<story><title>The phrase &quot;no evidence&quot; is a red flag for bad science communication (2021)</title><url>https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence-is-a-red-flag</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aredox</author><text>Maybe I don&amp;#x27;t speak English well enough, but I thought that &amp;quot;evidence&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;testimony&amp;quot; were clearly different things. E.g. in a judicial setting, a testimony may need to be backed up by &amp;quot;evidence&amp;quot; - the latter implying &amp;quot;physical&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;objective&amp;quot; objects (documents, fingerprints, pictures).</text></item><item><author>roenxi</author><text>The thing is that &amp;quot;No Evidence&amp;quot; is just flat untrue. If Crazy Carl says that aliens abducted his prize turnip, that is in itself evidence that aliens did the deed. It is wildly unpersuasive evidence, but nonetheless evidence. People like to believe that &amp;quot;someone says&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t evidence, which is wildly disconnected from how human society works. Even alleged facts boil down to &amp;quot;someone says&amp;quot;. The vast majority of people who know the constant of gravity never measured it for example, they just work with what someone told them - an authority figure saying something is quite strong evidence.&lt;p&gt;Having evidence for untrue things also turns up naturally because of statistical mirages.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;No evidence&amp;quot; is a phrase that gets used in untruthful ways. There usually &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; evidence, of everything. True, false or irrelevant - there will be evidence of it in some form or another. The question is what standard the evidence reaches, not whether it exists.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Tomte</author><text>In German criminal procedure there are five types of evidence, this list is exhaustive:&lt;p&gt;Expert opinion, direct experience by judge, documents, testimony by witnesses, testimony by the accused.&lt;p&gt;So testimony is one type of evidence here.&lt;p&gt;In civil procedure it‘s the dame, just the terms differ slightly.</text></comment>
<story><title>The phrase &quot;no evidence&quot; is a red flag for bad science communication (2021)</title><url>https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence-is-a-red-flag</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aredox</author><text>Maybe I don&amp;#x27;t speak English well enough, but I thought that &amp;quot;evidence&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;testimony&amp;quot; were clearly different things. E.g. in a judicial setting, a testimony may need to be backed up by &amp;quot;evidence&amp;quot; - the latter implying &amp;quot;physical&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;objective&amp;quot; objects (documents, fingerprints, pictures).</text></item><item><author>roenxi</author><text>The thing is that &amp;quot;No Evidence&amp;quot; is just flat untrue. If Crazy Carl says that aliens abducted his prize turnip, that is in itself evidence that aliens did the deed. It is wildly unpersuasive evidence, but nonetheless evidence. People like to believe that &amp;quot;someone says&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t evidence, which is wildly disconnected from how human society works. Even alleged facts boil down to &amp;quot;someone says&amp;quot;. The vast majority of people who know the constant of gravity never measured it for example, they just work with what someone told them - an authority figure saying something is quite strong evidence.&lt;p&gt;Having evidence for untrue things also turns up naturally because of statistical mirages.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;No evidence&amp;quot; is a phrase that gets used in untruthful ways. There usually &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; evidence, of everything. True, false or irrelevant - there will be evidence of it in some form or another. The question is what standard the evidence reaches, not whether it exists.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stuartjohnson12</author><text>Evidence in the scientific sense is something is any information which increases the likelihood of a claim being true. The fact that someone is willing to testify is evidence that the claim is true - not bulletproof evidence, but evidence.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, people just saying something is extremely good evidence that it&amp;#x27;s true. My name is Stuart. I&amp;#x27;m 22 years old.</text></comment>