Re: New subjectline: Valid and invalid arguments; former: Cocaine in ancient Egypt?

From: Tedd Jacobs (Jacobs_at_mail.boisestate.edu)
Date: 01/21/05 

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:07:31 -0700

"I.E_Johansson" wrote...
>
> "Doug Weller" <dweller@ramtops.removethisdemon.co.uk> skrev i meddelandet
> news:dgovu0tevvdikh1rcm4pgqv3s8frji7hnc@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 15:01:57 GMT, in sci.archaeology, Alan Crozier wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Martyn is blatantly ignoring the old dictum "Absence of evidence is not
>> >evidence of absence" and drawing a fallacious conclusion from an
> argumentum
>> >ex silentio. Consider how little has actually survived from ancient
> Egypt, a
>> >tiny fraction of all the evidence that may once have existed. It is
>> >wrong
> to
>> >infer from this absence of evidence that, during the several millennia
>> >of
>> >Egyptian history, there was no contact at all with other parts of the
> world,
>> >or indeed the universe.
>>
>> I've never understood that 'old dictum'.
>> Absence of evidence is in fact evidence of absence. Not proof, but
>> evidence of the probability of absence. And how likely that is depends
>> upon the context.
>
> No Doug,
> you are completely wrong here.
[...]

there is an absence of evidence that individual 'A' has an intellect, thus
we have evidence that individual 'A' has no intellect.

how right you are.

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