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Not just yet, got another one for you:
Intent.
Like bias and like motive, this is based on observation. It is an interpretation.
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Much like microbe to man, it can be inferred from the circumstances and the observer may be correct or not, assuming the proper logical predicate is present.
Whaddayaknow? An inference from CIRCUMSTANCES? And an OBSERVER? Smacks of "description of the logical foundation for eyewitness testimony, which most everyone is aware is subject to a multitude of interpretations."
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Honestly, I thought you were asking for direct observations rather than wanting to play games with the cumulation of an untold number of indirect observations to reach a conclusion that you had sufficient evidence of something not directly perceivable to the five senses.
You consider bias, motive and intent to be direct observations? You can't be serious?
The rest of it is meaningless.
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You asked what would constitute evidence not perceivable via one or more of the five senses.
Actually... the issue is this...
Zephan post #36 writes:
First, cite the relevant scientific journal which validates your alleged issue, to wit: anything perceivable to the five senses is, in fact, objective evidence (might I add, evidence of precisely what? -- it really sounds like the description of the logical foundation for eyewitness testimony, which most everyone is aware is subject to a multitude of interpretations). Or was it "anything perceivable to the five senses is science?" (you said that too)
... which is the criticism of sensory data as being unreliable as is often the case with eyewitness testimony. Thus far, you have not addressed the issue.
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I submitted to you the above thought processes which cannot be directly observed.
However, to demonstrate, or attempt to prove or verify, that one of these processes is in effect, you must use inferences from sensory data. Simply stating that this or that is bias is not evidence. You have to prove it. Do you claim otherwise? And how does one prove it without resorting to those damned unreliable sense organs? To wit, you haven't produced anything remotely objective, or anything that can stand on its own as evidence.
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Can they or can't they be directly observed?
You are correct that these things cannot be directly observed, but as you also rightly point out they can be inferred from circumstances. This is the ONLY way we have access to knowledge of these things, except in our own brains ( perhaps ). But this brings us right back to dependence upon sensory data, and you disallow that. Thus your whole chain of reasoning fails.
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one may make a tenuous conclusion based on the circumstances, but the conclusion would not itself constitute a fact, or as Crashfrog suggested, actual evidence.
I'm sorry? Did you not post bias, motive and intent as if they were evidence? Lets see.... ah... from just a few sentences up in this very post:
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You asked what would constitute evidence not perceivable via one or more of the five senses. I submitted to you the above thought processes which cannot be directly observed.
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So, who gets to decide what is evidence?
That is very much the question. I think most here will agree that at the least evidence needs to be verifiable by anyone who wishes to check the results. The alternative is that any claim made is on par with all others, no matter how odd the claim may be. "Pigs fly" suddenly stands on equal footing with "birds fly." Suppose I am the only one making the claim? Doesn't matter. The second you start asking other people if they have seen pigs fly you have introduced the idea of verifiability. It is, in fact, introduced as soon as you wonder whether you have ever seen a pig fly.
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You cannot directly observe the content of a thought process, nor can it be absolutely ascertained based on indirect observations of the thoughts. That was my point.
But you introduced such things as alternatives to objective evidence. That does not make sense.
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We can move on now to discuss whether evidence perceivable to one of the five senses is always relevant to evolution as suggested, or continue to fantasize about various thought processes and the indirect methods of reaching conclusions.
Sure looks like a retraction...
At any rate, we have been discussing whether evidence percievable to the five senses is relevant. You are the one who criticised such evidence, and got caught in the absurdity of the criticism. You equated sensory evidence to eye-witness testimony, and implied it was therefore unreliable. Now you pretend differently?
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