Are claims evidence?

[historia]

This is a video from Matt Dillahunty, an atheist activist, in which he addresses some criticisms he has received from Alex O'Connor, among others, for his oft-repeated slogan "claims are not evidence." This issue came up a few years ago -- discussed in an earlier thread -- when Dillahunty addressed similar criticisms.

Question for debate: Are claims evidence?

[1213]

...Are claims evidence?

Evidence can mean:
1) A thing or set of things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment.
2) Something indicative; an indication or set of indications.
3) The means by which an allegation may be proven, such as oral testimony, documents, or physical objects.

A claim indicates always that something happened as the claimer says. For example, if an car accident happens, people involved would tell about it, make claims about it. This is why it is evidence. Maybe weak evidence, but evidence nonetheless.

It gets stronger for example if the claim includes true information that would likely not exist, if the claim is not true.

[William]

[Replying to historia in post #1]

What is being expressed in the video is that it doesn't matter what the claim is - the claim itself is not in any way evidence for the claim being true.

So yes, claims can be considered to be evidence but not evidence of the claims being true.

[historia]

What is being expressed in the video is that it doesn't matter what the claim is - the claim itself is not in any way evidence for the claim being true.

That seems like an accurate summary of Dillahunty's position. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Let's go back to the video that Dillahunty is critiquing here. Schmid gives this example: My friend claimed that he bought a new soccer ball. How is that not evidence that he bought a new soccer ball?

So yes, claims can be considered to be evidence but not evidence of the claims being true.

What are they evidence of, if no the thing the person is claiming?

[William]

What is being expressed in the video is that it doesn't matter what the claim is - the claim itself is not in any way evidence for the claim being true.

That seems like an accurate summary of Dillahunty's position. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Let's go back to the video that Dillahunty is critiquing here. Schmid gives this example: My friend claimed that he bought a new soccer ball. How is that not evidence that he bought a new soccer ball?

So yes, claims can be considered to be evidence but not evidence of the claims being true.

What are they evidence of, if no the thing the person is claiming?

I think that Dillahunty is pointing out that he/his position is being misrepresented (his evidence for that is presented in his narration alongside the video)

He is not saying that the claim is not evidence but that what makes the evidence substantial (or not) has to do with the extenuating elements (or lack thereof)

(The comments under the YouTube video also shine a light on that)

While the soccer ball analogy was used, I think the resurrection claim was the central issue? Not sure as I did not finish watching the whole video but I will get AI to summarize the transcript in case there is more information I missed.

AI: Here's a summary of the video transcript:

The speaker (Matt Dillahunty) responds to a video by Alex O'Connor and James Schmidt, who critique the phrase "claims aren't evidence"—which they associate with Matt. Matt clarifies that he never uses the phrase as a "thought-terminating cliché" or hangs up on callers with it. He explains his actual position: a claim itself is not evidence for the truth of that claim; rather, evidence consists of the supporting facts, background knowledge, and context that make a claim plausible (e.g., knowing your friend is honest, that soccer balls exist, etc.).

Matt argues that James and Alex misunderstand testimonial evidence: testimony is only useful when backed by independent, verifiable, and consistent evidence—not simply because someone said something. He accuses them of misrepresenting science as merely "a big game of testimony," ignoring peer review, replication, and independent verification. He likens their argument to theistic tactics that equate scientific confidence with religious faith.

Matt expresses disappointment that Alex nodded along to these misrepresentations. He also brings up a past disagreement over veganism (Matt views veganism as a moral virtue, not an obligation) and notes that Alex has since reportedly stopped being vegan. Matt concludes that neither Alex nor James contacted him before criticizing him, and he challenges them to a direct discussion.

The overall tone is defensive and critical, accusing Alex and James of lazy, dishonest, and superficial engagement with his views.

[historia]

He is not saying that the claim is not evidence . . .

Just a reminder that the slogan is "claims are not evidence."

. . . but that what makes the evidence substantial (or not) has to do with the extenuating elements (or lack thereof)

I'm not sure what you mean by making the evidence "substantial." Every time he addresses this topic, Dillahunty shifts to talking about how one assesses testimony, particularly in relation to our background knowledge -- perhaps that's what you mean here.

But that is a separate issue from whether testimony is evidence in the first place. And, in fact, that shift to assessing someone's testimony is itself a tacit admissions that the testimony is evidence -- otherwise, why assess it?

While the soccer ball analogy was used, I think the resurrection claim was the central issue? Not sure as I did not finish watching the whole video but I will get AI to summarize the transcript in case there is more information I missed.

Forget about Dillahunty for a second, and just tell us how you would approach this: My friend claimed that he bought a new soccer ball. How is that not evidence that he bought a new soccer ball?

[Difflugia]

What is being expressed in the video is that it doesn't matter what the claim is - the claim itself is not in any way evidence for the claim being true.

That seems like an accurate summary of Dillahunty's position. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

It's just sloppy shorthand and after listening to the discussion (or reactionary monologue, as it were), I'm surprised that Dillahunty doesn't cop to it. In fact, he doubles down with "not in any way." In context, that clearly must be hyperbole, because he later goes on himself to discuss in what ways claims can be evaluated as evidence.

My guess about what's going on is that we're in a similar situation to the oft-repeated, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Absence of evidence is absolutely evidence of absence, but the probability that "absence of evidence" is consistent with other priors is often high enough that it doesn't shift the calculus enough to matter. If the claim being tested is that there are no tigers in my garage, absence of evidence of tigers in my garage is itself pretty good evidence that there are no tigers in my garage. If the claim is that tigers don't exist anywhere, however, there are many circumstances under which tigers might exist despite absence of evidence for them in my garage.

In terms of claims being evidence, "I bought a lottery ticket," and, "I won the lottery," are two sides of this same coin. The prior probability of one having bought a lottery ticket is relatively high, even absent a specific claim to have done so. The prior that any given person won the lottery, though, is incredibly low. This roughly corresponding to the apologists in the video comparing, "I bought a soccer ball," with, "Jesus rose from the dead."

The aphorisms ("claims aren't evidence" and "absence of evidence...") are still true enough in many cases that too few people examine exactly what it means and I think that's what's going on here with Dillahunty. I'm surprised that he hasn't thought about it more, particularly given the subject matter he tackles, but he seems to have given this "slogan," or indeed the definitional reach of the word "evidence," very little thought at all.

[historia]

I'm surprised that he hasn't thought about it more, particularly given the subject matter he tackles, but he seems to have given this "slogan," or indeed the definitional reach of the word "evidence," very little thought at all.

I can see how you might draw that conclusion from this particular video.

But if you look at Dillahunty's video in the earlier thread, from three years ago, its evident to me that he has given a great deal of thought to this issue. And yet, if anything, his argument there seems more confused.

[William]

[Replying to historia in post #4]

So yes, claims can be considered to be evidence but not evidence of the claims being true.

What are they evidence of, if not the thing the person is claiming?

Are all claims, claims of truth?

[Difflugia]

I can see how you might draw that conclusion from this particular video. But if you look at Dillahunty's video in the earlier thread, from three years ago, its evident to me that he has given a great deal of thought to this issue. And yet, if anything, his argument there seems even more confused.

"Evidence is a very difficult subject for a lot of people to get." Indeed.

I started listening to the earlier video. It sounds like he's got an idea of what's going on and he's read a lot of logic, but he's never quantitatively dealt with evidence in a scientific sense, even informally. He struggles when shifting between probabilistic reasoning and logical reasoning. He keeps talking about evidence, but each time wants to shoehorn the concept of "evidence" into the form of a syllogism. He's confused (very clearly so) because he doesn't know how the two relate to each other. He gets close with his example about buying a car, but he keeps missing the mark because he's never had to design a Monte Carlo simulation or calculate a p-value.

ETA: I read through the earlier thread. There seems to be a lot of similar confusion. I noticed early on that you made a point about the conflation of "evidence" and "proof" causing problems, which itself seemed to be borne out by the ensuing discussion.