The nature of evidence

[TheRealJoeFish]

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1. First, there must be a clear, unambiguous definition of the thing you're trying to provide evidence for. How would we know when we'd "found" it? Most God claims do not get past this point.

2. There needs to be some sort of evidence taken from reality which, ideally:

A) Can be examined independently
B) Can be examined directly (as directly as possible, without simply relying on other people's accounts)
C) Should be repeatable and verifiable
D) Should establish, beyond reasonable doubt, the existence of exactly the entity described in point 1, as directly as possible (not by trying to exclude other possibilities)

What does not count as credible evidence (in my opinion):

-Anecdotes, written or verbal (regardless of how many) [This covers story books such as the bible, and people's "personal experiences"]

-Philosophical arguments not backed by supporting evidence [Attempts to show something "must logically exist" without ever verifying it]

Think what it would take to convince you that there's a magical goblin living in my water tank. When you decide what kind of thing would suffice, you're probably pretty close.

http://youtu.be/inw1fNItjdU

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Could you please describe what you mean by Anecdotes?  What distinguishes anecdotes from testimony of evidence?

Not to speak for Rob, but there's a big difference between "This happened (to me/to a friend/two thousand years ago)" (anecdote) and "This happened, and here's how you make it happen, and here's why it happened, and it will happen again if you do a, b, and c, and if you want to show it didn't happen, here's what you would need to prove, and other people who have studied this have read all of what happened and how and why it happened have agreed that based on the information here it is most likely it did happen for the reasons I've suggested and they're going to keep trying to make it happen again to be even more certain" (evidence) (or, shall we say, science)