Absence of Evidence..............

But isn't this pretty much equivalent to arguments used by believers in Bigfoot, ghosts and alien abductions?One problem with the absence of evidence argument is that there's never really an absence of evidence. There's always a scale running from strong evidence to moderate evidence to slim evidence to nearly non-existent evidence, but I don't the evidence for something, no matter how unlikely it might seem to many, ever reaches zero.The measure that science uses for the strength of evidence is the number of scientists in the relevant field that it is able to convince.--Percy

Wikipedia appears to have a good definition. If I remember correctly, you don't consider Wikipedia a reliable source, so I'm providing this webpage of definitions of "empirical" from Answers.com which contains definitions from a number of sources, of which Wikipedia's appears to be the most clear, saying: We could probably define subjective observations as those for which there is a significant contribution from the observer. In other words, the observations are unique to the person performing them and are not replicable by others.Even though it's been more than a century, the most famous example of this in science is still Dr. Prosper-René Blondlot, the discoverer of N-rays. Blondlot and the other researchers in his laboratory somehow convinced themselves that they were observing an actual objective phenomenon that they could see with their own eyes when in reality it was purely subjective.--Percy

I look at this a little differently, let me see if I can explain how.Let's say an "archaeologist" discovers Egyptian hieroglyphs that he interprets as describing the universe being created by seven Goddesses inside a black hole. You and I would argue that that isn't real evidence, but then we're setting ourselves up as the guardians at the gate for what constitutes evidence and what doesn't. The fact of the matter is that some people are going to find this evidence acceptable and some are not (okay, most are not), and some of the people who accept it or at least give it a degree of consideration may surprise you. No one person or group of people can set themselves up as judges for what consitutes acceptable evidence within science. All evidence, good, bad and horrible in our own opinion, has to be submitted to the scientific community.The only way science really has for deciding any issue is to let the community of scientists from the relevant field examine all the evidence, each individual scientist using his own judgement in deciding what constitutes valid evidence and what does not and how much weight to give each item of evidence, and arriving at a consensus. The consensus may or may not happen, but if it does then that's what we consider accepted science. Different scientists may have used different evidence and different weights on the evidence, and the consensus view on each item of evidence is also part of science. And even though there is some evidence that no scientist considered worthy, it's still evidence.The more familiar example is sea shells on mountain tops. Young earth creationists see this as evidence for a huge global flood lasting maybe a year, and it is. But you dig down a foot and find more shells, and that's evidence for a somewhat longer flood. Then you dig down 10 feet and find more shells, and that's evidence for a very long flood. And then you dig down 100 feet and find more shells, and now the flood hypothesis begins to feel a bit odd since these shells are encased in the mountain, indeed make up a measurable proportion of the mountain, and it doesn't make sense that the shells of successive generations of sea shelled creatures would deposit themselves on the sea floor in the shape of a mountain.But sea shells on the surface are still evidence of a possible flood. And if digging had revealed no evidence of shells beneath the surface, guess what? The flood hypothesis would have to be considered a viable alternative, especially if other mountains around the world revealed the same pattern. So it absolutely isn't true that there is no evidence for Noah's flood. It's just that the evidence supporting the flood has more than one possible interpretation, and only when added to the other evidence does it become clear that there was never any such flood. And hopefully in everyone else's opinion, too, otherwise every impossible idea anyone blurts out becomes a fifty/fifty proposition simply because it hasn't been investigated yet, which seems absurd to me.--Percy

Yes, precisely! And the way I would describe this is not that there's no evidence for the flood, and not that there's no evidence for geocentrism, but that the sum of the evidence rules out the flood, and that the sum of the evidence rules out geocentrism. But there *is* evidence of each. Well, I guess I can't object to a characterization of my position as generous when measured against the spectrum of opinion on this, but I would argue that one really has no choice. Bob makes the unsupported assertion that, "Seven goddesses created the universe inside a black hole," and Jim hears this assertion and later says to you, "Bob is a respected cosmologist, and he says that seven goddesses created the universe inside a black hole." In my view that's evidence. Incredibly poor evidence, but evidence none the less.In some circles, such as when we talk among ourselves, we all agree out of hand that we need not mention, let alone consider, such evidence. But in discussions with creationists there is no such inherent understanding of the nature of proper evidence. To them this is evidence, and the reasons why it is extremely poor evidence have to be respectfully addressed and explained.--Percy

I think introducing the celestial teapot example is right on target, and this is where replication comes in. Someone asserts that the celestial teapot exists, so science examines his claim so that his observation can be replicated. If he was just blowing smoke and never had any observations (direct or indirect using instrumentation, doesn't matter) then his assertion is dismissed as baseless. If he claims observations then he must reveal his methods so that they can be replicated. If they cannot be replicated then they go into the dustbin.This is sort of the situation faced over and over again by Randi's million dollar challenge. He gets applications every week from people who believe they have evidence of some paranormal phenomenon or skill and who also believe they can replicate that evidence for Randi. The evidence they can muster during the application process determines whether they're accepted to face the challenge, and it is often local skeptic groups that perform the initial investigation of the evidence, such as the New England Skeptics Society. The evidence all stinks and when it's examined actually turns out to be vapor or less, but it is evidence that was investigated and found lacking. That doesn't mean it wasn't evidence.There's a part of this that is just nomenclature. Though it's been almost completely disproven and discarded, the aether theory of light is still called a theory. So I guess in a similar way I believe that unreplicatable evidence, even just someone telling a lie, is still evidence.When someone testifies in court they are said to be giving evidence, and the jury considers this evidence, even when that someone was lying in everything they said. My take on things is that even evidence that is mistaken or false is still evidence.--Percy

It sounds like you are saying a couple things which sound very reasonable to me:

1. Rather than calling all observations empirical, it might be more helpful to reserve the empirical label for observations conducted within the context of scientific investigation, and to use the term anecdotal for other more casual observations. But whether empirical or casual, all such observations are made of the real world.
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2. When casual observations is all you have, that's what you go with.

But if part of your argument is that when both casual and scientifically empirical and replicated observations are available that in some cases casual observations are superior, I couldn't agree with that.Objective observations are ones that anyone (given the proper training and equipment) can replicate. It is many people repeating an observation and getting the same result that gives us confidence that we have obtained an accurate perception of reality.--Percy