Why is this the case? Wouldn’t a lack of evidence hint at, but not necessarily prove that this could be the case?
In: Biology
>Wouldn’t a lack of evidence hint at, but not necessarily prove that this could be the case?
In the right context actually yes. “I think Mike has a dead body in his trunk.” Okay, well let’s go look in the trunk. We open it and find no dead body, that’s pretty strong evidence of its absence.
If instead though it was “I think Mike buried a dead body somewhere in Utah” now we have a much tougher problem. You could spend a year digging holes in random locations in Utah and you’d almost certainly have no sign of a dead body. That in no way comes close to providing any evidence that there *isn’t* a dead body somewhere in Utah.
If Mike was being put on trial, and the jury was filled with perfect logical people, his attorney would be ill advised to bring up the Utah example as any kind of demonstration that there isn’t a body at all. If the prosecution theory somehow hinged on it definitely being in Mike’s trunk on the other hand and the trunk had been checked, then that would be good “evidence of absence”.
This is an example of why the concept of Burden of Proof is important. In court, it’s spelled out in the law: innocent until proven guilty, the burden is on the prosecution. So despite the fact that they weren’t able to find that body in Utah they can’t really argue “Well Mike can’t prove there *isn’t* a body buried in Utah!” It’s true. Mike can’t prove that, but he doesn’t have to. The prosecution has to prove there is.
In the day to day world generally its on the person making the claim “You can’t prove there’s *isn’t* a Bigfoot!” You’re right I can’t, but if you want me to believe it, you need to prove it’s there.
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