On the nature of evidence

[Skeptic Ginger]

... And anyway, it makes my brain hurt. So how about we just use common sense and say that there's no elephant?

Yes, let's.

I live in an evidence based world. In my world, concepts in the scientific process have boundaries of common sense. That does not prevent me from having the most open minded view of the possibilities of the natural Universe. Just contemplating the time dimension and the quantum world is enough to demonstrate an evidence based world is almost unlimited. Nonetheless, there are still boundaries of common sense. That means there are no magical gods, no fairies, no invisible pink unicorns in the back yard, no dragons in the garage, and no elephants in my room that I just cannot see.

 

[Hokulele]

Maybe an example can help clear up some of my confusion regarding the definitions.

Let's say that I have a photograph of a string of lights in the sky that I am claiming is a UFO. Is the photo evidence or an observation? I assume the "UFO" is a conclusion, based on your definitions. If the photo isn't evidence, what is the evidence in this case?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The photo is evidence. We can all look at it. We can see what it is the conclusion is based on. The thing photographed would have also been evidence. They are both evidence. The photo is indirect, but it is still something different individuals can evaluate independently of any conclusion another person makes about the evidence.

My telling you I saw a UFO is evidence that I believe something, if I am credible it is also evidence I saw something. One can even go so far as to accept my description of what I saw, which is what athon was trying to get at. But you need to consider whatever the person describes they saw would be subject to interpretation.

The problem arises when you then make the claim any of these things are evidence of something, in this case the usual claim would be extraterrestrial UFOs. It may be that we don't know or it may be that we know they are not objects from an ET source. However, regardless of what conclusion we draw about the evidence, the photo or the anecdote, if we are wrong, then false conclusions we have or had, do not make the evidence into evidence of something it was never evidence of.

There is nothing wrong with drawing conclusions. What I am saying is the conclusion is not the evidence. The evidence is the evidence. And the evidence is something. False beliefs about that evidence do not change the nature of the evidence. Either whatever it was was evidence of fairies or an ET UFO or it wasn't. The fact someone believes whatever it is is evidence of something does not make it so.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

We are not excluded from saying something is weak evidence. We are not excluded from saying the evidence is inconclusive, it is equivocal, it is unclear. We are not excluded from drawing conclusions about evidence or about the credibility of someone's observation, or about the validity of someone's research conclusion.

I am simply saying that the conclusions we draw do not change the nature of the evidence. If they did, then anything one believed would be evidence for that thing. That is simply not the case and not a logical conclusion in itself. Believing in something is not evidence of the existence of something.

 

[Darat]

Maybe an example can help clear up some of my confusion regarding the definitions.

Let's say that I have a photograph of a string of lights in the sky that I am claiming is a UFO. Is the photo evidence or an observation? I assume the "UFO" is a conclusion, based on your definitions. If the photo isn't evidence, what is the evidence in this case?

I'm hard pressed to see how an observation is not evidence and indeed how you could have evidence that is not an observation.

So to me there are two bits of evidence in your example: the first is your direct personal observation, the second is the photograph.

Depending on what you mean by UFO it is either a non-extraordinary or an extraordinary conclusion but whichever it is (if it is either) it is unlikely that your observation and the photograph alone can establish with any degree of certainty.

(The non-extraordinary conclusion is that you took a photograph of something that was flying and the extraordinary conclusion would be that it was an alien flying craft.)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There are many cases where observations are evidence. I am not saying an observation cannot be made and then used as the evidence. In the case of the report of seeing fairies, you have evidence. You just don't have evidence of fairies. This point is getting lost here.

I might be interested in a box. The box is the evidence. But in order to draw conclusions about the box, a number of people measure it. The measurements are also evidence. It may be that I use that evidence to make a determination about the box, or that I use it to make a determination about the observers. Either way, I am not saying the observations are not evidence.

But if one observer makes a measurement that is twice the size of the other observers' measurements, does that change the size of the box? Is that evidence the box is twice as big as the box is?

There may very well be a period of time where we do not know. We may also choose to consider the aberrant measurement and draw an erroneous conclusion about the size of the box. That would depend on what we use as evidence, the box which we could remeasure, the measurements, or only some of the measurements.

And we can even go along believing in our erroneous conclusion about the box and make the proper statement that the evidence suggests the box is bigger than it is.

But, our erroneous conclusion does not make the box bigger. An erroneous measurement is not weak evidence of the size of the box, it is an erroneous measurement. It is not evidence of the size of the box. It might be evidence of the lack of skill an observer had, but it is not evidence of the false conclusion, regardless if we believed it was an accurate measurement or not. The measurements and the conclusions are not interchangeable. And they are not married. The evidence and the conclusion are two separate things.

One needs to consider what one is really saying when one says, X is evidence of Y. You are saying that you draw the conclusion X is evidence of Y. But if you are wrong, then X is not evidence of Y just because you drew that wrong conclusion. X is not evidence of Y just because you said it was in a sentence. That sentence really said, one was drawing a conclusion about Y based on X. The sentence was not saying the conclusion was a fact.

Sometimes the conclusions based on the evidence are more certain than other times. That does not change the relationship, however, between evidence and conclusions. They are still separate things. Conclusions cannot be substituted and claimed as evidence.

 

[Hokulele]

The source of my confusion was this post (bolding mine).

That is not what I am saying. "a flying man" is still a conclusion. I said this, but you keep telling me I'm not following the conversation. Yes I am. The thing the person saw, or what ever triggered them to think they saw something is the evidence, regardless of what they call it, regardless of what their brain sees, regardless if they are correctly or incorrectly observing something.

I remain surprised this is a hard concept for people to understand. However, if you understand the nature of evidence, you will understand I am correct and I do know what I am talking about.

• There is the evidence.
• There is the observation/measurement of the evidence.
• There is the conclusion drawn about the evidence.
• There is communication of that conclusion.

To understand the principles of an evidence based world view, you do need to understand the difference between these 4 things. People deal with evidence and observation/measurement of the evidence interchangeably without realizing they are doing so. What is evidence is critical though, because that is the basis of understanding the Universe. It isn't just a matter of the best explanation for the evidence, it is also important to understand what is evidence what is not evidence but rather a belief or conclusion about the evidence.

Regardless that we don't always consciously recognize what is the evidence and what is the conclusion, they are two separate things.

I'll have to elaborate further and reply to the rest of your post tomorrow. I'm out of time again.

Two points: in the sentence I bolded, it sounds like skeptigirl is claiming that the object itself is the evidence, not the sighting. For the second point, using the bullet point I bolded, in a sense the photograph is simply a recorded observation, not the thing emitting light in the sky. My confusion stemmed from the fact that the post seemed to discredit any observations as being evidence, and only things could be evidence of themselves.

Would it be more correct to state that testimony is not evidence according to skeptigirl's definition?

 

[Dragoonster]

There are many cases where observations are evidence. I am not saying an observation cannot be made and then used as the evidence. In the case of the report of seeing fairies, you have evidence. You just don't have evidence of fairies. This point is getting lost here.

But is this consistent across all cases? Yesterday I saw a large moving object that appeared red and mostly metal. That's the evidence, my conclusion is that what I saw was a car. In that case I'd certainly think what I saw was evidence of cars. We could also pretend I'm a five-year old kid who had never seen a car before except in comic books, and only heard of them from my parent's conversations.

Let's consider a 1800s drawing of a "fairie" in a book. Is this evidence of fairies? One would think no (or that more is needed to know, such as why the artist chose to draw it that way). But let's say the thing observed in this thread's case was at present time and appeared exactly like that drawing to the observer. It would seem to be evidence of fairies (assuming the observer is both honest and observed accurately). And I'm wondering what separates that from evidence of cars in the previous.

One seems weaker than the other because one is (prior to each event) far less accepted as real than the other, but the observations would have matched the theoretical expectations equally. To be consistent they'd seem to have to either both be valid evidence of the conclusion, or neither would. If neither, I wouldn't see how there's any evidence of cars at all. (kind of similar to the previous circular argument requiring supporting evidence before allowing evidence)

I may be misunderstanding points in this thread though.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I can see I need to back track here in order to clarify something. That is, I need to clarify further the difference between an observation and a conclusion. I should have used the words, evaluation/consideration of the evidence, rather than 'observation' of the evidence. My klutzy wording of concepts has resulted in confusion. There is a different meaning of the term, 'observation', which is a means of producing data that becomes the evidence.

This is a tricky issue to discuss. I have started this post for the 3rd time now because of getting into difficulty describing a concept I am very clear on, but using words that are not as clear. One of the things I like about posting this stuff is it forces me to describe the concepts I use in thinking and that serves to clarify them. It makes one realize how much thought goes on in our brains that is not dependent upon language. But I digress...

So I will try to re-word what I have said and hopefully it will make sense.

How the hell is 'he saw a flying man' a conclusion? How could you describe the event in some way that wouldn't, according to you, be a conclusion? Consider 'I saw a flying humanoid' is not the same as 'it was a flying humanoid I saw', which would better match your claim.
Athon

Athon meant to describe an observation here and I still described it as a conclusion. But I wasn't as clear about why as I could have been. Athon, in his description above, is still considering the thing that was observed as the evidence. If you are going to switch and consider the report or observation as the evidence, all you need do is recognize that your evidence is no longer the actual thing that was observed. Your evidence is now the anecdotal report. The observation which includes the conclusion is evidence. But it is not the evidence that was observed by the person telling us what they saw. And as such, one cannot draw the same conclusions as one could draw if one saw the evidence the person telling us about it saw.

When you have a person telling you they saw something, what is the actual evidence you are evaluating/considering? It is their anecdote. What might that anecdote be evidence of?

• a lie
• something they saw
• something they believe they saw but was really an hallucination generated within the brain rather than seen with one's eyes

If someone tells you they saw something, you can accept that as evidence just as you can accept measurements of something or other means of recording observations. The original evidence is no longer what you are evaluating. Once you translate that evidence into some other form of data, the data can become the evidence. Now you are evaluating the data and not the original evidence. The data has become the evidence.

Why does the distinction matter? Say for example you have a person telling you they saw something they believed was a fairy, or they might tell you they saw a flying humanoid. To make that an observation, they should tell you they saw something that looked like [whatever] as opposed to saying it was [whatever], but there is no reason to nitpick the semantics as it is not relevant how they worded their description to your evaluation of the evidence. Whether or not they qualify what they saw as a conclusion, you still need to recognize it is one.

So what is the difference? For one, it is evidence the person experienced something, in this case, a vision or sighting. It is no longer the actual thing that is claimed to have been observed. It might be indirect evidence of something, but it is no longer the thing itself. That's OK, we use lots of indirect evidence to draw conclusions. But indirect evidence has certain properties direct evidence does not have and vice versa. In the case of the person telling us they saw something, that has different properties than the thing they saw. Just as the photograph has different properties from the thing that was photographed.

I know this is tricky without a clear concept of just what is the evidence and what is the conclusion. I think my use of the word, 'observation', instead of 'evaluation', has detracted from the original issue. My bad.

So getting back to the original issue, almost anything can be considered as evidence. I never intended to say what one concludes about something is not evidence. It just is not evidence of the conclusion. Goodness, I'm back to this confusing concept and where the problem as I see it is coming from. That is, distinguishing between an observation and a conclusion.

So let me tackle that again in the next post, just to keep this one from being too long.

 

[athon]

In one case you have a person telling you about the evidence. In doing so, the person is drawing some conclusions, be they valid or invalid. The evidence is what the person saw, not what they tell you they saw. And in response to your earlier concerns about this, yes, you are considering other people's observations of evidence all the time. No, we do not observe all evidence directly. That doesn't change what is evidence and what is a conclusion about the evidence. It merely allows me to consider some people credible and others less so.

While I'm not necessarily arguing that your interpretation of the word 'evidence' is wrong, it certainly isn't consistent with how the word is used.

Consider a court case. Witnesses and experts offer their interpretations as court evidence. In science, a paper is evidence to the point it's used as a citation to add weight to one's own paper.

Ultimately, evidence has to be a personal thing. There's no mass acceptance of a conclusion which we all then have to accept. We all form our own conclusions, while at the same time borrowing somebody else's opinion is also a form of concluding for one's self.

There is no prohibition on accepting evidence someone else observed that you find to be a credible report of that evidence. Just because you are not observing evidence directly does not mean the evidence is not useful to you. From experience, we conclude that lots of evidence we have not directly observed is nonetheless credible.

The problem here is the evidence, whatever it was, a misinterpretation of some external or internal stimuli, does not become evidence OF something just because someone concludes it is evidence of that thing.

This makes no sense. I cannot see how you can use the word evidence without saying 'for X'. It's part and parcel - evidence is not a term which can be used in isolation of that which it is supporting. Hence all observations are hints for a model which could be your conclusion.

You say that observing a winged humanoid cannot be evidence for a fairy. Yet the only way you could state this is if you were certain fairies did not exist. Hence you have a conclusion even more certain than my speculative 'if they existed, this would be evidence for it'. You keep ignoring that this is circular reasoning - fairies don't exist because there is no evidence for them; there is no evidence for them as they don't exist.

I recognize the arrogance problem. But when one knows they are correct, it is hard to have a different stance. There are many occasions I am not so certain as in this case.

This has really put a different light on you, skeptigirl. Sorry to say that. I can understand confidence in one's position, but such certainty has been misplaced I'm afraid.

We are not talking about an objective reality here. Even then, certainty of such magnitude is a dangerous thing (and hardly very skeptical, where the central tenet is to be all but completely certain in a belief). Rather we are talking about how a word is used to describe a practice. The word 'evidence' on one level is pretty straight forward. However, as we've shown in this thread, dig deeper and understand the epistemological impact of the term and it starts to become a little more vague. People aren't so clear, and there isn't some 'Great Divine Dictionary' which will give an objective answer. Language is like that - it is a truth based on common consensus. For you to claim you've got the true definition while others have it so wrong is more than just arrogance - it's lunacy.

I find the problem not that the term, 'evidence', is in reality, unclear, but rather, that it is misused so often its actual definition is unclear to many people.

Here are the problems that misusing the term incurs and why it matters as well as why what I am saying is correct.

You sound like somebody from early in the 20th century who believes that the Queen's English is the only one and true English. Language has no objective reality. It relies on common understanding, which for the term 'evidence', the everyday understanding is sufficient. Yet there are a few inadequacies which create confusion. One is the term 'that is not evidence' over 'that evidence is too weak to compete against other forms in creating a conclusion'. The former is more concise and therefore works well as a shorthand, however epistemologically I question how correct it is. Even in a group of intelligent, educated skeptics like these, a consensus is difficult to arrive at.

So, you can keep your 'I know I'm right', as it only serves to show you don't really get how language works and ultimately detracts from your argument.

Is there really actual evidence of fairies if you do not consider mistaken conclusions about things people have observed or experienced?

Again, you're producing a conclusion to determine whether something is evidence or not. Imagine a lawyer in court saying 'Those fingerprints can't belong to the defendant, as he did not kill that man'.

If you cannot separate your definition of the term, 'evidence', then let me ask you another question. Is it possible for people to believe in something for which there is no evidence for?

I don't believe so. As I said earlier, evidence is ultimately a personal thing. If I observe something - including a form of communication from somebody else on their observation - it either gives me confidence or detracts from my confidence in a conclusion. I don't see how a belief could be formed in a vacuum of observations.

There is evidence people have claimed they believe is evidence of fairies. The evidence, whatever it is, exists. Does a false conclusion about that evidence change that evidence and make it something it is not?

I've read this paragraph five times, gone and made a coffee, come back and tried to make sense of it again. I think I just had an aneurism. Maybe it's just me. But I don't understand it.

Athon

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There are two issues here, just to summarize. One is easy, one is not. So let me tackle one per post.

The one that is easy, at least to describe, is the fact that believing something about evidence does not make the evidence change (again excluding the quantum world). So if X never was evidence of fairies in the first place, just because someone has drawn a false conclusion about X does not mean we have weak or inconclusive evidence of fairies.

This concept seems to be unnecessarily difficult for some people here. I believe it is simply a difference in how one verbalizes the real world and in how one conceptualizes the real world.

Is there a natural Universe? I would hope we can agree on that much. There is a reality.

From there we all interpret the evidence of that natural Universe and determine the best explanation for what the evidence tells us about the natural Universe.

In evaluating and interpreting the evidence, we use a lot of tentative language. The evidence suggests, supports, is equivocal, and so on. In fact, there is a principle that proper evaluation of evidence always leaves open the possibility the evaluation is subject to change. Or, we may add or subtract evidence in our evaluation.

But what changes in such a case? It is not the evidence that changes, it is our evaluation of the evidence that changes. Because the evidence does not change, just our evaluation of it, simply declaring X is evidence of Y does not make X evidence of Y. Sometimes an individual draws a conclusion that takes into account all sorts of false premises. Does that create evidence? Of course not. So it should be obvious that simply believing X is evidence of Y, if one is incorrect, does not make X evidence of Y. Our interpretation of X may have been that it was evidence of Y, it doesn't mean we were correct.

Using language as we commonly do, we often make false statements about evidence when we really mean to be making a true statement about the interpretation of evidence.

Where I see the confusion coming into the picture here is language. Language describes reality, but it does not make reality. Though interestingly, language does have considerable impact on our perception of reality. And while it is another topic, it may be the underlying cause of the confusion here.

When evidence of something possibly exists we do speak of it sometimes saying, there is evidence of or evidence for something. But that is a misstatement. We are really saying that we are drawing a conclusion there is evidence of or evidence for something. What I propose to you is, if the conclusion is wrong about that evidence, then the evidence really never was evidence of our false conclusion. We drew a tentative conclusion about the evidence. The language we expressed that tentative conclusion in was misleading. It attributed false properties to the evidence that didn't exist.

It is common language in science to speak of conclusions as being the best explanations for the evidence. But if you recognize that statement for what it is, it is not attributing properties to the evidence, it is interpreting the properties of the evidence. We are interpreting the evidence, we are not creating the evidence even if we use language implying evidence for Y exists, that doesn't mean such evidence exists if we are wrong.

Since the natural Universe is a real thing, and since we are merely interpreting the evidence which is also something real from that natural Universe, if we get the interpretation wrong, the evidence remains for us to properly interpret in the future. Because we believed X was evidence of Y did not change X. Either X was evidence of Y or it wasn't. Either we got it right or we got it wrong. And if we got it wrong, then there was no evidence for Y in this example.

The problem here is language is shaping perception. Take the language away, think of the logic and of what the nature of evidence is. The Universe exists. We use evidence to determine the best description of the Universe. But we are interpreting the evidence, the interpretation is not the evidence. The evidence exists separate from the interpretation. False interpretations cannot create evidence. That would be a magical world if that were true.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Part 2 is coming after I take a break and after I digest angry Athon's post.

It is a shame we cannot disagree or be passionate about our beliefs without pissing people off who disagree.

 

[athon]

I too will get back to it (I've got too much writing to do today, but am interested in continuing the discussion).

I just want to say I'm sorry I come across as angry. I'm not. I just feel somewhat shocked by the 'I know I'm right' angle on what is essentially a definition-based discussion. I expected better from you. By all means, discuss your view on the matter and support it with justifications. You can see by my responses to Darat and Dr. H that I'm more than flexible on my stance and have changed it as the discussion has progressed. But they've presented rather well constructed responses without claiming that they find it hard to see how anybody doesn't share their view.

Anyway, right now I've got another few thousand words to right on the history of alchemy, so I'll have to come back when my headspace is back on epistemology later.

Athon

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

.... But they've presented rather well constructed responses without claiming that they find it hard to see how anybody doesn't share their view....

Athon

I could lie.

 

[arthwollipot]

ROTFL! Now that is a line worth quoting, if only I can figure out where.

Well, there's this "Nominate" button in the bottom right of my post...

 

[Dr H]

I'm having a hard time separating "provisional classification of the information as evidence as regards some postulate" from "conclusion". It would seem all you are saying is first you draw a temporary conclusion then a final one. I do not consider "conclusion" to have some exclusive finality.

Sure, I think that's a fair summary.

The point is that the very fact of defining information as "evidence," requires that the information in question be related at least in some provisional way to other information. You can call that "forming a postulate," or you can call it "drawing a temporary conclusion," but either way the process is inseperable from that of determining -- however provisionally -- that a given piece of information constitutes "evidence".

 

[Dr H]

In one case you have a person telling you about the evidence. In doing so, the person is drawing some conclusions, be they valid or invalid. The evidence is what the person saw, not what they tell you they saw.

I must respectfully disagree: both are evidence. The "person telling you" is anecdotal evidence; "what they saw" is observational evidence (for them).

There seems to be a confusion here between the quality of various forms of evidence and whether evidence of a particular quality is, in fact "evidence."

The problem here is the evidence, whatever it was, a misinterpretation of some external or internal stimuli,

Just examining that evidence alone cannot tell you that; it needs to be examined in the context of other information/evidence.

I find the problem not that the term, 'evidence', is in reality, unclear, but rather, that it is misused so often its actual definition is unclear to many people.

I think the problem is that "evidence" has more than one meaning, and that meaning is context dependent. When the meaning in one context is mistakenly employed in another context, then people talk at cross-purposes.

Is there really actual evidence of fairies if you do not consider mistaken conclusions about things people have observed or experienced?

That involves evaluating the evidence of the person who says they saw a fairy in a different context from that in which they made the observation -- it requires the inclusion of additional information in the evaluation which neither the original observer, nor the person they are relating their experience to may have available.

Way back in the thread an analogy was made to a murder trial; I think the courtroom analogy could be taken a little further.

In any adversarial proceeding, say a jury trial, both the prosecution and the defence present evidence. There may be other extant information surrounding the particular issue to be decided, but if one side or the other doesn't present it during the trial, then it is not evidence in that trial. The jury must eventually either decide either in favor of the prosecution or in favor of the defense, based on the available evidence. Often, they will be specifically instructed by the judge to not take into account any information other than that presented in evidence.

No matter which way their decision goes, it does not mean that all of the evidence provided by the other side suddenly becomes non-evidence, nor does it mean that the losing side's evidence was never evidence to begin with. All it means is that the totality of the evidence -- presented by both sides -- convinced them the one side's interpretation was correct that the other side's interpretation was incorrect.

If you cannot separate your definition of the term, 'evidence', then let me ask you another question. Is it possible for people to believe in something for which there is no evidence for?

Of course -- that's virtually the definition of "faith".

There is evidence people have claimed they believe is evidence of fairies. The evidence, whatever it is, exists. Does a false conclusion about that evidence change that evidence and make it something it is not?

The nature of the information which constitutes the evidence doesn't change, but the interpretation of what it is evidence of or for certainly does.

 

[Dr H]

You can see by my responses to Darat and Dr. H that I'm more than flexible on my stance and have changed it as the discussion has progressed. But they've presented rather well constructed responses without claiming that they find it hard to see how anybody doesn't share their view.

I appreciate that, athon, thanks.

I should warn you though, I can be just as arrogant as the next poster, but being a newbie on the block I thought I'd rein it in for a while. ;-)

 

[Dr H]

Well, there's this "Nominate" button in the bottom right of my post...

OK, you got it, boss.

I'm not entirely clear on exactly what I just nominated you for, but hey: live and learn.

 

[Dr H]

I might be interested in a box. The box is the evidence. But in order to draw conclusions about the box, a number of people measure it. The measurements are also evidence. It may be that I use that evidence to make a determination about the box, or that I use it to make a determination about the observers. Either way, I am not saying the observations are not evidence.

But if one observer makes a measurement that is twice the size of the other observers' measurements, does that change the size of the box?

No.

Is that evidence the box is twice as big as the box is?

It is certianly evidence that the box may be twice as big as the other observers believe it to be. What is required to make a determination of the truth is an expansion of context, in which additional evidence, not a part of the initial observations, can also be considered. Perhaps that additional evidence reveals that only the last observer was using a properly calibrated measuring tool, and the other observers were getting smaller readings because of their improperly calibrated tools.

But, our erroneous conclusion does not make the box bigger. An erroneous measurement is not weak evidence of the size of the box, it is an erroneous measurement. It is not evidence of the size of the box.

You cannot know which measurement is erroneous without appealing to other, additional information not presently in evidence.

The evidence and the conclusion are two separate things.

No evidence is conclusion-free. The determination that information is evidence requires at least a provisional conclusion.