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?
In: 95
There is also a big catch that a lot of people tend to miss on this topic.
It is going to get a bit philosofical, and i am not a native speaker, so please bear with me.
Science is the study of Nature phenomena, and their description to the best of our understanding.
Faith, be it Christian or different or even the absolute certainty of god’s non-existance, is the relation of the individual with what lays beyond our understanding.
Trying to describe, undestand or prove, godlyhood with scientific means il like trying to read a book with your tongue: the instrument is not fit for the measurement.
Believers don’t need proof, or dis-proof, they know deep down internally that something is true or not true. Should any god be proven or disproven, it would leave the realm of Faith and become Science, meaning a natural occurrence rather than a personal relation with the supernatural.
I give you an example of deep unscientific faith: i believe that my ex-gf never cheated on me. She went on a trip to spain and left me soon after. It could be reasonable to assume she cheated, but my gut tells me that it was not so.
Or similar: i really strongly believe that there are aliens out there. I know we will reasonably never have proof of their existance, but I have this sort of assuredness that they are out there.
Or even: i am sure there is no God. Not because of absence of proof, just because I don’t feel him. When i can tell you there is a god of the mountain on Itsukushima island, because when i hiked there… I just felt his touch.
On the other hand, any scientific knowledge I have (i am a nuclear engineer, so i have a decent bit) is never “unreasonable and set in stone”, it is an evolving description of measurable events, based on a shared language and framework of interpretation.
Every person that ever tried to explain god or absence of god miserably failed, and will keep on failing forever. The Sacred is by itself the Absurd, is a void that we feel, and that feeds us back in ways that each of us interprets based on our deeper identity. Any interpretation is by itself right, because it is your own connection with the un-understandable
Here is an example. There is either an even or an odd number of stars in the galaxy, but we do not have evidence that there is an even number of stars in the galaxy. But the fact that we lack evidence that there is an even number of stars is not itself evidence that there is an odd number of stars.
Here is a suggestion about when some fact f is evidence for a claim c. Some fact f is evidence for a claim c when, if we assume that c is true, the probability that f occurs is p1, and if we assume that c is false, the probability that f occurs is p2, and p1>p2. In other words, f is more likely given that c is true than it is given that c is false, and that is why f is evidence in favor of c.
Hopefully my example about the number of stars in the galaxy demonstrates Sagan’s idea that the lack evidence for c is not necessarily itself evidence that ~c. (~c means ‘it is not the case that c’ or ‘c is false’). This idea seems correct because there are cases where you lack evidence for c, but the likelihood that <you would lack evidence for c> given that <c is true> is just as high as the likelihood that <you would lack evidence for c> given that <c is false>. Because <your lacking evidence for c> is just as likely on the assumption that c is true as it is on the assumption that c is false, <your lacking evidence for c> does not raise or lower the probability that c is true.
It’s about the specific claims made.
Absence of evidence *is* evidence of absence when someone makes a claim that includes evidence as part of the position or evidence could be reasonably expected if true.
Claiming that “prayer works” means that if true, one particular religious group would be richer, healthier, luckier etc. than everyone else. We don’t have any evidence of that. Every study of prayer concludes that it’s no better than chance. If true, we would expect this evidence to be in abundance but it’s not. Lack of evidence that the claim is true could reasonably lead you to conclude that the claim is false.
Claiming that aliens exist somewhere we would not expect evidence if true because they may be too far away to ever make contact. Lack of evidence here leads you no closer to concluding if the claim is true because we don’t expect evidence to be abundant.
ETA: Atheists are (for the most part) Agnostic about *any* god that could exist, but Atheist about the *specific* gods claimed to exist. The Same as Sagan not believing that aliens visit earth and abduct people in the mid-west but open to the idea about life somewhere in the universe.
It’s about the specific claims made.
Absence of evidence *is* evidence of absence when someone makes a claim that includes evidence as part of the position or evidence could be reasonably expected if true.
Claiming that “prayer works” means that if true, one particular religious group would be richer, healthier, luckier etc. than everyone else. We don’t have any evidence of that. Every study of prayer concludes that it’s no better than chance. If true, we would expect this evidence to be in abundance but it’s not. Lack of evidence that the claim is true could reasonably lead you to conclude that the claim is false.
Claiming that aliens exist somewhere we would not expect evidence if true because they may be too far away to ever make contact. Lack of evidence here leads you no closer to concluding if the claim is true because we don’t expect evidence to be abundant.
ETA: Atheists are (for the most part) Agnostic about *any* god that could exist, but Atheist about the *specific* gods claimed to exist. The Same as Sagan not believing that aliens visit earth and abduct people in the mid-west but open to the idea about life somewhere in the universe.
It’s about the specific claims made.
Absence of evidence *is* evidence of absence when someone makes a claim that includes evidence as part of the position or evidence could be reasonably expected if true.
Claiming that “prayer works” means that if true, one particular religious group would be richer, healthier, luckier etc. than everyone else. We don’t have any evidence of that. Every study of prayer concludes that it’s no better than chance. If true, we would expect this evidence to be in abundance but it’s not. Lack of evidence that the claim is true could reasonably lead you to conclude that the claim is false.
Claiming that aliens exist somewhere we would not expect evidence if true because they may be too far away to ever make contact. Lack of evidence here leads you no closer to concluding if the claim is true because we don’t expect evidence to be abundant.
ETA: Atheists are (for the most part) Agnostic about *any* god that could exist, but Atheist about the *specific* gods claimed to exist. The Same as Sagan not believing that aliens visit earth and abduct people in the mid-west but open to the idea about life somewhere in the universe.
Here is an example. There is either an even or an odd number of stars in the galaxy, but we do not have evidence that there is an even number of stars in the galaxy. But the fact that we lack evidence that there is an even number of stars is not itself evidence that there is an odd number of stars.
Here is a suggestion about when some fact f is evidence for a claim c. Some fact f is evidence for a claim c when, if we assume that c is true, the probability that f occurs is p1, and if we assume that c is false, the probability that f occurs is p2, and p1>p2. In other words, f is more likely given that c is true than it is given that c is false, and that is why f is evidence in favor of c.
Hopefully my example about the number of stars in the galaxy demonstrates Sagan’s idea that the lack evidence for c is not necessarily itself evidence that ~c. (~c means ‘it is not the case that c’ or ‘c is false’). This idea seems correct because there are cases where you lack evidence for c, but the likelihood that <you would lack evidence for c> given that <c is true> is just as high as the likelihood that <you would lack evidence for c> given that <c is false>. Because <your lacking evidence for c> is just as likely on the assumption that c is true as it is on the assumption that c is false, <your lacking evidence for c> does not raise or lower the probability that c is true.
Here is an example. There is either an even or an odd number of stars in the galaxy, but we do not have evidence that there is an even number of stars in the galaxy. But the fact that we lack evidence that there is an even number of stars is not itself evidence that there is an odd number of stars.
Here is a suggestion about when some fact f is evidence for a claim c. Some fact f is evidence for a claim c when, if we assume that c is true, the probability that f occurs is p1, and if we assume that c is false, the probability that f occurs is p2, and p1>p2. In other words, f is more likely given that c is true than it is given that c is false, and that is why f is evidence in favor of c.
Hopefully my example about the number of stars in the galaxy demonstrates Sagan’s idea that the lack evidence for c is not necessarily itself evidence that ~c. (~c means ‘it is not the case that c’ or ‘c is false’). This idea seems correct because there are cases where you lack evidence for c, but the likelihood that <you would lack evidence for c> given that <c is true> is just as high as the likelihood that <you would lack evidence for c> given that <c is false>. Because <your lacking evidence for c> is just as likely on the assumption that c is true as it is on the assumption that c is false, <your lacking evidence for c> does not raise or lower the probability that c is true.
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