Re: Meaning of Zero and All, Application to archaeology

From: Eric Stevens (eric.stevens_at_sum.co.nz)
Date: 01/22/05 

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:38:51 +1300

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 18:22:12 -0500, "Steve Marcus"
<smarcus_spamout_@cox.net> 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.

As usual, you are using the straw man technique to try and shift the
grounds of the argument to something you expect to be able to win.

Jjust concentrating on the last sentence before my reply, please read
carefully what Tedd Jacobs wrote:

  "do UFO's exist? we dont have any evidence for it, and we dont have
    any evidence against it either."

I responded 'quite right'. By writing 'actually not' you seem to be
disagreeing. Which part of Tedd's statement do you think I am wrong to
agree with?

Do you think Tedd is really wrong when he wrote "we dont have any
evidence for it [UFO's]". If you agree with statement, do you disagree
with the statement "we dont have any evidence against it [UFO's]
either."

If you know of **evidence** for UFO's I would be grateful if you could
tell me what it is. Alternatively, ignoring Karl Popper for the time
being, If we do have **evidence** against UFO's, I would like to know
what it is.

Please note, the description of evidence does not require paragraphs
of convoluted argument.

   --- snip ---

Eric Stevens

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