Zephan: What is Evidence?

Hi crash:Very well written post. I think you've touched on the crucial difference between "scientific evidence" (or rather, what scientists mean when they use the term), and "legal evidence" that Zephan/Tensai/whatever is insisting on.Scientists gather data or observations in order to support or disconfirm hypotheses. They call this data "evidence". Science uses this "evidence" as part of their attempts to approach a description of what really exists.Lawyers, on the other hand, attempt to twist, distort, confuse, obfuscate or otherwise cloud data and observations in order to prove their point or disprove their opponent's point. These distortions are called "evidence". Lawyers are engaged in a contest to defeat their opposite number, not an attempt to gain understanding of what is real.Scientists and lawyers are using the same words to describe completely different concepts. Zephan's demand that science adopt some form of legalistic "rules of evidence" is simply absurd. Even when lawyers use the results of scientific inquiry in their cases, those results are simply one more weapon in the legal arsenal to defeat their opponents - which, of course, is why "expert testimony" can be cross-examined, refuted, and/or inadmissable.