eli5: Carl Sagan’s absence of evidence

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Big fan of Carl Sagan, he was like a father figure to me, I’m partially molded by him.
That said, something he used to say all the time really baffled me, still does:
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”
He said this when talking about aliens.
However: Sagan was a famous non believer.
How does this aphorism reconcile with the existence or non existence of a god?
If “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” does that apply to a god as well?
Is there a god even though there is no evidence of him/her/it?

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147 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Carl Sagan’s aphorism applies to any situation where evidence is lacking. It simply means that just because we don’t have evidence of something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. In the case of a god, this aphorism can be interpreted to mean that just because we don’t have evidence of a god doesn’t mean that one doesn’t exist. Sagan was a non-believer, but he still acknowledged that it was possible for a god to exist even though there is no evidence to support it.

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