Why ask for evidence?

[Paul of Tarsus]

Years ago I was debating a Christian who demanded that I present evidence for what I was saying to him. He agreed to concede I was right if I forked over that evidence. When I gave him the evidence he asked for, he broke his promise still refusing to concede I was right.

This experience prompts me to ask why anybody; Christian, atheist, or anybody else; demands evidence only to ignore or explain away that evidence once it becomes available to them. It seems unlikely that anybody really wants evidence that will falsify what they want to believe, so why ask for that evidence? Based on my experiences with people like the Christian I mention above, the real purpose of demanding evidence in these debates is to try to trip up an ideological opponent hoping he does not have that evidence or that it will be difficult and time-consuming for him to offer it if he does have it.

[otseng]

9th challenge

Franlky, I've given up on this as a debate site.

Moderator Comment

Not sure what is the point of asking for something 9 times, esp when it's just a statement about a person's experience. In the future, follow the Moderator Claim Withdrawal Procedure to challenge a claim.


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[JoeyKnothead]

My point is to show that some folks wanna fuss them about the claims of others, as they refuse to accept responsibility for thier own claims.

They wanna excuse themselves from the lies they present.

I previously asked the mods about this, and was told such as ,'there's so many of em, we just can't keep us up'.


So I've taken me a new tack. Challenge these liars every day I wake up. Call em out for who they are and the lies they tell.

Cause the mods can't keep up. Oh sure, they can keep up with folks getting their feelings hurt, they just can't find it among em to hold folks to their claims.

I spit in the face of these liars. I poke em in the eye. I challenge their claims.

Only don't it beat all, the mods can't understand why I hafta challenge these liars nine frog-kissing times to show they speak truth.

Are we here to debate?


Or are we here to pucker up to a liar's fourth point of contact?


Edit in: I find it pretty danged goofy a mod'd fret me having to challenge claims much as I did, but couldn't be him the first danged bothered with a claimant who ignored challenges to his claims.

Alas "It's just too danged troublesome" is how this site's being moderated.

Notice here, nine times affer me challenging these claims, the poor, poor put upon mods hafta omplain about how it is, fhey had to count them up to nine.

They didn't get on the claimant, oh hell no!

Thaey got onto me for the unmitigated audacity of expecting the claimqnt to show they spek truth.

"Why ask for evidence?"

Ause the mods'll pick on ya for it!

[otseng]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #43]

Some fights aren't worth fighting over. And even worse, might get kicked out of the ring over a meaningless fight.

A few years ago I was in what was called a "science forum." The people there were extremely rude and often cursed at and engaged in name-calling against those they disagreed with which included me, naturally.

This fight I consider a meaningless fight. Who really cares about what people do on another forum?

However, there are fights worth pursuing, and feel free to hold peoples' feet to the fire over those, though do avoid asking 9 times. People can read and get your point without reiterating it multiple times.

I would hope we are here after truth. And it requires logical arguments and evidence, not just opinions, to find the truth. Though this is a very difficult thing to ask for in the society that we live in today.

[bluegreenearth]

What is the functional role of evidence when investigating a claim? Is it to prove the claim is true or to prove the claim is false?

Anyone seeking evidence to prove a claim is true will run head-first into the problem of confirmation bias. A proper and complete understanding of how confirmation bias operates will reveal that it can occur in the subconscious as well as conscious level of cognition. As such, even someone who is consciously skeptical of a claim could be potentially persuaded by subconscious confirmation bias to prematurely conclude the claim is true. In order to mitigate for confirmation bias, the person investigating the claim should consider what evidence would be expected if the claim is false and proceed to determine if such evidence exists. In this way, whether the person investigating the claim desires for it to be true or not, a falsifiable claim can be objectively falsified by the acquisition of the necessary disconfirming evidence.

To illustrate this concept, consider a hypothetical detective who is investigating a murder. The detective initially presumes the victim's husband is the killer, but the husband claims he was working with power tools alone in his backyard wood shop at the time of the murder. Upon further investigation, the detective learns that the gun used in the crime is owned by the victim's husband who stands to gain financially from the resulting inheritance and multi-million dollar life insurance policy. Such strong evidence would seem to confirm the claim that the husband was the perpetrator. However, the detective recognizes where confirmation bias could be influencing her to prematurely arrive at that conclusion. So, to mitigate for the possible influence of confirmation bias, the detective identifies what evidence she would expect to find if the victim's husband is not guilty of murdering his wife and proceeds to investigate if such evidence exists. For instance, if the husband did not commit the murder, then maybe one of the next-door neighbors might have observed him working in his wood shop at the time the victim was shot. Sure enough, when interviewed by the detective, one next-door neighbor testified that she happened to notice the husband of the victim working in his backyard when the gunshot was heard. Furthermore, results from the crime lab revealed the finger prints on the murder weapon belong to the pastor of the victim's church who later confesses that the Holy Spirit guided him to take the victim's life so she could be with God in heaven. Consequently, the claim that the husband perpetrated the murder is objectively falsified by the necessary disconfirming evidence.

Now, it might be tempting to argue at this point that the fingerprints on the gun and the pastor's subsequent confession equally serve as evidence to support the claim implicating the pastor as the true murderer. However, that specific evidence was only acquired through the process of attempting to falsify the initial claim of the husband being the murderer and not with the intention of proving the pastor was the perpetrator of the crime. Nevertheless, with this new claim, the detective must mitigate for confirmation bias here as well. Accordingly, unlikely as it may seem, the detective must consider what evidence she would expect to find if the pastor is not actually the murderer. For instance, if the pastor did not commit the murder, the detective might expect to uncover evidence of blackmail or another motivating influence for the pastor to leave his finger prints on the gun and accept blame for a murder he did not commit. Sure enough, an examination of the hard-drive in the pastor's personal computer revealed deleted emails from someone who threatened to expose the pastor's habit of sexually abusing underage school kids unless he agreed to comply with blackmailer's demands. The blackmailer turned out to be someone who, back when he was a child a number of years ago, had been molested by the pastor and was also a recently disgruntled employee of the murder victim. Therefore, the claim that the pastor was the murderer is objectively falsified by this disconfirming evidence.

Yet again, to thoroughly mitigate for confirmation bias, the detective makes the extra effort of looking for evidence that might demonstrate the latest suspect wasn't also being blackmailed or otherwise motivated to accept blame for a murder he did not commit. Of course, such an outcome would be unexpected but not logically impossible or unprecedented. After all, at least in colloquial terms, it is said the defendant should be "presumed innocent until proven guilty" beyond a reasonable doubt. Scientifically speaking, the detective is tasked with falsifying the "null hypothesis" that presumes the defendant is not guilty. This time around, the detective does not find any additional evidence to suggest the suspect was accepting blame for a murder he did not commit. When the case goes to trial, the prosecuting attorney demonstrates that the detective took the necessary steps to mitigate for confirmation bias in the collection and evaluation of the available evidence. As a result, the jury ultimately decides the available evidence was sufficient to falsify the null hypothesis, and they subsequently issue a "guilty" verdict.

In the above analogy, the claims being investigated were necessarily falsifiable by evidence the detective would expect to find if the claims were false. What is the functional role of evidence, however, when the claims being investigated are unfalsifiable?

Let's imagine the hypothetical detective was investigating a possible murder where no obvious cause of death was immediately visible and the perpetrator was proposed to be an evil and undetectable demon. The evidence given for believing a demon was the murderer is the fact that the victim was known to be a sincere worshiper of Satan, and the apartment where his body was found had been decorated with all sorts of ritualistic satanic symbols, demonic statues, and other such paraphernalia. In order to mitigate for confirmation bias, what evidence should the detective expect to find if an evil and undetectable demon did not murder the victim? For instance, would an autopsy of the body revealing the victim died from a heart attack falsify the evil demon claim? No. Medical evidence of a heart attack would not disprove the evil demon claim because someone could always suggest the demon deployed a supernatural force that was designed to stop the victim's heart. What if the autopsy revealed the person was poisoned to death? Would this evidence falsify the evil demon claim? No. Once again, someone could always suggest an evil demon used a supernatural power to take possession of the victim's body and force him to ingest a lethal dose of poison. No mater the quantity or quality of the evidence the detective uncovers throughout her investigation, she can never rule-out an undetectable demon as a possible suspect.

Does this mean the detective would be justified in concluding an evil and undetectable demon was responsible for committing a murder? No. The detective cannot demonstrate confirmation bias is not misleading her to this conclusion because, whether she consciously or subconsciously desires such an extraordinary claim to be true or not, no quantity or quality of evidence would ever inform her if an undetectable demon was not responsible for killing the victim. In other words, it is impossible for the detective or anyone else to distinguish between an otherwise healthy person dying of a random but naturally caused heart attack and an otherwise healthy person dying of a heart attack caused by a supernatural demon. Similarly, no quantity or quality of evidence will help the detective or anyone else distinguish between a victim who willfully consumed a lethal dose of poison and a victim who was possessed by an evil demon and subsequently forced to drink a lethal dose of poison. Therefore, we must ask what role the evidence plays in investigating an unfalsifiable claim such as this?