If it can be, how can the "Absence of Evidence" be "Evidence of Absence?".

It seems to me that a lot of the disagreement in this thread is due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of evidence and proof.Absence of evidence is evidence of absence, but it isn't proof of absence. For example, to prove that there are no black swans, we'd need to look at every possible location on the planet that is capable of supporting life in the parameters needed for a swan. If I begin this search in my living room, I have some evidence of the lack of existence of black swans. It's not very compelling, but it is evidence.This shouldn't be a difficult concept to understand. Scientists come to tentative conclusions based on less than complete evidence all the time. The fact that the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion doesn't mean it's not evidence. It just means it's not conclusive evidence. Thus, the absence of evidence isn't proof of absence, but it is evidence of absence.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Can you honestly say that you are agnostic about the existence of Zeus, or Loki, or Russel's teapot simply because you don't have positive evidence of the non-existence of these things?

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

It seems that your position is that the only way one can have an absence of evidence would be if one conducted no inquiry whatsoever, and if one looks for evidence and finds none, then that lack of supporting evidence is in and of itself evidence.While I don't really disagree with your position, I question its relevance to this discussion. In this discussion, we are addressing the question of the existence vel non of deities. I daresay that none of us here would claim the position of having spent our lives on this planet without giving the least bit of consideration to the question or having conducted no examination of the evidence offered in support of such existence. Thus, we are in the position of one who has looked for evidence and found none, and not in the position of one who hasn't even looked.So, while you may have a valid point in the abstract, it has nothing to do with this topic.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

By that logic, all of science is hasty generalization. Any theory you'd care to mention can potentially be disproven by the discovery of the right piece of evidence. That evidence can hypothetically exist anywhere or any time in the universe. We obviously haven't, and cannot, investigate all possible avenues of anything non-trivial.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Yes, all of science would. But, that doesn't prevent science from coming to some conclusions with a high degree of confidence based on a lack of empirical evidence.Science has concluded that the Yeti doesn't exist.Science has concluded that Nessie doesn't exist.Science has concluded that luminiferous aether doesn't exist. No. Are you going to try to claim victory based on a false dichotomy?You are quite correct that our level of confidence varies depending on the sufficiency of our investigation. That is one point that I made in my first post in this thread. However, there certainly can be a point at which our level of investigation is sufficient to allow us to come to conclusions with a high degree of certainty. How much is enough will vary wildly depending on the exact nature of the question, and perhaps there are some questions that we cannot come to any confident conclusions no matter how detailed the investigation. But clearly science can and has come to conclusions based on negative evidence.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

No, only when all the possibilities have been eliminated are you left with a conclusion of absence. However, every individual piece of information supporting the conclusion of absence is evidence of absence.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

If you take one picture of your family gathering and your son isn't in the photo, that is some evidence of his absence, but far from proof. If there are 100 photographers, each taking pictures of the the gathering from 100 different angles, at multiple different times throughout the gathering, and your son is in none of them, the inference that he isn't there becomes more compelling. No single one of the photographs have much evidentiary force, but the collection of all 10,000 have considerable force. This, while nobody would call any of them proof individually, they are each a small piece of evidence.Let me ask you this question, do you recognize that there is a difference between evidence and conclusive proof?

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Not responsive to the question I asked. Let me rephrase:Do you recognize that there is a difference between one piece of evidence and a sufficient quantum of evidence to support a conclusion? You keep ignoring the distinction between evidence and conclusion. I agree with you that it is only the completeness of the coverage that makes the conclusion possible. But that completeness only exists because each individual picture has evidentiary value. You are quite correct that it's possible to explain away the absence in all photos as being consistent with his presence. And while you can tinker with the hypothetical to make his absence from all the pictures explicable, you are avoiding the central point that I am making. No individual picture has sufficient evidentiary force to establish his absence, but the sum total of the individual pieces of evidence is sufficient. It's impossible for the sum of all the pictures to establish anything unless the individual pictures each provide a small bit of evidence.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

How about Occam's Razor?

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat