Timeline for Is there such a thing as weak evidence?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 26, 2023 at 11:01 | comment | added | armand | @NotThatGuy sure. But how is all this relevant to my argument ? Hence the pedantry... | |
| Jun 26, 2023 at 10:57 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @armand It's not merely "legal pedantry". Criminal cases is a good analogy for the burden of proof for beliefs. You stick to "not guilty" until guilt is proven, and the only job of the defense is... well, to defend, to argue against whatever evidence is presented. If the prosecution presents no evidence, there is nothing to defend against. If someone wants to claim the existence of something (like, say, a teapot floating in space), it is held to non-exist until existence is proven. | |
| Jun 26, 2023 at 9:47 | comment | added | armand | @NotThatGuy not willing to go into the details of "beyond a reasonable doubt" etc, because it has no bearing over the argument that all evidence is bundled with assumptions. Consider civil courts if you insist on legal pedantry. | |
| Jun 26, 2023 at 9:44 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | "a verdict of guilty or non-guilty will be issued. That clearly means the evidence for one side was weaker than that of the other side" - a not-guilty verdict doesn't mean the evidence for guilt was weaker than for non-guilt or innocence. It actually means there wasn't sufficient evidence to move you away from the default position of innocence by meeting the burden of proof for guilt. If you have 1 eye witness and nothing else, the evidence for guilt may be stronger, but it's almost certainly not enough to meet the burden of proof | |
| Jun 25, 2023 at 22:56 | comment | added | armand | @thinkingman I think you don't understand the concept of "falsifiable". I gave precise example's. If I say "people can't see well at night" it's perfectly testable. "Therefore the witness might have been mistaken" is conjecture, but baring the use of a time machine that's the best we can get. You might call this "moot" but then you'd have to call the job of historians, police investigators, paleontologists, civil engineers when analysing catastrophic failures, etc... to be "moot" as well. | |
| Jun 25, 2023 at 19:38 | comment | added | user62907 | Saying that evidence A is weaker than evidence B but that both are evidence for claim X is an unfalsifiable statement. If you think it isn’t, how would you go about proving this? Examples make this concept seem clearly ridiculous. Suppose I invent a religion today. One might say Chrisitanity has better evidence than my religion since it is atleast widespread. Now, how would one prove this? Sure, if one knew beforehand that either my religion or Christianity is true, it may make sense to bet on Christianity. But we don’t know this. So the concept of weaker/better evidence seems moot | |
| Jun 25, 2023 at 3:16 | history | answered | armand | CC BY-SA 4.0 |