The nature of evidence

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I think, that what I find peculiar, is the way the term "anecdote" is being used here (almost as if being shoe horned in).  Perhaps I view evidence differently.  I see different kinds of evidence having different uses or strengths. I also do not think that evidence and reason is in the domain of science alone.  This may be dependent on the category of the topic one is dealing with.   Strength of evidence can vary, and is really dependent on how well the evidence speaks to uncovering the truth in question. 

A double blind study, with a large number of tests; I believe is very strong evidence.  Yet to demand this type of evidence above all other's even within science; is incorrect.   I don't see evolution or other historical studies in science doing double blind tests.   This is because double blind tests speaks to what is likely to occur in the future, and doesn't describe the past.  Similarly;  the results of such tests do not preclude an anomaly, or speak to the truthfulness or falsity of what happened previously.  It is a poor method of judgement in this manner.

What you guy's are calling "anecdotes" in legal terms, they call direct evidence.  It is called direct, because it speaks directly to what has occurred.  Most often the physical or forensic evidence is circumstantial.  It requires and inductive leap to connect the evidence to the case being made.   This is not to say, that direct evidence, is better or more preferred over circumstantial evidence.   It all depends on what the individual piece of evidence, can tell us, and overall, how all the evidence together works to paint a picture of what occurred. 

In mentioning "testimony of evidence", all I meant, was someone else telling us, what they found or observed.  I may have to rely on others, to tell me, about their scientific results (and reporting all the information accurately), the same as someone telling me, what they observed.

Also, to the poster, who wrote an anecdote, as evidence against anecdotes.   Your post was noticed and appreciated.

You know, I actually agree with almost every word of this. (The exception being that Double Blind studies, while providing exceptionally good evidence, are not applicable to anything that doesn't involve humans directly. The purpose of the Double Blind is to keep the tester from giving subconscious cues to the tested, thereby altering the results. If the tester does not know, he cannot give anything away. For most things involving the physical world, statistical and process analysis are used.) However, eyewitness testimony still remains incredibly weak evidence, as several scientific tests have shown. People can be mistaken, can misremember, can simply make things up with the best of intentions, for any number of reasons.

In the case of the Gospels, to which you're undoubtedly referring... 

You say George Washington was a real person, and really became the first President of the United States. He died on December 14, 1799... so we'll call it just before the year 1800. Yet nothing at all was written about him until 1820-1830, at the absolute earliest... and the oldest surviving copy we have of anything written about him is from the year 1950... with most of it being dated after the year 2000. Imagine if we found that, despite copious amounts of writing from that place and time, there was no one in Philadelphia (first US Capital) who wrote about a Mr. George Washington. But over time, a tradition began to grow up, telling us about this man and how he was President of the United States.

It's an incredible claim. Now, of course, we have a lot more knowledge about the man I mention, above... but hopefully, if all the evidence that existed for the man claimed in the story is the above, then by the year 4000, I hope some people would strongly doubt the claims of the Washingtians...especially if those claims tended to conflict with scientific knowledge about history and the universe. When you add in claims that George magically chopped down the cherry tree before telling the truth about it to his parents (rather than using an axe, I mean), you could expect people to get really weirded out by those who claimed it really happened that way.

Now I know this isn't a perfect analogy for claims about a living deity walking on earth, but it seems to me that if such were the case, and the miracles attested to in the Gospels/Acts were real, we'd have at least Roman letters reporting this fact... or that it went dark and there were earthquakes for several hours after some guy was crucified, or that the veil to the Holy of Holies in the temple was torn in half (would be a national scandal!), et cetera.

My point is (FINALLY!) (Yeah, yeah...) that if all you have are anecdotes, written down by secondhand (at best) listeners, then you have nothing that would constitute evidence. Even in a court of law, where some astoundingly bad evidence is nevertheless admitted (thus the frequency of wrongful convictions), this would be labeled as "hearsay" and would be inadmissible.