-defined and relatively closed context' within which we arrogant monkeys can reasonably pull such stunts with regard to any / all things one or another of us may claim or propose.

For this sort of deterministic outcome to reliably occur, we (the human race) would necessarily:

- have to be unanimously 'on the same page' with regard to beliefs, logic, orientation, and criteria for evaluation and acceptance of outcomes;

- have to know 'everything' so as to ensure we were really covering all the bases in each case;

- have to be capable of full control in all situations in which differences of opinion had to be resolved;

- have to enforce without exception the above-cited requirements; and - above all else ...

- have to be willing to declare and believe we cannot ever be wrong under these conditions.

This is a recipe for Daleks or Berserkers, not humans. It's the ultimate vision of crowd-sourced dogma.

 

[notdej]

Evidence needs to be close, of the third kind, and irrefutable

no shit.. really!? when you find it let me know

 

[Ermintruder]

For this sort of deterministic outcome to reliably occur, we (the human race) would necessarily:

- have to be unanimously 'on the same page' with regard to beliefs, logic, orientation, and criteria for evaluation and acceptance of outcomes;

- have to know 'everything' so as to ensure we were really covering all the bases in each case;

- have to be capable of full control in all situations in which differences of opinion had to be resolved;

- have to enforce without exception the above-cited requirements; and - above all else ...

- have to be willing to declare and believe we cannot ever be wrong under these conditions.

This is a recipe for Daleks or Berserkers, not humans. It's the ultimate vision of crowd-sourced dogma.

Bravo, this is an inspired statement, a superb summary of where we, societally or as a species, cannot ever be at: consensus linearity within a common absolute.

 

[Ermintruder]

no shit.. really!? when you find it let me know

Well, you said it better yourself earlier:

Physical evidence that has been proven to be unknown to science...

But.....we're here, as Forteans, because we do keep constantly wondering. Our presence is due to the eternal pursuit of absence.

 

[EnolaGaia]

On another angle pertaining to the 'absence of evidence' theme ...

There's a built-in limitation to ever overcoming (escaping?) the implications of this proposition - one which is especially relevant to Fortean subjects and debates.

Evidence is evidence if it is observed and it is attributed implications with respect to some abstract proposition (which may be as simple as 'exists' or 'actually occurred').

In the absence of tangible evidence for X (X = alien spacecraft, Nessie, Bigfoot, etc.) the observer's experiential evidence is both unavailable for inspection by others and unassailable from the perspective of the observer.

Stop and consider what a dominant proportion of Fortean reports extend no farther than "I saw" or "I heard" (or both).

In such cases, the notion 'absence of evidence' is unavoidably equivalent to 'you're a damned liar!'. In any case this absence cannot be demonstrated until and unless all persons claiming such subjective observations are eliminated.

Furthermore, this means that 'evidence of absence' has to be accounted for in three distinct ways:

- evidence indicative of absence for the observation per se (i.e., you never saw any such light in the sky; you weren't even there that night);

- evidence indicative of absence for the proposed interpretation of the observation (i.e., the light in the sky you saw wasn't an extraterrestrial spacecraft)

- evidence indicative of absence for the class of phenomena associated with the interpretation (i.e., there's no such thing as an alien spacecraft; no intelligent visitor(s) would do that)

So long as there is a divide between the objective and subjective, these factors will render it effectively impossible to surpass the bounding conditions the 'absence of evidence isn't ...' proposition demarcates.

 

[notdej]

I suppose it's possible to spin this well-worn phrase several different ways. In relation to Fortean topics, it usually surfaces as an excuse to continue believing even if no tangible or otherwise compelling evidence can be produced (for now).

Phrased another way ... Invoking this phrase defensively, in response to (e.g.) a 'put up or shut up' challenge from someone else, only goes so far as claiming:

"I can't demonstrate X (occurred; is like this; exists at all; etc.) with tangible evidence, but that doesn't mean X is thereby disproven."

To overturn this implication and claim that absence of evidence IS evidence of absence is to claim proof for a negative . which doesn't end the debate, but instead merely shifts the burden of proof to the skeptical other.

This other may still be able to leverage absence of evidence so as to constitute a reasonable argument that X doesn't exist / didn't occur / etc., but only in a well-defined and relatively closed context within which absence of evidence necessarily and unequivocally signifies the negative claim.

Narrowly defined contexts in which all possible outcomes (and a mapping of all their respective implications to all possible explanations) can be specified, even (I would say especially ...) in the hard sciences. However ...

Human experience and (IMHO) the universe / multiverse at large, do not provide such a 'well-defined and relatively closed context' within which we arrogant monkeys can reasonably pull such stunts with regard to any / all things one or another of us may claim or propose.

For this sort of deterministic outcome to reliably occur, we (the human race) would necessarily:

- have to be unanimously 'on the same page' with regard to beliefs, logic, orientation, and criteria for evaluation and acceptance of outcomes;

- have to know 'everything' so as to ensure we were really covering all the bases in each case;

- have to be capable of full control in all situations in which differences of opinion had to be resolved;

- have to enforce without exception the above-cited requirements; and - above all else ...

- have to be willing to declare and believe we cannot ever be wrong under these conditions.

This is a recipe for Daleks or Berserkers, not humans. It's the ultimate vision of crowd-sourced dogma.

Yeah, I agree but you're going far too deep & IMO missing the general basic point....

The point being:

no matter how meaningful or pointless the phrase is-- how long will it go on for?

The way it's going I can see folk still pondering over the meaning of crop circles 200 years from now..........

 

[EnolaGaia]

Yeah, I agree but you're going far too deep & IMO missing the general basic point....
The point being:
no matter how meaningful or pointless the phrase is-- how long will it go on for?
The way it's going I can see folk still pondering over the meaning of crop circles 200 years from now..........

Forever ... It's representative of intrinsic constraints we cannot as yet even conceive of overcoming.

 

[notdej]

I look at anything Fortean very simply:

there are many highly intelligent people on this planet/ highly skilled etc.

If something is real & really exists then we would know it for a fact by now.. Especially when one considers the technology we have today.

Of course this is just an opinion.................

 

[notdej]

Forever ... It's representative of intrinsic constraints we cannot as yet even conceive of overcoming.

you might not be able to- but i have.. so, i just want facts otherwise anything other than facts means nothing to me

 

[Yithian]

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

Memorably chiastic but misleading in this case, given that the two instances of the word 'evidence' are being given different meanings.

To take the first part, 'absence of evidence' might be fairly rephrased as 'the inability to find grounds to believe or suppose'. The second use of 'evidence', however, is being taken to mean 'definitive proof of'. In order to eke out a tenable position, the phrase is being interpreted to mean: The inability to find grounds to believe something is not definitive proof of the non-existence of grounds to believe.

Few would disagree with such a maxim.

Yet what it should fairly be read as meaning is that is that the inability to find grounds to believe is not grounds to believe that there are no grounds to believe (!).

This maxim is almost certainly false. Pretty much all of our knowledge about the universe relies on inductive reasoning, whereby every instance in which a proposition is found to be true strengthens the likelihood of it being absolutely true: every time I find a man with a heart, the proposition 'all men have hearts' becomes more likely to be true.

It only takes one black swan, but 'absence of evidence' is hardly an irrelevance.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... If something is real & really exists then we would know it for a fact by now.. Especially when one considers the technology we have today. ...

Well, no ... We're discovering / encountering new things as time goes on. For example, new and previously unknown species are identified each year.

We can observe only that which we encounter, and we can observe and analyze it only with respect to our current technological capabilities. If it's rare or hidden or elusive, it's possible we haven't even seen it yet. If it's of a strange character we haven't encountered or taken into account before, it's not clear we'd be able to adequately analyze or understand it.

As I stated earlier, the 'hard' approach (no evidence means it doesn't exist / happen) can only be relied upon if we know everything and have the means to detect everything. We can do neither at this time.

This is not to say that a correspondingly 'hard' skepticism demanding tangible evidence to even consider existence is inherently invalid. Such a position is, however, constrained in what it can claim - if for no other reason than it forbids giving credence to anything that's known only by subjective observation alone.

 

[Min Bannister]

I look at anything Fortean very simply:

there are many highly intelligent people on this planet/ highly skilled etc.

If something is real & really exists then we would know it for a fact by now.. Especially when one considers the technology we have today.

Of course this is just an opinion.................

Everyone from every age has always thought that they knew everything and that their technology was the pinnacle. They didn't though and we don't either. It is just that it is so hard to conceive of things that we don't know anything about. Rocks do not fall from the sky because all the rocks are already on the ground. Rocks in the sky would be ridiculous.

Edit - Ebola Gaia got there first while I was typing.

 

[Min Bannister]

Enola! How I hate autocorrect.

While we live in a world whose inhabitants still think autocorrect is a pretty neat idea, I will believe we are still far closer to the apes than we would like to think.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... i just want facts otherwise anything other than facts means nothing to me

I, too, want to see the facts or at least be able to piece together a coherent and acceptable picture that clearly supports a given conclusion or interpretation. Sometimes this latter version is the best one can hope for, because what evidence there may be is allusive rather than conclusive, or indirect but suggestive of nothing else.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Enola! How I hate autocorrect. ...

And here I thought you called me 'Ebola' because you'd magically divined I was in a toxic mood ...

 

[gattino]

not one piece of evidence has ever been submitted that would make a- <now skeptical> like my good self think again about the supernatural in general.

Isn't that an observation about yourself rather than about the evidence?

I know nothing about UFOs, but taking your extended phrase "the supernatural" (are ufo's supernatural?) the claim that there is no evidence for whatever is demonstrably false. There's an ocean of evidence for any and all of these subjects. The question is whether you accept that evidence as sufficient to please and convince you personally. Relying on what you believe the view is of "scientists" (quotation marks because as collective term its vague and meaningless: which scientists?) doesn't add up to much because there are of course - and always have been - many professional scientists who do study and accept the reality of various phenomena as proven. More often than not those dismissing X on scientific grounds have made little or no attempt to study the subject being dismissed.

(A personal example in the last 24 hours. I've become very aware of extraordinary phenomena in dreams..examples which are personally convincing to me of precognition and telepathy occurring in the dream state. I'm aware no one else needs to accept my conclusions. As reported on here a couple of nights ago I dreamt of a particular long distance friend being interviewed on television. Because of my awareness of this phenomena I reported it to him across the oceans the next morning. He replied he too had dreamt that night he was being interviewed on television. To me its now so unexceptional I barely raise an eyebrow.. but I was aware this friend is a professional scientist and not having spoken to him much of these thigns before would be unlikely to be too open to the idea of telepathy, and might lower his opinion of me if he thought I was some airy fairy new age nutjob..so I put telepathy in quotation marks when casually suggesting it and threw in a cautionary "if you accept such things are possible". He later replied "Dream sharing is a bit far fetched. Considering I'm a hard core scientist". And therein is my point in this anecdote..he starts with an automatic assumption of what he should or shouldn't accept as possible based on his occupation as scientist...but his science is the study of microbes. He has no greater knowledge of studies into dreams, parapyschology or even psychology than my window cleaner. So why did he assume his occupation should in anyway shape his response to the incident outside of reading relevant studies? The only reasonable explanation is the common fallacy of confusing science as a process with science as a community of opinion. A tribe if you like. )

In terms of accepting the word of a witness to a phenomenon as evidence: the only way most people come to a belief that X is real is by personal experience of it, at which point all the refutations in the world become somethng between annoying and amusing depending on your temperament or patience. Once you experience X you're far more likely to accept the word of someone who's seen Y. But in the absence of that personal experience - or genuine study- there's nothing you can do, and it remains your (the non believer's) problem. Short of selling a product there's no onus that I can see on the witness to prove anything to someone who demands to be impressed. In the end if you're the witness to an event the disbelief of a non witness is none of your business.

 

[Coal]

To overturn this implication and claim that absence of evidence IS evidence of absence is to claim proof for a negative . which doesn't end the debate, but instead merely shifts the burden of proof to the skeptical other.

...which is handy for the believer.

It's a kind of negative induction isn't it? One does infer from the absence of evidence, that there is absence of 'phenomenon X'. With every passing incident of 'absences of evidence' the inference that there is no 'phenomenon X' becomes a little better supported. The odds of 'phenomena X' existing become shorter.

Every passing year without a definitive Loch Ness monster or radioactive grey-alien craft, makes it a bit less likely that one is really there...but never entirely rules it out.

In terms of accepting the word of a witness to a phenomenon as evidence: the only way most people come to a belief that X is real is by personal experience of it, at which point all the refutations in the world become something between annoying and amusing depending on your temperament or patience. Once you experience X you're far more likely to accept the word of someone who's seen Y. But in the absence of that personal experience - or genuine study- there's nothing you can do, and it remains your (the non believer's) problem. Short of selling a product there's no onus that I can see on the witness to prove anything to someone who demands to be impressed. In the end if you're the witness to an event the disbelief of a non witness is none of your business.

Maybe, but as an individual you're a sample size of 'one', so overall, your experience has no validity as proof in the wider world, neither do such experiences for a sample size of 'one' generalise to a population (even a bit). Even if you were so objective, you could account for your own confirmation bias and memory inconsistencies.

 

[gattino]

Maybe, but as an individual you're a sample size of 'one', so overall, your experience has no validity as proof in the wider world, neither do such experiences for a sample size of 'one' generalise to a population (even a bit).

Well firstly it isn't a sample size of one if anyone else in the world claims the experience - the "one" refers only to the specific example and not the phenomenon its an example of. There may be one witness to THAT apparition but countless thousands of witnesses to similar apparitions.

But secondly and far more importantly you've swerved the point.."your experience has no validity as proof in the wider world" presumes that it has any obligation to. It also presumes to speak for the wider world!

 

[Coal]

Well firstly it isn't a sample size of one if anyone else in the world claims the experience - the "one" refers only to the specific example and not the phenomenon its an example of. There may be one witness to THAT apparition but countless thousands of witnesses to similar apparitions.

That's true. But claiming an experience is not definitive. Many people believe and claim to have seen the Loch Ness monster. That each claim makes it more likely that the next claimant believes they saw Nessie, is in itself a well understood psychological phenomenon.

We are primed to see what we expect to see. Once a large number of people is saying 'look, that object is a UFO', even more people will interpret it as such and some will even imagine something that isn't there and believe they saw it. Countless witnesses that have seen UFO's, is only evidence that countless witnesses believe they've seen UFO's. Like any circumstantial case, it needs tangible evidence.

Sure, some people only 'believe it if they see it'. But most people 'see it if they believe it' as well.

But secondly and far more importantly you've swerved the point.."your experience has no validity as proof in the wider world" presumes that it has any obligation to. It also presumes to speak for the wider world!

Well, statistically one experience doesn't prove anything, that's the point, there's no presumption, just well established statistical laws.

That something happens to one individual may simply be a one-off event due to chaos and the law of large numbers. That the individual believes it and it seems real to them, doesn't mean it's a real external phenomena that can be duplicated with other people. Even if the individual spends their whole life having such experiences, they're still only 1 in seven billion.

It's possible one (some) of those people will dream every night without fail about something recognisable the next day, all their lives and it will still be chance only. They may come to believe they have some pre-cognitive ability. That doesn't mean they have, or that people can do that.

Plus, belief that one experienced a thing is totally biased by what one believes will happen and what other people have said happens, as above.

So once someone believes they remember dreams (from their last sleep cycle) are predicting their day or parts of it, they're not only more likely to see things which confirm their point of view, they're more likely to reject those thing which don't and to remember the dreams in the right way to do so. Putting a group of such people together will reinforce that belief, that's just regular old "agreeableness to be part of a group".

 

[notdej]

That each claim makes it more likely that the next claimant believes they saw Nessie, is in itself a well understood psychological phenomenon.

yep, good words= exactly

 

[gattino]

We are primed to see what we expect to see. Once a large number of people is saying 'look, that object is a UFO', even more people will interpret it as such and some will even imagine something that isn't there and believe they saw it. Countless witnesses that have seen UFO's, is only evidence that countless witnesses believe they've seen UFO's. Like any circumstantial case, it needs tangible evidence.

..but that applies precisely to the "anything but psi" explanation. Once a large number of people read "its just coincidence/the law of large numbers/the human capacity for seeing patterns", even more people will interpret it as such and some will even imagine psychological processes which don't exist and believe they see them.

All your demonstrating or re-emphasising is my point: there is no such thing as "proof" to a non witness. You either personally are persuaded by other people's reports of an experience or you aren't. In either case the only reasonable response is "and..?"

Suppose YOU saw the loch ness monster. Not a shadow or a shape but a big dinosaur like creature right in front of you emerging from the loch. And you tell me about it. And I say no you didn't..or rather more politely suggest you were mistaken, and I appeal to issues with your eyesight, the light, expectations, a need for attention, psychological distress, escaped elephants from a travelling circus, or ultimately thatyou're just plain making it up. In the end I'm someone with no knowledge of what you experienced arguing with someone who experienced it. Maybe one or more of my "anything but"s is right. But only one of us is in a stronger position to rule those things in or out, and it ain't me. I can go on believing your story can't be true or your interpretation wrong...but that's my problem, not yours. Your response ought to be "Ok. whatever makes you happy" and to leave me to it.

 

[notdej]

Suppose YOU saw the loch ness monster. Not a shadow or a shape but a big dinosaur like creature right in front of you emerging from the loch. And you tell me about it. And I say no you didn't..or rather more politely suggest you were mistaken, and I appeal to issues with your eyesight, the light, expectations, a need for attention, psychological distress, escaped elephants from a travelling circus, or ultimately thatyou're just plain making it up. In the end I'm someone with no knowledge of what you experienced arguing with someone who experienced it. Maybe one or more of my "anything but"s is right. But only one of us is in a stronger position to rule those things in or out, and it ain't me. I can go on believing your story can't be true or your interpretation wrong...but that's my problem, not yours. Your response ought to be "Ok. whatever makes you happy" and to leave me to it.

My immediate response would be: 'where's the video or photo'? & go on to listening why they didn't film it-- examples:

battery was dead/ I panicked & didn't think/ never had my phone on me etc etc.....

Like I suggested earlier:

what with the tech we have available to us these days there's less of an 'excuse' 'not' to produce good solid workable evidence.

Hence why reports of this nature have diminished.

 

[gattino]

Well you'd be talking to yourself because the scenario I asked you to consider was of you as the witness not his challenger.

If YOU had seen it and I demanded you prove it to ME, what obligation do you imagine you would have to satisfy me? I'm saying shy of you trying to sell me shares in a Nessie stud farm you have none whatsoever. Considerations of your unreliability/stupidity/dishonesty/propensity for being fooled are all about me, and not your responsibility.