Absence of Evidence (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Thursday, February 28, 2008, 15:22 (6111 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George Jellis writes: "One's belief should be proportional to the evidence." And: "The more usual situation is that we have good evidence...and can assess our degree of belief or knowledge appropriately." I agree with this, and when you say you have "a problem with this distinction between knowledge and belief" (referring to my previous response), I take your point. The borderlines, as we keep seeing over and over again on this website, are blurred. So too are the borderlines between what you call "good evidence" and other evidence. A clear-cut case in the discussions that have taken place between you and me would be natural selection, where we both agree that the evidence is "good" enough for us both to believe the theory. Alas, most other cases are not so clear-cut! - However, as you say, we needn't go over the rest of the ground again. It would, though, be interesting to hear how others define knowledge, belief, evidence and agnosticism in relation to one another, and I would be especially interested to have such definitions applied to the "near death experiences" to which David Turell has drawn our attention. The Pim van Lommel site might well set a few sparks flying.