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

kbertsche notes: I just made a post, #461 in the Faith & Skepticism thread (see Message 461), that gets to this - from probability theory and the concept of The Mean Time Between Failure using probability equations, the parameter space which was searched can be used as Positive Evidence. If we liken all parameter space to a huge deck of cards and the amount searched as how far down the deck we have looked, then the answer of whether there is, as rumoured by some, an Ace of Spades buried in the deck somewhere can be speculated on based on our rough ideas of how big the deck of cards is. In that post I came up with the term Coelacanthic Ace for this.There may or may not be a Coelacanthic Ace in the deck. We have turned over 83 gazillion cards so far. Have we turned over enough to make the probability of an Ace so small that we can claim it as Empirical Objective Evidence of 6.0 Dawkins?

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- xongsmith

After watching RAZD & Straggler piling up argument after argument, Jon astutely observes: It's about time someone finally pointed this out.Thanks, Jon.It's like something from Goedel, Escher & Bach:Achilles: Everytime I add up the 2nd row, I get X.
Tortoise: What! Everytime I add up the 3rd column I get Y!
Achilles: Now look, my friend - here is how I do it...adding across the elements of the 2nd....you see? It's always X!!
Tortoise: But see, it's you who must be confused!! When I sum up the 3rd column, the only logical answer is Y!!!

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- xongsmith, 5.7d