"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

[Angrboda]

However if I just sit in my own house and ponder whether or not the cat exists, prior to looking for it, my absence of evidence in that case is not evidence of absence.

That is not "evidence" at all, Apo. That's being too lazy to go look. Even Kitchen wasn't suggesting that. The context of Kitchen's comment was

I wasn't referencing Kitchen at all so much as clarifying the difference between no evidence, which indicates nothing, and negative evidence, which is at least something.

The fact is that his slogan has become a banner for all sorts of pseudo-history and pseudo-science, particularly parapsychology where the epistemology is a bit more nuanced than the failure of the Exodus story. We know when we've peeked in the right Tels in looking for the Jews. It's not even clear that there is an analogue for parapsychology.