Peanut Gallery

Yup. Exactly. That's all there is to it.This all started from the blanket claim of "the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence."And, when used in the context of your black picture, this is absolutely correct.
However, when used in the context of pens on Rahvin's desk picture, this is absolutely incorrect.Therefore, we now know that the blanket phrase "the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absense" is useless because it's actually context-dependent.Therefore, no one can just toss that line out in a debate and expect it to mean anything.When is the absence of evidence valid as being evidence of absence?
When we look where we're supposed to look.Be that pens on desks.
Or 4 lights instead of 5, 6, 10, or 150,000 lights.
Or Thor living in the clouds.
Or Apollo dragging the sun around.
Or Felix reversing gravity.These are all examples of when "the absence of evidence" really is "evidence of absence". Why is the context valid with these examples? Because we've looked for the claimed entities or effects exactly where we're supposed to look... and found nothing. Therefore, the claim is untrue. Perhaps it was made up on purpose... perhaps it was an accident. However, the process of it being made up is irrelevant... the (now known) fact that it is made up means that it is "a figment of the human imagination."

Really?
My unculturedness is showing again... No, I didn't know that, actually. Thanks for the tip.
I do know that Star Trek does that copy-a-scene-or-idea from famous books/movies thing a bunch, though... right?I've never read 1984.
I probably should.
But, as my now well-established unsophisticatedness should be hinting at... I'm probably not going to On to my next social miscue!

Because I can see the entire surface of the desk being unblocked by any pen.

My point is that it isn't really incorrect. You don't conclude that absence of a pen from the absence of evidence of a pen. You conclude it from the desk showing that there is no pen on it. And when you don't know where to look?And when the place you suspect to be looking is specifically outlawed by the method you're using (like the supernatural realm is by science)? I don't think so. Its not the absence of evidence, it's the evidence of absence... that is, a desk's surface being unblocked by a pen. Not just the absence of evidence of the pen. Not really...

How does that not present the same problems? Has not everyone so far answered the question about the pen with the assumption that the desk did exist?Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

You have more than the absence of evidence of a pen.My point was that you do need more than that.

Youre making the same strawman that RAZD is, or at least a similar one.The "pen on desk" question is very specific. It involves a very specific object and a very specific area. It involves being able to search the specific area for signs of the pen that would be expected if the pen were present.A black picture doesn't involve searching a desk.You need the desk. That's why it's part of the scenario. Otherwise the question would be "is there a pen," and we'd have a completely different argument. It's a big part of why this isn't directly analogous to questions of deities.So let me be so clear even a kindergartner can understand:THe scenario involves one pen and one desk. The question is whether the pen is present on the desk. If you remove the desk, you are creating a strawman as the scenario is fundamentally changed. If you talk about locations nearby or otherwise other than just the desk, you are creating a strawman as the scenario is fundamentally changed. If you talk about objects other than a pen, you are creating a strawman as the scenario is fundamentally changed.I can easily create analogous scenarios. How do we tell if a glass is empty or full? By looking, and seeing the presence or absence of a substance within the glass. How do we tell if there are words on a piece of paper? By examining the paper, and determining whether we observe words or the absence of words.A blank picture involves a total lack of knowledge with no experiment.A picture of a desk that does not contain a pen conveys knowledge and the possibility for an experiment in the form of a search, with predicted results: if the pen is present, the pen should be observed in a search. If the pen is not observed, there is likely not a pen on the desk. End of story.An absence of expected evidence is evidence of absence. It's not proof of absence, and the evidence in question must be expected.If a specific observation would increase the probability that a hypothesis is correct, then the lack of that observation when it is expected as a prediction of the hypothesis must then increase the probability that the hypothesis is wrong.If the observation of a pen on the desk counts as evidence that there is a pen on the desk, then the lack of an observation o a pen on the desk after looking over the desk must count equally as evidence that the pen is not present on the desk.I don't expect to see a pen or the absence of a pen on a windowsill or on the refrigerator or on a television or in a black picture when I'm asked whether a pen is present on a desk.Your straw man is obvious. As is your frantic semantic scrabbling to make a distinction without a difference.

So, what you're saying is that you *do* need more than an absence of evidence of a pen...That was my point.

Yes, you need the desk. The absence of evidence has to specifically be the absence of specific, expected evidence in a specific location where the evidence would be expected to be found if the hypothesis were true. As was stated. Repeatedly. In multiple different ways. An absence of evidence alone means nothing. An absence of evidence where such evidence would be expected is evidence of absence. I believe I stated that on almost every post I've made in this thread.If you thought you were saying something new and interesting, or contributing anything other than semantic bullshit by saying "lol, but you need more than the pen," then perhaps you should try to improve your reading comprehension skills.

The picture of the desk could be photoshopped.... "what's essentially true is virtual reality. technology to wipe out the truth is now available. not everybody can afford it but it's available. when the cost comes down look out!" - b.dylan, liner notes to World Gone Wrong, 1993

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Hi onifre, let's try again I could experience communication from a supernatural entity without experiencing the entity in question, so yes the information would have to be conveyed from a supernatural source but it is not necessary to experience the source to experience the message.We do this everyday when posting here: we experience the communication without experiencing the communicator. We could make assumptions about the communicator but we could not know nor would we need to assume that it was an imagined experience nor a made up one.This would be like the meteor event, you have evidence of the event, but not of the cause. It could be a meteor or it could be "Thor's hammer, Mjollnir" smiting the earth. You mean make assumptions about what we know ... But we already have plenty of evidence of the supernatural, or there would not be religions, it is just not scientifically validated. Again, it would be possible to experience communication without experiencing the source. I would agree that you are assuming the consequent.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

"Evidence of the supernatural" really boils down to "some varied sets of phenomenon that were not explained."The problem is that very frequently those phenomenon are explainable. Just not by the individuals who experience it. Human beings are very prone to jumping to the "magic" explanation - for some reason, our species really likes to worship "mysteries." For some reason we say "this is off limits to rationality, or logic, or physical evidence. It's mysterious, it's unfathomable by human beings, it;s sacred and special."In effect, people worship their own ignorance rather than attempting to resolve their lack of knowledge.The "supernatural" is simply that which has not been explained...and depending on one's knowledge, what appears "supernatural" to one person may be an accurately explained and quantified phenomenon to another.If Zeus is really up on Olympus tossing lightning bolts, we are not faced with a problem beyond human intellect or scientific study - what we have is an opportunity to investigate a firther refinement of our understanding of nature, to determine the real underlying universal laws that somehow consistently allow Zeus to toss lightning as well as all of the direct observations of the behavior of lightning that we've made.If there exists an intelligent entity that does not have a physical body or brain like we have, who is perhaps unbound by linear time or can seemingly bypass what we consider the laws of physics, then we are not faced with something that somehow "overrides" nature. Rather, we have then discovered something that reveals that our comprehension of nature is flawed, and that the real rules that govern the universe simultaneously allow for all of the physical observations we've made thus far, but also for the phenomenon exhibited by this mysterious entity.The "supernatural" is not any sort of explanation - it's an open question, waiting for us to investigate and quantify and qualify and understand. Mysteries are not something to be worshiped - their opportunities to increase our knowledge, if we can only but approach such phenomenon in an analytical, logical, rational way.In every case of which I'm aware (which is of course a limited subset), what has been identified by some people as "supernatural" has been an inaccurate conclusion based on limited information, or false pattern recognition, or a fully normal and natural phenomenon that was unfamiliar to the observer, or an exaggerated or even made-up story, etc.Many people believe that John Edwards is a real psychic, able to touch the "supernatural" and gain information from "the other side" that should be impossible for him to possess. In reality, he's a con artist using the technique known as cold reading, where he makes extremely general suggestions and allows the actual audience to fill in the specific details, making it seem to the hopeful believer that he has a mysterious font of impossible knowledge.Many people, even after having been exposed on national television, still believe in Peter Popoff's "amazing power" to impossibly know people's ailments and "heal" them. In reality, he;s a con artist, having the "mysterious information" filled out by the duped audience members themselves on "prayer cards" and then fed to him through a radio receiver in his ear; he has never once ever actually healed anyone of any real disease, instead conning hopeful believers into adrenaline-fueled temporary "recoveries" that impress crowds but not actual doctors.Lightning, earthquakes, hurricanes, and all other manner of natural weather phenomenon were once (and sometimes still are) considered to be the results of "supernatural" forces. In reality, these are well-understood phenomenon that are the consequent result of ordinary natural laws, not relating to the appeasement of some deity who requires sacrifice or demands some brand of sexual morality.Perhaps nothing in history has been more often worshiped as supernatural than the Sun, sometimes a god itself, other times a god's vehicle, but always beyond the ken of a simple man and clear evidence of "greater powers." In reality, the Sun is one of countless trillions upon trillions of stars, massive fusion reactors churning out the building blocks of solar systems and even life throughout their long lives, burning brightly until finally exhausting their nuclear fuel. The Sun does not travel across the sky, but rather the Earth rotates as it orbits our closest star; there is no chariot, no magical nightly journey through an underworld, only the steady, natural rotation of our planet.Where you see "plenty of evidence of the supernatural," I see plenty of evidence that human beings are not omniscient, and that we still have mysteries to solve rather than worship, knowledge to gain rather than ignorance to exalt.

Many of the last 20-30 posts: too much philosophy, too little common sense.And perhaps that's why philosophy is a discipline that is now in the wilderness crying, "But we were here first, pay some attention to us too! (Sniff.)"And why should we? We see how much use it is, as this theme now spans several long threads and is no closer to a resolution than when the debate started.Naval gazing is unlikely to produce much more than lint.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

But even when we have evidence of the desk, does that let us conclude absence of the pen?Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Hi crashfrog, Indeed, which means you need to know that possibility before assuming that the 50:50 split is correct. If you don't know the possibilities you cannot assume you can calculate the probabilities accurately. You said the probability was independent of time, thus both had to be true and false at the same time, unless you include time in the outcome space. Which includes time factored into the outcome space. The conclusion I have is that it is not necessary that time be included but it is also not necessary that time be excluded: it all comes down to how you define the parameters for the outcome space possibilities before you make your calculations of probability within that space. Curiously, you had to intentionally manipulate your outcome space to achieve this result, which, amusingly, proves my point that you need to know the possibilities before you can calculate the possibilities. Even if they are of equal area, there could be a higher probability that the pen will reside at the lower elevation of the floor than stay on the desk even though it was placed there.And ... in other words, that means you cannot assume that the failure to see the pen on the desk top is due to the pen not existing, because there is a higher probability that it won't be observed when it does exist.Now we can continue this ad nauseum, or we can agree that we need to know the possibilities to know how to define the outcome space for the calculations, or the results are constrained to only apply within the defined outcome space, and it is limited by your knowledge of the possibilities. Your coin example makes this abundantly clear, thank you. Therefore you can not make an accurate calculation if there are possibilities that are not included, because they may, like you weighted coin, completely bollix your assumed probability space to the point that your calculation is completely at odds with reality.At best you can make a tentative conclusion based on your opinion of the possibilities of the outcome space. You either rely on assumption or you know all the possibilities.Opinion and assumption do not necessarily lead to valid calculations and conclusions, and when they do it is more often by luck than by accuracy. So no, you cannot conclude that one result is "highly likely" compared to another based on assumptions and opinions without objective empirical evidence that shows that the possibility space actually is different for one compared to the other.This is what you did when you rewrote the pen on the desk example: When you know the different areas, the objective empirical evidence that the possibility space for pen-on-desk is different from the possibility space for pen-not-on-desk, then you can calculate the probabilities ... assuming no other variables come into the mix. The area of the room could be 1000 times the area of the desk, and you could assume a random distribution of the pen around the desk you would not get better than 50% probability of the pen being on the desk. Straggler will be amused (or should be by this time) to see another atheist citing the absence of evidence as evidence of absence. I'll put you down for a (7) because "Absence of evidence is always evidence of absence" ...

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Message 17: As a result of the logical analysis (see Message 508 of the Faith vs Skepticism - Why faith? thread) we have:

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1. Absolute Theist: knows god/s exist. (logically invalid position)
2. Strong Theist: the existence of god/s is more likely than not. (logically invalid position)
3. Weak Theist: the existence of god/s is possible, maybe likely, but not sure. (logically valid position)
4. Agnostic: god/s may exist or they may not, there is insufficient evidence to know one way or the other. (logically valid position)
5. Weak Atheist: the non-existence of gods is possible, maybe likely, but not sure. (logically valid position)
6. Strong Atheist: the non-existence of god/s is more likely than not. (logically invalid position)
7. Absolute Atheist: knows that god/s do not exist. (logically invalid position)

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LOL.Statistics notes: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence | The BMJ

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Statistics notes: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

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That's a science article btw ...or, cutting to the chase ...Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia,
Evidence of absence - Wikipedia

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Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or appeal to ignorance, is an informal logical fallacy. It asserts that a proposition is necessarily true because it has not been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is: there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to "prove" the proposition to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four; with (3) being unknown between true or false; and (4) being unknowable (among the first three). And finally, any action taken, based upon such a pseudo "proof" is fallaciously valid, that is, it is being asserted to be valid based upon a fallacy.[1] In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used to shift the burden of proof.

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http://theautonomist.com/.../permanent/fallacies.php#adignor

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Examples:

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"It has never been proved, nor can it be, that clairvoyance does not exist, therefore, it must exist." "It has never been proved, nor can it be, that clairvoyance exists, therefore, it cannot exist."

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It amuses me that this fallacy is used both pro and con. And so it goes and so it goes.Certainly your assertion that "Absence of evidence is always evidence of absence" has been falsified.On it's own it is a logical fallacy, an argument from ignorance.Evidence that absence was observed everywhere you have looked is evidence of absence everywhere you looked. All you need to do is assume you have looked everywhere ...Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

---

Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)