Re: Meaning of Zero and All, Application to archaeology

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:48:49 -0700

"Eric Stevens" wrote...
> On 21 Jan 2005 00:04:19 GMT, Philip Deitiker <Nopdeitik@att.net.Spam>
> wrote:
>
>>In sci.archaeology, Eric Stevens created a message ID
>>news:4v50v05cu9s9upmirpc1m296iur2f83h27@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:14:03 GMT, Philip Deitiker
>>> <Donevenask@worlnet.att.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I know that Alan was Joking, apparently Steve didn't catch on.
>>>>But on a more serious note. This is in response to Doug's
>>reply
>>>>
>>>>"
>>>>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.
>>>
>>> The old dictum in fact is "Absence of evidence is NOT evidence
>>of
>>> absence" though many would argue that it was.
>>>>"
>>>
>>> --- lengthy exposition snipped ----
>>>>
>>>>Thus when a person declares Zero frequency of an event based
>>on zero
>>>>events he is also saying that the sampling for (not of) such
>>events
>>>>was great, that biasing or sampling errors is not a factor
>>worthy of
>>>>affecting the conclusion. And when a person says that a zero
>>events
>>>>does not reflect the reality or possibilities he is saying
>>that
>>>>sampling is poor, or the sampling was biased or that there
>>were
>>>>sampling errors to a degree in which a zero frequency
>>conclusion
>>>>should not be drawn. He is also saying, implicitly saying that
>>>>because he knows that the zero result in terms of binomial
>>>>probability opens the possibility for an infinite number
>>events of
>>>>non-zero frequency, that he has some trend that approaches
>>with non-
>>>>zero result the parameter proximal to where the sampling
>>>>result/parameter crosses the Y=0 axis. If we hold every
>>argument to
>>>>this standard of plausibility then many arguments will be
>>summarily
>>>>eliminated, sort of a kook filter, right off the bat. Does
>>this
>>>>argument mean something to the individual, or is it something
>>they
>>>>must ignore because they don't understand it.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It's probably simpler for the ordinary individual to say 'the
>>reason
>>> you have no evidence is that you haven't found it yet'.
>>:-)
>>
>>Not true, there are many things that have no evidence in which
>>you while never have evidence because evidence does not exist.
>
> You can only say the evidence does not exist when you have evidence
> that it does not exist. Consider the Higgs boson. They have been
> searching for it for more than 30 years and so far, nothing. Yet they
> still keep looking. It's like a treasure hunt. You have to have faith
> that the treasure exists somewhere. That you eventually loose faith
> and give up does not mean that the treasure is not out there somewhere
> in the garden.

kind of like "there is nothing before clovis!", "the world is flat", "the
sound barrier can not be broken!",... no one had any evidence, so all must
have been impossible, untill they found it. do UFO's exist? we dont have
any evidence for it, and we dont have any evidence against it either.

[...]

>>possible to the y = 0 axis. An infinite number of zero measured
>>events would have the same probability.
>
> No, I'm not going to folow you there. I'm getting a headache. :-)

seconded

[...]
>
> At least that's your hypothesis. :-)

the pd shuffle. ;-)

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