What are the standards for evidence?

SalixIncendium · Aug 23, 2017

DavidFirth said:
The Bible.

Discuss where in the Bible my favorite color is mentioned. Where is it mentioned in the Bible that my favorite food is pizza. Please point me to the Scripture that discusses the invention of the automobile.

Can't find them? So it's safe to assume that I do not have a favorite color or food, and that cars don't exist?

Jeremiahcp · Aug 23, 2017

Jayhawker Soule said:
And yet you employ the modifier 'some', suggestion that you understand why 'some' claims may not be evidence. How would you distinguish the two?

I assume there are some natural unwritten standards which form culturally or organically that we employ by default. Some standards we learn, while some may just be innate due to our ability to reason. If we were overly skeptical of everything anyone said that would limit our ability to function as a community, and likewise if we just believed everything that is said that would also not be good. Narrowing in on these unwritten standards would be harder than just looking up formal standards like the scientific method. Experience may also play a role; I am able to walk therefore it is believable other humans can walk, but I can't fly on my own, so it is not believable that other humans can fly.

Satans_Serrated_Edge · Aug 23, 2017

Jeremiahcp said:
It has occurred to me that some people believe they are the authority of evidence for others, but it seems to me that authority lies with the individual. However I would agree that there are societal standards both formal and informal.

So my question is what are these standards? If I said my mother loves me would you consider that sufficient evidence to agree? Or do we need to run that hypothesis through the scientific method?

Evidence is a slippery word, as for some the very fact that the earth exists is evidence of whatever deity.

For me, good evidence must be able to be independently verified and furthermore, must incontrovertably indicate the same conclusion for everyone.

Kinda rigid, I know, but if it isn't you leave the door open to accepting all sorts of nonsense as truth, from poison vaccines to invisible sky lords.

Sunstone · Aug 23, 2017

The magical volleyball said:
How do you know your mother loves you?

What evidence have you gathered to arrive at that conclusion?

See post #11 in this thread.

It Aint Necessarily So · Aug 23, 2017

Jeremiahcp said:
I don't see why some claims can not also be evidence; they use witness testimony in legal matters all the time as evidence.

I'd say that all claims are evidence, but unsupported claims are the weakest kind of evidence. They are evidence that somebody made the claim and not much else. It is true that the claim might be accurate or not, and that the source might believe it or not, but the claim gives us no way to assess these and thus is not evidence of more than that a claim was made.

You mentioned claims made in court. I think we all know how unreliable even eye-witness testimony is.

As we have already noted, the believability of the claim depends in part on how ordinary or extraordinary it is. We can add that the claim becomes more believable if we are familiar with the source and know it to be conscientious and dependable, but that is additional evidence, not evidence inherent in the claim.

The magical volleyball · Aug 23, 2017

Sunstone said:
See post #11 in this thread.

If you never met your mother, never heard her say I love you and never experienced her love, then would you still feel comfortable saying your mother loves you?
Or would you need some sort of evidence first?

Jeremiahcp · Aug 23, 2017

I noticed people keep using that word extraordinary, which is interesting as there is no definitive objective measurement of when something is extraordinary. Yet to a large degree most people can agree when something is extraordinary, so there must be a set of standards by which we judge something as extraordinary.

ChristineM · Aug 23, 2017

DavidFirth said:
Is it God's word? Yes. It is truth.

Is it God's word? No. It may or may not be truth.

There is no evidence of god or gods so both seem a far stretch

ChristineM · Aug 23, 2017

Jeremiahcp said:
I don't see why some claims can not also be evidence; they use witness testimony in legal matters all the time as evidence.

Actually witness testimony is unreliable and becoming less and less accepted in legal matters. The very high percentage of convictions based solely on witness testimony that are being overturned is ensuring witness testimony is seen for what it is.

ChristineM · Aug 23, 2017

Jeremiahcp said:
I noticed people keep using that word extraordinary, which is interesting as there is no definitive objective measurement of when something is extraordinary. Yet to a large degree most people can agree when something is extraordinary, so there must be a set of standards by which we judge something as extraordinary.

Extraordinary : very unusual or remarkable.

In other words,something not ordinary.

Of course that is a subjective and personal judgement. For example, a police officer will see violent death often enough for it to be accepted as somewhat ordinary. Where mr joe public would probably puke at the extraordinary mutilation of a fellow human being

ChristineM · Aug 23, 2017

DavidFirth said:
The Bible.

There is no passage in the bible attributed to god.

Jeremiahcp · Aug 23, 2017

ChristineM said:
Actually witness testimony is unreliable and becoming less and less accepted in legal matters. The very high percentage of convictions based solely on witness testimony that are being overturned is ensuring witness testimony is seen for what it is.

I am and was already aware of this, yet it is still a type of evidence.

ChristineM · Aug 23, 2017

Jeremiahcp said:
I am and was already aware of this, yet it is still a type of evidence.

Was. Only in backward jurisdictions is eye witness testimony accepted unless it is validated by other means.

There are any number of psychological experiments that show in any group, a majority of witnesses will disagree on what they witnessed.

BilliardsBall · Aug 23, 2017

Jeremiahcp said:
It has occurred to me that some people believe they are the authority of evidence for others, but it seems to me that authority lies with the individual. However I would agree that there are societal standards both formal and informal.

So my question is what are these standards? If I said my mother loves me would you consider that sufficient evidence to agree? Or do we need to run that hypothesis through the scientific method?

My Bible standard is I can trust others (Bible writers) based on the authentic voice and honesty I encounter in their writings. We all place trust in a variety of writers and sources.

Jeremiahcp · Aug 23, 2017

ChristineM said:
Was. Only in backward jurisdictions is eye witness testimony accepted unless it is validated by other means.

There are any number of psychological experiments that show in any group, a majority of witnesses will disagree on what they witnessed.

I took psychology 101 I saw the video and read the chapter. Thanks for the update but this is getting off track, the point was that to some limited extent claims can be evidence.

ChristineM · Aug 23, 2017

Jeremiahcp said:
I took psychology 101 I saw the video and read the chapter. Thanks for the update but this is getting off track, the point was that to some limited extent claims can be evidence.

Evidence : the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

It is my understanding that (for the most part) eye witness testimony (any unvalidated testimony) is no longer seen as legal evidence.

Jeremiahcp · Aug 23, 2017

ChristineM said:
Evidence : the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

It is my understanding that (for the most part) eye witness testimony (any unvalidated testimony) is no longer seen as legal evidence.

I like how you make that claim as if it is evidence of what you claim. I could hit Google and it explore it more but the function was only to establish that to some extent claims can be evidence. The rest of your tangent I don't really care about.

Jeremiahcp · Aug 23, 2017

ChristineM said:
Extraordinary : very unusual or remarkable.

In other words,something not ordinary.

Of course that is a subjective and personal judgement. For example, a police officer will see violent death often enough for it to be accepted as somewhat ordinary. Where mr joe public would probably puke at the extraordinary mutilation of a fellow human being

You are just shifting words around. Unusual, remarkable, you are just substituting one word for another. It is semantics and it does not address the question.

Augustus · Aug 23, 2017

Jeremiahcp said:
It has occurred to me that some people believe they are the authority of evidence for others, but it seems to me that authority lies with the individual. However I would agree that there are societal standards both formal and informal.

So my question is what are these standards?

Societal standards are just the product of individual standards.

The main individual standard for evidence is 'does this match my preconceived opinions?', the main standard for 'not evidence' is does this contradict my preconceived opinions'. Therefore these are the main societal standards too.

There may be specific domains (law, the sciences, etc.) in which different norms may apply at times or based on contexts, but ultimately we all have different standards for evidence that tells us we are wrong than that which tells us we are right.

The divergence between the 2 increases the more emotionally attached we are to our original belief. Very little divergence when we have no emotional investment, significant divergence when we our emotional attachment is high.

Some are better at 'self-correcting' than others, but nobody is flawless in this regard.

YmirGF · Aug 23, 2017

Evidence and even the need for evidence is inherently tied to given claims. For example, there is almost nothing my sister says that I believe to be either true or accurate. Experience has taught me to doubt anything beyond the simplest of observations from her... ... and usually for good reason. I've come to understand that she actually believes what she is saying IS true however which makes things, well, complicated... *sigh*

What are the standards for evidence?

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