What is your definition of "evidence"?

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Well, definitely true. However, for an investigator should he hold himself to the same standard in making his decisions for investigative focus? Not only that, but why is science important? I mean, evidence is not just a scientific thing and to focus ourselves so narrowly on the field of science seems rigid. Heck, I would argue that evidence is an even broader subject than legal evidence.


Well, right, as you define evidence, they are in doubt, however, the issue is whether or not your definition is correct. I think your definition is incorrect, and I think that evidence more properly is something that carries epistemic weight. I don't even see why there is an especially when it comes to religious or spiritual issues if religious or spiritual issues have the least cost for wrong answers. That seems rather foolish.


But we were not speaking specifically about a scientific investigation, we were not speaking of an investigation at all. We were only speaking about the broad definition of the term "evidence". Scientific method isn't efficient to all things worthy of knowledge.


No, I am not. You just randomly asserted "scientific definition". We are not dealing with the scientific method necessarily.


Well, ok, but evidence does not equal proof, and other evidence can make a case even stronger. However, just because a single piece of evidence is not conclusive enough to make a case that a person is a murderer(one of the most significant and least lightly taken crimes to commit), that does not mean it isn't evidence or that it isn't valuable as such. If this involved a child and cookies, and the child was writing poetry, then it could work.


The insufficiency of a single piece of evidence is not a denial that there is evidence. So, the point is moot.


Umm... debate is concerned with right and wrong, which is why a convincing argument with less errors is preferred. Debate is not *entirely* seperate from epistemology but rather is a subset of epistemology like science is often considered.

Ok, there is an issue with that definition. There is no "irrefutable" in science. Modern notions of science are reliant upon falsfiability rather than absolutes. Especially given that your notion of evidence demands the ability to demonstrate exhaustively a claim that perhaps cannot be exhaustively proven. Nor, do I even think that this notion of evidence is used in scientific practice period. Take, for instance, cases where we find organisms that have experienced massive structural change, this is evidence for evolution, and even certain ideas in evolutionary theory, but it certainly does not exhaustively prove anything.

Evidence isn't scientific, and the mind that focuses so surely upon absolute proofs has lost grasp of what it means to have good epistemology and make good inferences upon available data.

(Working this from back to front...)

Subjective interpretation of data is one of the major pitfalls of the Scientific Method. This is why Peer-Group Review was instituted. If several scientists perform the same experiment under the same conditions and achieve the same results, then they are likely to draw the same conclusions. This ensures that the data is interpreted with the maximum amount of objectivity. And yes, a hundred years from now, the same data is likely to be interpreted differently or more correctly, and this is one of the features of Science that distinguishes it from Pseudo-Science; that the Scientific Method is self-correcting, while the same old pseudo-scientific claims never seem to be corrected.

Actually, falsifiability is what distinguishes science from pseudo-science. Real, actual scientific principles are easily faked, but pseudo-scientific principles (perpetual motion, contra-gravity, et cetera) can not (because they are already fake - you can't fake fakery). That's why it sometimes takes [the mind of] a magician or confidence artist to determine when a scientific claim is actually false.

Predictions are not evidence; results are. I know this seems a semantic trick, but predictions are based more on wishful thinking (feelings, hunches, intuition, et cetera) than science (calculation, deduction, observation, et cetera). Any psychic can make a prediction to please her client, while any meteorologist can make a forecast. Both may be wrong, but the scientist will at least note the error and revise his methods, while the fortune-teller will merely dismiss it as a mis-interpretation. Thus, the scientist's results will eventually become more and more accurate, while the tarot reader's accuracy will be no better than random coincidence.

Your syntax is a bit muddled, so I'll re-write this sentence as a statement: "Observations, which are considered evidence in Astronomy and Cosmology, are acceptable when making predictions in these fields."

Actually, observations are usually the only evidence that these two fields of study have. And again, predictions are not evidence, results are. In scientific experiments, results are derived from observation of causal events via energy emissions within the electromagnetic spectrum.

Thus, Scientific Evidence is any material substance, measurable force or energy emission, or causal event that irrefutably and repeatedly demonstrates the validity of a claim.

There we disagree. Imho, nothing is even knowable if it does not bear up under the scrutiny of the Scientific Method. For some, faith in the unknowable is sufficient, but it's when they need to invent a religion to explain their faith that things get all mucked up.


And there is the core and summation of your entire argument: the broadness of the definition of "evidence." No wonder the OP did not want dictionary definitions! The broader the definition, the less defined it becomes, until the term loses all relevance in a fog of generalization.

Well, the issue is that you cannot apply the scientific method to determine what food you want to eat at a given time, however, it may be true that there is a food item that maximizes your pleasure. The problem with the scientific method is simply the burdensomeness of the process, it takes teams of researchers years of research and millions of dollars in funding to find out some general thing, and perhaps not even that as maybe a methodological error or a technical failure will be found to discredit the data you found, as scientific theories are merely tentative and can be discredited. It thus is not useful for the specific problems of every day life. Also, Fnord, how can the scientific method bear up under the scrutiny of the scientific method? I mean, a philosophical principle cannot be tested by the scientific method, but in order to know what the scientific method is(by your premise) we need to have the scientific method... this seems to get us in a loop of pointlessness, and also seems to ignore things such as mathematics, philosophy and perhaps other things that are not subject to the scientific method but still accepted as branches of knowledge. I mean, heck, what about the data that the scientific method uses as evidence, how can that be subjected to the scientific method, which is designed for finding general principles from small pieces of evidence? Thus, such an epistemology seems flawed to the point of absurdity.


Well, yes, because nobody functions based upon your idea of knowledge, so a definition that is absurdly shallow, is even less useful. Frankly, the reason why definitions are broad is so that they can be retooled to more specific issues, and assigned values. Usually though, there is no "loses all relevance in a fog of generalization", at least, I have very rarely heard of a term being held to too broadly to that point, unless the term was fairly meaningless and stupid already. Then again, you can't claim to know your claims anyway, as they are all unscientific... (see, absurd definition of knowledge!! !)

The definition I operate under forms the basis of all science and technology. Without it, we'd all be "watching the telly by candle-light"!

Well, yes, but science and technology are a bit different than living. So, really, in different realms of human understanding, different standards of knowledge are desirable.

Agreed. But let's not make such broad definitions that their meaning is lost merely for the sake of universal inclusion.

I never made a definition that lost any significant level of meaning to be honest. I simply refused to define what a proper epistemology would be.

The results of a Physical Experiment must be reproduceable Regardless of any presumptions of the experimenter.
Results that depend on the presumptions and beliefs of the experimenter Do NOT qualify as valid evidence.

Hear! Hear!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV1FjEqKlPI[/youtube]

Well, yes, that's right, although AG probably means knowledge based on other means besides natural or empirical science, like philosophic aspects, unless you discard philosophy or some of these aspects as a source of knowledge, and you only give importance to Science as the only means you give value.

Last edited by greenblue on 23 Aug 2008, 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

All the good stuff about the definition of evidence seems to be said, so I'll jut spam a little more.

M-m-m-m-m-MONSTER Burn!

How dare you not show enough reverence for SCIENCE! !! !! !!

I like science, but it is merely a particular method for obtaining knowledge.

Evidence, please?

Just a second...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXWRs9lNH6Q[/youtube]