The Phrase "No Evidence" Is A Red Flag For Bad Science Communication
The Phrase "No Evidence" Is A Red Flag For Bad Science Communication
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!
That depends on if you would expect evidence or not. If I go to the beach and there's no evidence of whales, that doesn't mean there's no whales in the ocean. But, If there's no evidence of an elephant in my living room then that's pretty good evidence there's no elephant in my living room.
You know damn well we didn't find no WMDS!
That whole show is great, but that's like the best 2-3 minutes of the show
But it is far more likely to be evidence of absence than evidence of presence.
It is also very likely to be evidence of: no one has gathered enough data yet
It's also likely to be evidence that something can't be patented, so nobody will pay for trials.
Is there "no evidence" that using a parachute helps prevent injuries when jumping out of planes? This was the conclusion of a cute paper in the BMJ, which pointed out that as far as they could tell, nobody had ever done a study proving parachutes helped. Their point was that "evidence" isn't the same thing as "peer-reviewed journal articles". So maybe we should stop demanding journal articles, and accept informal evidence as valid?
Is there "no evidence" for alien abductions? There are hundreds of people who say they've been abducted by aliens! By legal standards, hundreds of eyewitnesses is great evidence! If a hundred people say that Bob stabbed them, Bob is a serial stabber - or, even if you thought all hundred witnesses were lying, you certainly wouldn't say the prosecution had “no evidence”! When we say "no evidence" here, we mean "no really strong evidence from scientists, worthy of a peer-reviewed journal article". But this is the opposite problem as with the parachutes - here we should stop accepting informal evidence, and demand more scientific rigor.
But how do you make the case that these are different and warrant different treatment to John Q. Public? Because you're basically saying that the anecdotes of regular people are of less value than the hunches of scientists. Do scientists have some epistemic privilege?
Obviously, they do. But John Q. Public is going to find that insulting and bad faith actors like all of Fox News is going to characterize scientists as liberal, technological elites that claim to know better than good ol' hard workin' Americans. That it is true is inconsequential.
OP link seems to be a personal blog.
As soon as I saw the 90s website and conspiracy level picture I closed the link without reading.
He's a pretty well regarded blogger, and a qualified psychiatrist, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex
By legal standards, hundreds of eyewitnesses is great evidence!
Actually no. Eyewitness is always one of the worst kinds of evidence, and quantity makes little difference. It remains very easy to argue that Bob just very closely resembles the killer. If we have actually good evidence of him being elsewhere that day, say he went to work and worked all day, maybe was on camera, clocked in and got paid, etc, then that would pretty soundly crush your hundreds of eyewitnesses.
Is there "no evidence" that using a parachute helps prevent injuries when jumping out of planes? This was the conclusion of a cute paper in the BMJ, which pointed out that as far as they could tell, nobody had ever done a study proving parachutes helped. Their point was that "evidence" isn't the same thing as "peer-reviewed journal articles". So maybe we should stop demanding journal articles, and accept informal evidence as valid?
Well...
Before you listen to anything that blog author has to say, you may want to learn about what kind of shit he posts on that blog...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html
Hint: it's a safe space for silicon valley alt right tech bros.
Whatever his personal politics may be, there's nothing wrong in what this article has to say.
Rationalists are weird and not nearly as smart as they think they are. But "alt-right" they are not, and that article was completely ridiculous.
The rationalist community is kind of bizarre and definitely has its share of big problems (see x/acc and Sam Bankman-Fried). But they're not some hate-spewing fascists, and treating them as pariahs on the basis of a few deliberately decontextualized quotes hardly seems fair.
I think the better term is 'more study is needed'
This is a good article.
One of the dumbest things we've seen not just from science media but from media in general is this phrase "no evidence"
I have a rock here, and I claim that this rock will cause you to become a millionaire if you hold it.
So you start a double-blind study to prove it or disprove it.
Guess what? If your sample size is large enough, someone is going to become a millionaire by pure dumb luck. Whether you like it or not, that's evidence. It's poor evidence, it's overwhemingly contradicted by more, better evidence, but guess what? There is evidence that holding the rock will cause you to become a millionaire!
It seems pedantic, but when people say there's zero evidence for something, and exactly one evidence shows up, then that claim that there's zero evidence is automatically refuted! Even if it's something that everyone agrees is false.