In German, both “proof“ and “evidence“ translate to “Beweis“ which only has one single meaning – if something is “bewiesen“ then it is true and a fact. In English, I see the word “evidence“ used a lot for stuff that is obviously neither true nor fact. I’ve looked it up and don’t really see a difference between the meanings of “proof“ and “evidence“ – can anyone please ELI5?
In: 1
A fact is something that exists or that happened.
*The fact is that at the old insane asylum, I walked in on a man holding a bloody knife above an unresponsive woman’s body.*
Evidence is a fact or object that logically implies that another fact is probably true or that another event probably happened.
*If I hadn’t been making a video of my exploration of the old asylum, I might not have had any evidence of what I saw, other than my own testimony.*
Proof has different definitions in different contexts, but in general, proof is evidence that’s so overwhelmingly suggestive of a fact, that a reasonable person can’t argue rationally against it.
*The proof that no crime was committed, was when the woman got up and said “Excuse me, we’re filming a horror movie here, could you please leave?”*
So there can be facts without evidence, and evidence that isn’t proof.
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