XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk   
      
   On 2014-06-05, Stan Brown  wrote:   
   > On Thu, 5 Jun 2014 04:47:10 +0000 (UTC), Lewis wrote:   
   >> The absence of evidence FOR is evidence AGAINST.   
   >   
   > I'm sorry, Lewis, but that's just dead wrong, and if you truly   
   > believe that then there's no talking to you.   
      
   It's not "dead wrong". It depends rather a lot on what you mean by   
   evidence, and what you mean by the result of the process in which you   
   use evidence.   
   Most (rational) people take as an axiom "nothing is true unless it's   
   evidenced". Given that axiom, the provable absence of evidence for   
   would be conclusive evidence against. In most cases, we can't prove   
   the absence of evidence for, but we can say "we have searched as hard   
   as we can, and found none". That's good (but not conclusive) evidence   
   against.   
      
   For example, (almost) nobody believes that the set theory ZFC contains   
   an inconsistency. That's because we've never found one (and because it   
   would be so awful if it did).   
      
   On a less logical level, the complete absence of black swans was very   
   good evidence for the non-existence of black swans. It was not *proof*,   
   because that requires checking all swans, not just those you can see,   
   but it was good evidence, until we found a new class of swans to look at.   
      
   The entire criminal legal system of English-based jurisdictions is   
   based on the principle that absence of evidence for is evidence   
   against. A jury is required to weigh the evidence for conviction. If   
   the prosecution presents no evidence, it must accept that as evidence   
   of innocence and acquit.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)