Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence

Hey Crash,I've been following the discussion pretty closely. DNAunion has a point (never thought I'd agree with anything he writes - we have a long history from IIDB). Absence of evidence CAN be taken as evidence of absence. At some point in the search for evidence, after repeated failures, it becomes problematic that any further search will be fruitful. Although the point is arbitrary, at that moment we can tentatively state that the lack of supporting data or observation indicates that the phenomenon or whatever probably doesn't exist - which is the basis for my opinion that supernatural deities don't exist. OTOH, absence of evidence CAN NEVER be taken authoritatively as evidence for absence. That might seem like a semantic difference, but it is a crucial one. Interestingly, it appears from the OP and from other threads that DNAunion IS assuming the "for" conjunction, although never explicitly stating this. He is very careful to verbalize the difference, but in practice seems to ignore it. Which is historically very typical of his debate style.