Re: PERMANENT THREAD: Ebay& other internet FINDS of interest- read all the OP please
Wrong. I can think of countless examples where this doesn't hold up. Here are a couple.
"That man killed my wife and left her corpse in his trunk!"
"Objection, your honor; the investigators found nothing in his trunk."
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!"
"That man shot me!"
"But the medical examiners found no bullet wound or other evidence of trauma"
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!"
Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence if/when we expect to find evidence.
yes exactly,---per the traditional aphorism, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", positive evidence of this kind is distinct from a lack of evidence or ignorance of that which should have been found already, had it existed.
The absence of evidence is evidence of absence only in case in which, were the postulated entity to exist, we should expect to have more evidence of its existence than we do.
Sagan's point was:
"Appeal to ignorance—the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist—and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.). This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
From: Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1st ed.). New York: Ballantine. p. 213. ISBN 0-345-40946-9. OCLC 32855551.
The argument from ignorance for "absence of evidence" isn't necessarily fallacious, for example, that a potentially life saving new drug poses no long term health risk unless proved otherwise.
On the other hand, were such an argument to rely imprudently on the lack of research to promote its conclusion, it would be considered an informal fallacy whereas the former can be a persuasive way to shift the burden of proof in an argument or debate.
Carl Sagan often criticized such "impatience with ambiguity" with English asr=tronomer and cosmologist Martin Rees' maxim, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" as found on page 3 of NASA's "Project Cyclops, A Design Study of a System for Detecting Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life."
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19730010095.pdf
However---"In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence."
~ Copi, Introduction to Logic (1953), p. 95
In the the field of medine/medical the distinction can become a life and death matter, not just pretty words.
"The non-equivalence of statistical significance and clinical importance has long been recognised, but this error of interpretation remains common. Although a significant result in a large study may sometimes not be clinically important, a far greater problem arises from misinterpretation of non-significant findings. By convention a P value greater than 5% (P>0.05) is called “not significant.” Randomised controlled clinical trials that do not show a significant difference between the treatments being compared are often called “negative.” This term wrongly implies that the study has shown that there is no difference, whereas usually all that has been shown is an absence of evidence of a difference. These are quite different statements."
From: Statistics notes: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Martin 1995
See:
Statistics notes: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence | The BMJ
Bottom line--- No matter what our scientific theories, no matter what our human religions, reality remains a mystery. It's as simple as that.
An actual Saganism:
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” ~ Carl Sagan
Alright Copi, calm down. It's just a common expression that has for some reason become associated with Carl Sagan. In this specific example it holds well, for if we hadn't investigated alternative medicine scientifically already, then the possibility of validity would still exist (to a degree).
Yes however whatever any particular alternative medicine or medical practice as investigated reveals or not, it is still a pretty wide open field --the search for alternatives and many forms have merit and positive results as well.
What western medical science "knows" is very little compared to what it does not know and has a very limited ability to intervene effectively in human health and wellness.
Acupuncture. a very ancient form of healing which pre-dates recorded history, was long considered pseudoscience in the West yet it has a history of practice and results in China that goes back at least to 8000 years ago and probably long before that.
‘Acupuncture’ is clearly is not pseudoscience; however, the way in which it is used or portrayed by some may on occasion meet that definition. Acupuncture is a technique that predates the development of the scientific method. The contemporary use of acupuncture within modern healthcare is another matter entirely, and the fact that it can be associated with pre-scientific medicine does not make it a pseudoscience.
The primitive society of China is divided into two time periods- The Old Stone Age(10,000 years ago and beyond) and the New Stone Age (10,000-4000 years ago).During the Old Stone Age knives were made of stone and were used for certain medical procedures. During the New Stone Age, stones were refined into fine needles and served as instruments of healing. They were named bian stone - which means use of a sharp edged stone to treat disease. Many bian stone needles used in accupuncture practice were excavated from ruins in China dating back to the New Stone Age.
PS pseudoscience is just a new fangled modern derogatory term people use/employ for argument sake, when they have no answers for the most part, as if it's use as a prognostication of some sort, makes a difference.
"the oldest known use of the word “pseudoscience” dates from 1796 when the historian James Pettit Andrew referred to alchemy as a “fantastical pseudo-science” (Oxford English Dictionary).
Since the derogatory connotation is an essential characteristic of the word “pseudoscience”, an attempt to extricate a value-free definition of the term would not be meaningful. An essentially value-laden term has to be defined in value-laden terms.
This problem is not specific to pseudoscience but follows directly from a parallel but somewhat less conspicuous problem with the concept of science. The common usage of the term “science” can be described as partly descriptive, partly normative. When an activity is recognized as science this usually involves an acknowledgement that it has a positive role in our strivings for knowledge. On the other hand, the concept of science has been formed through a historical process, and many contingencies influence what we call and do not call science."
See:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/
