13-14 Sep 2010
I woke up at 1:00 PM, which ended up being completely unnecessary, and took 1 piracetam, and again at 8:00 PM and 3:00 AM. I was still tired when I got up. I'm still tired now. We were supposed to go over to see everyone in the new family today - grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, whoever else was there. It's funny, I actually asked my family last night if they have any dogs over there, or cats, or if they smoke or have any other allergen-emitters, and I was told they didn't. So we went over there, and it turns out they have a huge golden retriever that they've been taking care of for someone. I got to "meet" everyone, and then leave immediately. As in, after maybe five minutes, because my entire respiratory system was going haywire.
I had been warned beforehand that all the people I would meet were most likely devout, churchgoing Limbaugh fans and so the best strategy would be to not really say anything about anything while I was there, but that too ended up being unnecessary. It was still kind of annoying to have to leave as soon as I got there (I would say embarrassing, but I'm not really sure I know what that's supposed to feel like), since it seems a bit rude to show up somewhere, say hi to everyone and then mysteriously disappear and go home. I can only imagine what they all think of the odd person who they saw for two minutes, know nothing about, and then left and didn't come back. Hell of a first impression, Zinnia!
On the bright side, I never have to go over there or really see any of them again if I don't want to, and hopefully they'll just forget about me. I took 5 benadryl once I got out of there, just to crush the allergic reaction as quickly as possible, which made me tired enough to sleep for another two hours. I was still so tired when I woke up, I could hardly do anything but wander around in a confused daze. I was barely even awake. File this one under things piracetam also doesn't help with. I'm feeling a little better now; I've been working on editing a video, and the repetition of it gives me something to focus on and helps me to collect myself.
There's something I'd like to consult the rest of you on before I make a video about it. I think it would be useful to help refine and clarify the relevant ideas, and possibly get some different perspectives. For the past few days, I've been arguing with something like five people about the same issue: whether "absence of evidence" constitutes evidence of absence in the context of the existence of gods. I contend that it does. People really like that principle, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", but it's a little more complicated than that, and it's not always true. If the evidence at hand doesn't show the existence of gods, then it does reflect their nonexistence. But some people seem to treat that as something that can be disregarded - as if the state of the evidence only matters if it confirms the existence of gods, and if the evidence doesn't support the existence of gods, then it means nothing whatsoever.
I find that to be pretty inconsistent. If the presence of evidence for the existence of gods would be accepted as showing that gods exist, why should the absence of that evidence carry no weight, and not factor into our beliefs regarding whether gods exist? To be clear, I am supporting the explicit belief that there are no gods, and not only the lack of belief that there are gods, although I consider that to be almost entirely a false distinction as they're essentially the same thing for all practical purposes. I view the belief that there are no gods to be supported by the evidence - the evidence being the lack of any support for the existence of gods.
In this situation, the "absence of evidence" isn't actually an absence of evidence at all. It's just the evidence. There is still evidence, it just happens to not support the existence of gods. And it can't be discounted or erroneously labeled an "absence of evidence" just because it doesn't support gods. It does, however, support the nonexistence of gods. If evidence for gods should push our beliefs towards recognizing their existence, then the failure of any such evidence to manifest should likewise push our beliefs toward their nonexistence.
Some people have told me that there could be evidence of the existence of gods, and we just haven't found it yet, so we shouldn't conclude they don't exist. This contains at least two mistakes. First, this isn't something conclusive or final. It is not an absolute proof that gods definitely don't exist and nothing could change that position. It is not impervious to new evidence that would show that gods exist; it would welcome that evidence and change based on that evidence. It only means saying that the lack of evidence for gods should count as evidence toward the nonexistence of gods. And as long as the evidence does not reflect the existence of gods, but rather their nonexistence, then the belief that there are no gods is supported by evidence, and the belief that there are gods is not. The other mistake is trying to argue from future, hypothetical evidence that isn't even known to exist. Saying there "could be" evidence we haven't found doesn't mean there actually is any such evidence for us to find. One could just as easily claim that there could be actual "evidence of absence" of gods, and we just haven't found it yet. This would be equally invalid. Either way, we don't base our beliefs on imaginary evidence. We base them on the current evidence.
Another aspect of this problem is establishing what, if anything, would qualify as "evidence of absence" of gods if not the simple absence of evidence. I haven't been able to get any kind of useful answer out of anyone I've discussed this with. There are plenty of ways in which the existence of gods could be proven, but there appear to be few avenues, other than the absence of evidence, for explicitly showing they don't exist.
To sum up: I maintain that we can confidently hold a belief that there are no gods, supported by the "absence of evidence", which is itself evidence. As with all beliefs, this is open to updating based on new evidence, but at present, the evidence does support the nonexistence of gods. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.
When people talk about "absence of evidence" not being "evidence of absence", I tend to ask them to name me something without evidence that exists.
It's subjective. If someone really wants to believe in a god or gods, they will justify any given occurrence in life as the work of said higher power(s). Like long neck giraffes and/or fucking magnets, any given thing can count towards the "evidence" to support the theist's claim to a deity's existence.
One could easily just say that, by that logic, that anything exists and you have the evidence to prove it. "ManBearPig exists because I found claw marks on a house's door," would be an example, but that doesn't tend to register with someone who truly wants to tout evidence of their god(s).
To put it bluntly, you just can't win with some people. Many will twist a phrase like "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence" to be convenient to their cause, particularly when it comes to "proving" that a god exists. Maybe God is just SO stealthy that we just can't find that elusive rapscallion.
- Morte.
There's Plenty of evidence that a god exists,but Only As a Belief,which is merely a psychological,& not a physical object....isnt that the whole Idea of Every religion?...religion is a Business,& they use the same psychological tools as Wall St to sell it..do u really think that the Pope believes in God? No,he believes in the Catholic church,as a Business,& He must sell that Belief in order to keep the Business going...what rational business person would put their Faith in something like a God,? Thats not how u market/sell a product,Not by what You believe,but by what u can make ur Customers believe,and theres no limit on what u can do psychologically to accomplish that....Most people cant distinguish between psycho-logic & physical-logic,because the psycho-logic that religion uses intentionally narrows ones conscious Awareness of objective Realities, And Politicians use the same Psychology as Religion & Wall St,they All use Faith &Fear to get u 2 Believe in Their Product,& all Medias use it&, they are the puppets of the Corporations that own them ,in fact,most Authorities,Institutions ,Any 0rganization or Individuals,looking for a competitive Edge, use IT to some degree!!!
Your argumentation here seems to be basically correct. If I was to assume that the absence of evidence did not constitute evidence of absence, I would basically just be saying that evidence is not necessary for the existence of truth or the accurate depiction of reality. However, if this maxim is to be examined in circumstance that many people are not so biased on it would quickly be found to not be able to hold up to many of the demands of daily living. After all, if something is true for a subject as far-reaching as God or metaphysics it should also be true for more mundane matters.
For example, let's I believe that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, or that a Celestial teapot is in orbit between Mars and Jupiter and that you (or any other reasonable/sane individual) object to these seemingly ridiculous claims, but I respond that just because you can't sense the FSM or the Celestial teapot, and thereby find evidence for their existence, doesn't mean that don't exist.
Of course, I would be correct in this instance - you simply can't prove inconclusively that impossible claims like these are or are not true. Does this mean that God really does exist? Of course not, but it does mean that there is a possibility that he/she might. Granted, a very small, highly unlikely possibility; just as likely as Elves, Dwarves, the Easter Bunny or the FSM.
As for the people you are arguing with, it comes down to a matter of intellectual integrity: this question isn't productive, it just tries to destroy all truth claims so that all things are equally likely or unlikely as their claims for the existence of God are. This is very dishonest, and founded on their psychological need for some sort of "higher calling," or "objective meaning" rather than a genuine interest for truth.
If philosophical inquiry could be likened to a great game, than scientific fact would be "the rules," and all participants would be expected to follow these rules; no matter what strategies or formations they use they will never break these rules. You are playing "philosophical inquiry" with those people you are talking to, but they just won't follow the rules, or in the case of their "absence of evidence does not constitute the evidence of absence" principle are saying that they do not need to follow these rules in order to play correctly. So, if I may pose a question: in what way are you even playing the same game? Or, more appropriately, how do you expect to find truth with those who do not share the same goals as you?
Chuck, you state "There's Plenty of evidence that a god exists,but Only As a Belief". This is incorrect. The *belief* in a god exists, the concept of a god exists, but that is nothing at all like the god existing. :)
Semantics@jerry
It always helps me put it in perspective if i change it up. Change the situation. For instance:
A woman is murdered in her small home. A friend comes, finds her body and calls police. The investigator chooses to stand outside the door, and the first person she see's walking by, a fellow by the name of Fred, she arrests and charges with the murder.
The public defender states in court that there's absolutely no evidence to link the client to the crime. Though Fred didn't have an alibi, because he lived alone, there was absolutely no reason that any reasonable person would connect him to the crime.
The investigator states, "The absence of evidence of your client's guilt does not mean that he isn't guilty. We may just not have found the evidence yet. We'll keep looking."
The public defender says, "There is no reason to believe that he is guilty, so he should be released."
The investigator says, "No, just because we haven't found evidence is no reason to conclude that he didn't do it."
No reasonable person would think that that the investigator's argument was valid. It's the same logic, however, being used by the 'absence of evidence' people.
I think Femigaytheist is correct that the investigator's argument wouldn't fly in court, but that is _only_ because our system puts the burden of proof on the accuser to prove that a person is guilty. Otherwise, his argument is in fact legitimate - absence of evidence of innocence does not equal evidence of innocence. The problem for that guy is, we don't required the accused to prove their innocence, so the "evidence" here is given virtually zero weight. Now, shifting back to the existence of gods -- I think it's entirely appropriate to put the burden of proof on people who are making a bold claim about a crucial aspect of the universe. So since the burden is on them, absence of evidence supporting their claim does carry a significant amount of weight.
It should be noted that people aren't found innocent - only not guilty. So it does seem to be the case that the simple absence of evidence of innocence is treated as evidence of absence of innocence - but it's not evidence of presence of guilt, either. Likewise, absence of evidence of guilt is treated as evidence of absence of guilt - the lack of any reason to consider someone guilty is generally a good reason to consider them not guilty. Basically, it seems like this whole situation does lean more towards "is evidence of absence" than "not evidence of absence".
This is a subject noone can ever win.Instead of using logic people use their emotions to justify the existence of a God that cannot be proven to excist.You can lay out all the evidence in front of people about how religion divides people,causes wars,is used to discriminate against people,is just not needed,the world would be better of with no religion at all.Who can keep track of all the diffrent religions and denominations out there?Ask the average person if they can name all the diffrent denominations of christianity,they can't most people are clueless.
People will stick to their beliefs no matter what.When the subject of american cars is brought up,one person would say that "if you live in america you should drive america made cars,it supports our economy,if the U.S.car companies go down it will severely impact the economy",another person says "Oh there's no evidence to back that up,Japanese cars are much better than america made clunkers",both sides would stick to their guns and never give up,it would be a never-ending argument.
I don't know why so many people defend the existence of god when most people have never read the bible from beginning to end,most people don't even bother to attend any church at all.I have worked with many deeply religious people who were the most meanest people I've ever met in my life.The best religion anyone can have is to not have one,just believe in yourself,if you don't noone else will.
I think it could be argued that a Absence of Evidence only proves that you have found no Evidence. In as much finding evidence for something really only proves that you have found Evidence, not that the thing is really there. Until you are in the presence of a thing you can really only argue about the Existence of the Evidence, and make intuitive guesses about the thing itself.
That is an interesting thought. Can there be evidence of things... which actually don't exist? Someone else mentioned this to me, essentially saying that just because there's evidence of something, that doesn't mean it exists. To me, this seemed more like abandoning evidence entirely as a reliable guide to reality.
In my view, the answer to the question you're pondering is that yes, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It's not necessarily conclusive, it doesn't necessarily end the question, its weight as evidence might or might not be very heavy depending on all the surrounding and contrary evidence -- but yes, it's perfectly legitimate evidence. I think that is the only conclusion that makes sense, particularly when you look at it in practical terms. Say a court (where evidence is supposed to be paramount) is taking evidence of whether a man was present on 16th and Oak Street at noon on Tuesday -- if any number of witnesses say they knew the man well but did not see the man at the appointed time and place, the judge would take that as evidence that he was in fact not there. The more people who say that, the more weight the "absence of evidence" of his presence will carry as "evidence" of his actual absence. And it would be even weightier if there is also evidence that the stories of his presence there had been totally fabricated. I am trying hard to think why this would not translate to the existence of gods, and I can't think of a good reason except the notion that god is omnipotent so he can be somewhere without anyone being able to detect him. My 2 cents for what they're worth.
You've mentioned three separate topics: (1) absence of evidence vs evidence of absence, (2) what we mean by "proof," and (3) holding a belief in nonexistence vs lacking a belief in existence. I'm going to address (2) and (3) through their relation to the main point (1), but if you want to cover them all in a video, you might want to overtly make their distinctions.
There is a difference between evidence of absence and absence of evidence. If I were to go into a house and see a cobwebs and layer of dust accumulated on everything, that would be positive evidence of the absence of people living there. (This is harder to describe in the god debate because most people will not produce a coherent description of their god or how the world would look different depending on if it did or did not exist.) But if I were to look around my apartment and not find any dead cockroaches, that would be absence of evidence, but not very strong evidence of absence of cockroaches.
What absence of evidence for X can do: contribute to the evidence of absence. What absence of evidence cannot do: prove that X does not exist. But when I say "prove," I mean absolute proof which is the realm of logic and math, not "scientific proof." If something is "scientifically proven," that means that there is tons of supporting evidence - that it is by far the most likely scenario, but not that it absolutely must be. I bring this up because when people say "you cannot prove God does not exist," they usually mean in "prove" in the absolute sense, as in the sense that I can prove that the square root of 2 is irrational. I cannot prove that germs cause disease with the same absolute certainty, but it has been scientifically proven that they do. Requiring math/logic proof when determining whether or not something exists using empirical evidence does not make sense - you get scientific proof, not absolute math/logic proof, from studying empirical evidence. Nevertheless, it is this absolute proof that theists seem to want from us. (If you then give them a logical proof that shows that their god cannot exist, they usually just shrug it off and say something along the lines of "that isn't my God," or they will assert that your logic is faulty without showing where or how so.)
Absence of evidence for X just means that you haven't found any evidence for X. Simply not having found evidence that something exists does not prove that it does not exist. I have not found any evidence of cockroaches in my apartment, but I wouldn't swear there weren't any. (This is a case in which I lack a belief in cockroaches infesting my apartment, but would not make the positive claim that there are no cockroaches here.) However, depending on what X is, absence of evidence can be very strong evidence of absence. For example: I haven't found any evidence of elephants in my apartment, either. When combined with what I know about elephants - their size, geographic distribution, etc - that lack of evidence contributes to the scientific proof that there are no elephants in my apartment. I go beyond the simple lack of belief in elephants in my apartment to make the positive claim that there are no elephants in my apartment. This isn't absolute proof in the logic/math way, because you can always make up a scenario, like someone hiding a pigmy elephant in the closet when I wasn't looking, etc, that my evidence does not counter. It is not absolutely impossible for there to be elephants in my apartment, but it is unreasonable to believe that there are any, and it is reasonable to believe that there are not any.
This is an important difference, and one that I will have to be sure to make clear: an absence of evidence is not proof of absence, only evidence. Thank you for the help here.
Sorry I can't seem to shut up. As to "what, if anything, would qualify as 'evidence of absence' of gods," I find the points made in Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth to be compelling evidence of the absence of any "designer"-type god. Although I haven't read his new book, reports on it suggest that Hawking is presenting what might be evidence of absence of a god needed to design or kick start the natural processes that formed the universe. Evidence of the existence of a whole universe and species on one of its planets existing without god is pretty good evidence of absence in my book. That's about all I can think of for now.
Part of the problem is that the 'rules of logic' are interpreted in common debate as much by traditions as by actual, logical rules. A postulate states 'You cannot prove a negative.' I can state that I believe there is a cow on the other side of a barn a mile away, and we cannot disprove that claim without walking to the barn and testing the claim. When you get back and tell me that there is no cow, I am so emotionally invested in that cow, because my parents always claimed the cow was there, that I do NOT argue rationally. Instead, I claim the cow is invisible, or was taking a bathroom break and is back there NOW, or you checked the wrong barn. Logic is a poor tool when the opposite end of the argument is held by a person who sees no disparity in cheating.
In non-emotional arguments, people are content to confirm that 'the burden of proof rests with the extraordinary claim', but in religion their view of the 'extraordinary claim' is the lack of a god, because they consider the belief in god to be the default state. This applies whether they believe in god, flying saucers, or Bigfoot. The fact that you disagree WITH THEM places the burden of proof, unfairly, on you. Your error is in expecting most people to respect logical argument and/or anyone who disagrees with them.
That said, good luck. Whether they listen or not, the arguments must be made.
Hi, I love your videos so I though I would (belatedly) delurk.
Is absence of evidence, evidence of absence? There are quite a few scientific situations where someone might propose a model that says X, but currently there is no evidence for X. One wouldn’t want to say that this lack of evidence shows that X is false. Instead I would say that the existence of X is currently unknown. It is perfectly acceptable for me to say that I don’t think X exists. Anyone who disagrees isn’t necessarily being irrational, but there would be an onus on them to find some evidence in support of X. This is the point where most religions people would have problem, I guess. Either they think that one doesn’t need evidence, belief will do, or they think that everything is evidence for their position, as in ‘these beautiful clouds prove the existence of a benign creator’.
I suppose a theist could argue that it would be alright for them to claim that until they have evidence that god doesn't exist then they are entitle to believe that god exists. From a strictly logical point of view I would say that this is fine, BUT! If we return to the scientific analogue we see that the person who says that they won’t believe theory X without evidence, isn’t proposing anything new. However, the person who puts forward the model X will generally want to use this model to give a coherent description of some phenomena. They are thus using the model as a basis for further investigation and as something from which they hope to draw conclusions about a system. This is why the onus to find evidence is on them.
When a theist says that believing in god until evidence proves this wrong is equivalent to not believing in god unless there is evidence, then they are being disingenuous. As they (or at least some) will use this believe to demand laws that ban abortion or gay marriage. If someone believes in something without evidence, that’s fine by me (well not really). But if they want other to believe it, or worse, if they want to constrain other behavior based on this belief, then they really need to find some strong evidence first.
Sorry for the overly long response.
But if their model, theory, etc. does make a certain prediction about something, and that prediction turns out to not be true, wouldn't that "absence of evidence" for the theory count as evidence against the truth of the theory? A model predicting something that isn't true seems to be an acceptable reason to consider that particular model to be false.
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absense for a god that could techincally exist but be outside nature, and thus escape logic- although, in that case, it's impossible to prove this god and pointless to postulate it, besides which, the burden of proof lies upon those who would postulate such a being.
In the case of a sentient god who actively intervenes in the universe, absence of evidence is absolutely evidence of absence. If such a god existed, we would expect to see a certain religion dominating the planet and the adherents of that religion being more happy, successful in war, et cetera for clearly unnatural reasons. Instead, what we see is exactly what we would expect to see were there no gods.
What makes you think you understand how God is? What we think makes an entity a God is subjective. Also, God isn't bound to what humans are bound to, he doesn't operate the same way. I don't think God wants us to have ample evidence,it's important to believe without a supernatural entity having to come up and slit you in the throat for you to think he exists.
Why would belief *without* evidence be of any value? Doesn't that same logic apply to every other religion as well? How can you believe in them all, when their claims are contradictory?
first it have to made clear what kind of proof they demand/actually apply´s in this situation
-"math-like" proof doesn´t apply since we are talking about an entity within the empirical world(not an abstract concept in itself), although showing logical contradictions within that concept is a possible way to disprove certain descriptions of a "god" but its not a necessity
-scientific proof also doesn´t apply because the positive claim does not live up to scientific standard (it is constructed unfalsifiable and doesn´t hold up to Occam´s razor), here is also space to show what kind of nonsense comes out if those criteria aren´t matched (including concepts that would contradict each other)
-so we HAVE TO invoke some form of "weak" proof for example showing the miserable track record of supra-natural claims whenever they had a criteria of falsifiability. This combined with the absence of evidence for the positive claim is something I would consider as "proof"(although rather weak one but the concept itself don´t allow (as shown) any other kind)
I think the fact that the earth is not flat is hardcore evidence against the christian god, among other things (like Australia).
What goes for deist gods, well that's Russell's teapot.
Oh, and I can't wait for a certain someone to whine about uniformitarianism, scientism, empiricism and fuckall.
This really isn't *all* that complicated: AoE doesn't mean there is/is not EoA, it just means that there is no mathematical correlation between the two. It means one cannot call on logic to demonstrate existence/non-existence of a thing based on existence/non-existence of evidence. Where was the "evidence" for electro-magnetism before the 17th century (no ICP jokes, I promise)? And how would you have argued to Pope Gregory I that sickness wasn't caused by legions of invisible demons, but by legions of invisible animals.
Evidence comes in all sizes and flavors, and simply stated, is no "proof" of anything. Some evidence is very persuasive, other evidence is simply misleading. Evidence, as used in this problem, is really nothing more than a filter for speculation and conjecture (e.g. plenty of "evidence" for the Higgs Boson, but no one's found it yet). The "evidence" here is merely a focused set of speculations.
So, for the subject of the existence of deities, evidence or its absence is like the difference between Ontology and Epistemology (e.g. "is there a god?" is ontological, "is this God actually Yahwah?" is epistemological). Since the knuckle-draggers often confuse the two levels of meaning, the Atheist's position should be to grant that AoE proves nothing at the ontological level (the existence of an entity so intricately woven into that very existence and so distant from us that no evidence could possibly be found to illustrate its existence), but that AoE *can* become persuasive EoA for the non-existence of Yahwah, since he is constantly inserting himself into human affairs, and it should be expected he would leave discernible traces of this interference. Since the cousin-f%ckers would have no use for the ontological god, refudiating (sic) the epistemological god will quite suffice.
Various thoughts on this:
Since you aren't looking at absolute proof, perhaps a better way to phrase it is that the lack of evidence makes the probability of any god existing very small. While we can't completely eliminate the possibility, we can judge the probability so low that we go on with life as if it were 0. Just as we don't protect ourselves from being struck by a meteor, even though it *could* happen.
You could point out that a world in which a god exists (depending of course on the definition of that god) would have certain characteristics, and that the lack of those characteristics refutes the existence of that god.
Since you speak of "pushing our beliefs towards", consider the default position. We don't give the existence of fairies a 50% probability, then look for evidence either way. The default is 0%, with positive evidence pushing towards 100%. Otherwise, the lack of possible negative evidence would prevent us from *ever* moving less than 50%.
Of course, the people telling you this about gods (really about their *own* god, even if they don't say it) generally believe one or more of the following don't exist: Santa, fairies, Nessie, Godzilla, UFOs, and other people's gods. They have no more evidence than about their god.