Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence

Yes. For instance, all logicians and scientists. Where have you been? Indeed. Therefore it's fallacious to try and base reasoning off the position that there's an absence of life as we don't know it, as you are trying to do when you suggest the universe is fine-tuned for life.

There's no evidence for an absence of all possible, concievable gods, no. There could very well be a god. There's just more than enough evidence that the god that you believe in doesn't exist.You can use an absence of evidence as evidence of absence when you're pretty damn sure you'd know where the evidence would be, if it existed at all. In the case of life as we don't know it, since we don't know about it (by definition), we don't know where the evidence for it would be. Therefore claiming that there's an absence of evidence for it is premature, since he haven't looked in enough places yet.If you think you dropped your contact lens in the alleyway behind the bar, and you look out in front of the alley where the light is better and you can't find it, is that evidence that your contact lens is gone forever? Hardly. You haven't even looked where we would expect the evidence of your contact lens to be yet, so how can you claim there's no evidence? Of course there's not. We haven't even looked where we would expect the evidence to be, yet. (In our defense, we haven't been able to yet.)[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 11-06-2003]

Now who's misrepresenting arguments? Had you read closer you would know that in fact, what we were saying is "since you cannot prove that 'life as we don't know it' doesn't exist, you can't make a claim that it doesn't exist, which is implicit in a claim of 'fine-tuning'."This is a substantial point that you have yet to rebut.

...or that the universe is fine-tuned. I rest my case.

Well, so which then is the more reasonable next step: concluding that your keys aren't in the kitchen because you have one piece of evidence that suggests they aren't; or withholding conclusions until you have more evidence?I'm hoping you chose the latter. That's why we called you on it on the other thread; you were trying to draw conclusions (i.e. an argument of fine-tuning, or that aliens don't exist) while simultaneously admitting you didn't have enough evidence to reach conclusions. I find it rather puzzling, really, that you're so willing to reach conclusions that you admit have no proof.

To the contrary - I assumed that you were familiar enough with science to know that by "proof" I meant what scientists mean: A sufficient weight of evidence. But, perhaps I was mistaken. ...because it was predicted by a model that, up till then, had been largely accurate in it's predictions.So now, explain to me again - and this time I'll omit that troublesome word "proof" so that you won't try to prevaricate again - why you think it's appropriate to assume almost total confirmation (leading you to make fine-tuning arguments, among others) given one or two elements of confirming evidence.Basically, I guess my argument is that you're just plain too credulous. Isn't the word "inconclusive" in your vocabulary?

What I find most interesting is that you've raised an example about scientists accepting a conclusion without evidence in a discussion that you started about how absence of evidence is sufficient to reject a conclusion.Which is it, DNA? Are we to follow the model of scientists, who according to you, believe things without evidence, or your own example, who believes that an absence of evidence is sufficient to reject any proposition?I'm going to suggest a third possibility: you just believe what you want to believe - what's most inline with your preconceptions. You'll accept an absence of evidence as evidence when it suits you, and you'll reject conclusions based on no evidence when they don't.What I guess we'll never get you to see is that, on the question of the existence of things, a lack of evidence for the positive proposition (that the thing exists) is not evidence for the negative proposition. (There's qualifications to this that I'm willing to make, but they're not relevant here.) Nonevidence can't be evidence. A thing can't be itself and not-itself. But you're trying to add up zeros until you get one.Well, that's fine. I suspect you'll have a lot of fun arguing with Rrhain about it, and I look forward to anytime you two face off. But there's a reason that I don't like to talk to him, and it's the same reason that I don't like talking to you. (No, it's not because you're universally correct, though that's a nice try.)

The part I believe to be false about this is where you present this as a universal conclusion of scientists.The truth is, scientists believed that a decelerating expansion was predicted by their theories. That's a big difference between believing that it's really happening. Though I suspect that's a distinction that's lost on you. No, it is fallacious, because you can't use it to make conclusions.There's no conclusion you can draw from a lack of evidence. That's why we have the word "inconclusive", which you seem to avoid.Now you tell me - what do you think you can prove, or deduct from, inconclusiveness?

No, I'm answering it. That you percieve my answer as a dodge is indicative that you simply don't understand the distinction I'm trying to draw. Perhaps if you concentrated less on acting indignant when you think I'm slighting you and more on the actual substance of my arguments, we might get somewhere. Honestly, for a poster who inserts so much of themselves into the discussion, I've never seen anybody with such a thin skin.The distinction you appear incapable of drawing is the difference between the things we think we know because our models predict them, and the things we know we know because the evidence sugests them. That's what I don't like about your question - it assumes that generalization from evidence and prediction from model are exactly the same, when they plainly are not. The difference of course is in confidence. Again you're mischaracterizing the situation. What they accepted was a prediction based on a model, not a conclusion based on evidence, or no evidence.Is there even a point in talking to you, by the way? Since you apparently can't tell the difference between logic and word games? (Why is it that the only people who ever accuse me of playing games are the people who are most guilty of doing it themselves?)

The problem isn't what is proof and what is not. The problem is that DNA is using this thread to support his actions in another thread, where he equivocated one piece of evidence with enough evidence to draw a conclusion, namely one of fine-tuning. It's this action that he simply won't own up to, or even respond to. Hardly good-faith actions, in my view, but there you are.

So, then, you agree that there's no way to argue that the universe is fine-tuned for life?

But in fact (2) is exactly what (1) means. When something is inconclusive, it means that one is unable to reach a conclusion about it. How could you argue, therefore, if you cannot conclude? This is simply foolish. An inconclusive proposition cannot be argued because it's impossible to determine which side of the proposition is correct. Just because it's possible to draw a conclusion doesn't mean it's not possible to argue about it.

Well, yeah, we're doing it in the other thread.But the one thing you can't do with an inconclusive position is say "I'm right, prove me wrong." That's exactly what DNA continues to do. I dunno. I'm at a position where I say "why bother to assume that the universe is fine-tuned for life?" DNA appears to be at a position where he says "The universe is fine-tuned for life; prove me wrong."His position sounds like he's a lot more certain about it than mine. It's that tone that I object to, especially in the face of his repeated agreements that there's no evidence for or against fine-tuning.

It's an X that's not an X? Now who's playing word games?Kudos for, once again, avoiding the core issue. Is there any point in talking to you?Besides, as you well know, all conclusions of science are tentative, so your distinction is either erroneous or meaningless.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 11-15-2003]

What, that you can adopt a position of ignorance, and use it to draw conclusions?The problem with this whole business is that wholesale acceptance of the absence of evidence as evidence is tantamount to turning ignorance into evidence. And there's plenty of ignorance - the ultimate renewable resource - so basically you can use it to prove any statement you like. Observe: DNA has used it to suggest that the universe is fine-tuned. I'll use it to prove that it's not.If the universe is "fine-tuned", that means that the fundamental constants of the universe must be "set" to specificvalues within an arbitrary range so as to allow for the presence of life. That would mean that universes set to different values would be devoid of life. If the range of values is large and our own universe is fine-tuned, then we should see lifeless universes all over the place.Instead what we see is that all observable universes contain life. There is no universe set to values that do not allow for life. Therefore we can conclude (tentatively) that the fundamental constants cannot be set in a way that does not allow for life - they can only take on values that allow for life. Therefore an argument of fine-tuning is flawed because the evidence clearly shows that it's physically impossible for a universe not to contain life, as 100% of universes contain life.See, it's just stupid. Once you accept ignorance as evidence you can prove any stupid thing you like, including contradictory positions. Clearly, as a method, it is flawed.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 11-15-2003]