RE: Illustrating the burden of proof - pay me!
February 7, 2022 at 6:40 pm
(This post was last modified: February 7, 2022 at 8:28 pm by John 6IX Breezy.)
(February 7, 2022 at 5:42 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Can you give an example of a proposition which is consistent with observation but not consistent with evidence? Synonymous use cases suggest that any problem with evidence as semantics would also be a problem in the same way and for all of the same reasons if we instead used "consistent with observation".
Are you sure there's a problem with the word?
The word evidence is often used synonymously with proof, as if establishing that a thing is true. A common mistake that undergraduates make is concluding that the outcome of an experiment can prove a hypothesis or be evidence for a theory. They treat the finding as if married to the thing being evidenced in an exclusive one-to-one relationship. But such is not the case. Evidence is polygamous and not a faithful spouse—it has many mistresses and concubines it can sleep with when you are not around.
The phrase consistent with, in contrast, doesn't marry the observation with the proposition. It treats them as parallel with each other, having no particular commitment or relationship.
