Re: Meaning of Zero and All, Application to archaeology

From: Tedd Jacobs (Jacobs_at_mail.boisestate.edu)
Date: 01/22/05 

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:56:29 -0700

"Steve Marcus" wrote...
>
> "Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:3cf1v0li1plitsanio4hpglh1vjfqm8ppg@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:48:49 -0700, "Tedd Jacobs"
>> <Jacobs@mail.boisestate.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"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.
>>
>> Quite right. :-)
>
> Actually, not. Here is a pro-UFO site playing around with Drake's
> Equation (aka as the Greenbank equation), which equation is an attempt to
> parse the possibilities re intelligent life existing "out there."
>
> http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1739.htm
>
> What do you think of their analysis, which gives "165 immortal
> civilizations" in our galaxy, and which relies upon "Fermi's Paradox" to
> argue that even without any technology more advanced than ours, _we_ could
> colonize the Milky Way Galaxy in only 50 million years? Seen any aliens
> from "out there" lately?
>
> Here's some more on Drake's Equation, giving you the parameters involved:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/astrobio2000/A2.html
>
> Reasonable numbers plugged in to this equation yield just about one
> civilization that could be "out there" to communicate. But assume that
> the pro-UFO site is correct; why are none of the aliens here; why don't
> the communicate with us directly, why haven't we got positive evidence of
> their having visited Earth in the past?
>
> In short, given that the existence of life out there is a weak
> possibility, and that FTL travel is a weak possibility, and that finding
> the way to _this_ particular planet is a weak possibility, it's actually
> correct to state that absence of evidence that UFOs represent alien
> visitors is fairly strong evidence that UFOs don't represent alien
> visitors. It is also correct to state that the absence of any evidence
> for present or future contact by intelligent ET civilizations is pretty
> strong evidence that they don't exist.

oh lord help me for the can of worms this can open... ;-) i'll agree the
argument is valid, but it does have its counterform. apply this to "clovis
first". a very weak possibility for anyone ever having been here before
hand. a complete absence of evidence supporting it, in fact there was more
evidence against- eg. ice corridor and migrational routes. but evidently
the "absence of evidence" evidence was incorrect in this case.

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