A lack of evidence

[DrFaroohk]

As I get a bit older I've been following the news more and more. Particularly local or state. Not really into what happened at the G8 Summit last tuesday or how romney farted on stage.

Anyway, I see in a lot of criminal cases, they are using "lack of evidence" as evidence. Maybe that's valid, but to me seems fallacious.

For instance, in the case I follow of the missing girl - there's several comments where it's said "There is no evidence that anyone else was in that house."

It tends to come across as "We know for a fact that no one else was in that house."

When all it really means is "So far we haven't found anything. We could've missed it."

Same as "I didn't see it happen." often gets lumped in with "I saw this not happen." BIG difference between the two and yet people act like they're perfectly valid viewpoints with which to judge people.

[Andara Bledin]

It's a very common problem that people will equate a lack of evidence with an evidence of lack.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

It depends on context. "I didn't see that happen," for instance. For example, "I didn't see you juggling fire batons" would pretty much mean you weren't doing that, assuming I was there and conscious.

As for no evidence that someone else was there... same thing. It matters very much whether it's reasonable to think, in the absence of evidence, that someone might have been there, and also on whether anyone *looked* for evidence. For example (and yes, I'm terrible at making up examples) suppose you and your wife live alone out in the middle of nowhere. She's stabbed to death on the living room sofa. Your story is that she was fine when you went to take a shower and put your clothes in the wash, and when you came back out fifteen minutes later you just found her like that, and that somebody must have just come along and killed her for no reason you know of and then left. All the doors and windows are locked and undamaged, and so forth.... and it turns out she'd been cheating on you. "No evidence" that anyone else was there, in that situation, isn't *proof* that nobody was there, but it's not something that any reasonable person would ignore or discount.