(May 10, 2010 at 11:22 am)Minimalist Wrote:(May 10, 2010 at 9:24 am)tavarish Wrote: The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
One quibble, albeit a major one, with this mantra.
It's wrong.
The absence of evidence is, most assuredly, evidence of absence. It is not "proof" of absence. Especially in archaeology, the next shovel in the ground can overturn all previous finds.
However, when someone like Kenneth Kitchen trots this out it is an apologetic mode to explain why his bible fantasies cannot be sustained by archaeology. The bible claims that Jerusalem was a major city in the 10th century under David and Solomon - the seat of a far flung empire. 150 years of archaeological excavation on the site has failed to show any evidence of such a city. In fact, the only evidence that is "absent" is the evidence that people like Kitchen...and your garden variety fundie morons, insist is there. Archaeology has shown Jerusalem to be a miniscule shithole in the 10th century. This is not an absence of evidence.....it is evidence which contradicts the stated view of the bible-thumpers. Might evidence be found of the capitol of a major empire? It might. I'm not about to hold my breath waiting. In places in Jerusalem they have dug down to neolithic levels complete with flint tools. In other places they are down to bedrock. Every culture which had an impact on the area has been identified EXCEPT the one that the bible-thumpers swear is true because it is in their big book of holy horseshit.
They sit smugly and say "keep digging, you'll find it." Well, they are digging and they haven't found it yet.
That, my friends, is EVIDENCE of ABSENCE.
What you're illustrating is evidence contrary to the claim, which isn't necessarily limited to an absence of evidence.
If I say that my backyard is 3 acres wide, and you find that it isn't, but I insist that it is, citing absence of evidence that it's my backyard, then I'm in the wrong. It has nothing to do with absense of evidence if the claim itself is outright false.
Absence of evidence means that we can't rule out a plausible theory just because there's no evidence to support it or evidence to go against it, somewhat like abiogenesis. We have not been able to replicate the transformation of life to non life, but that doesn't mean it didn't occur naturally.
