Is Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence? Part 1

1. Introduction

The famous British philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say if he found himself before God on Judgment Day and God said to him, “Why didn’t you believe in Me?” Russell shot right back: “Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!”

Many have taken what they consider to be an apparent lack of evidence for God as evidence that God doesn’t exist; that is, they look around, don’t see “enough” evidence and conclude that atheism is true.

But Russell realized that the inference from apparent lack of evidence for God to atheism is fallacious. That’s why in his famous debate in 1948 with Frederick Copleston he preferred the label “agnostic” instead of “atheist.” Yet today, many call themselves “atheists” when really they are agnostics.

Let’s first define some terms around the question “Does God exist?”

"Does God exist?"
Theism: "God exists"			Non-theism: "I don't believe in God"
	Agnosticism: “I don’t know if God exists”				Atheism: “God does not exist”
Hard Agnosticism: "I don't know if God exists and no one else can know either."				Soft Agnosticism: "I don't know if God exists, but it's possible for someone to know."

Notice a few things about these definitions. First, non-theism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive because you could be a non-theist and so fail to believe in God (i.e., you could lack belief in God) but you might also be an agnostic saying, “For all I know, God exists. I just don’t know.” Notice also how extreme hard agnosticism is, since it claims even more than atheists do; the hard agnostic says that everyone is wrong, both atheists and theists, and that they cannot know what they claim, even if they have apparently sound arguments! Little wonder, then, that hard agnosticism is sometimes called “ostrich agnosticism!”

There are sound arguments for God’s existence. Some of them are very good. But suppose it were not so; suppose all the arguments for God fail and there are no further good reasons to believe in God. What follows?—Atheism? It’s very important to realize that the answer to this question is NO. What follows is, at most, soft agnosticism.

2. When Does Absence of Evidence = Evidence of Absence? (Or, when is the inference from “I see none” to “there is none” valid?)

What I have said so far raises the question, When does the absence of evidence become evidence of absence? This is a good question because sometimes (but not always) the former implies the latter. Let’s start with some examples to work with.

Example 1. Elephants in the Room (Absence of Evidence = Evidence of Absence)
Someone asks, “Are there any elephants in the room?” After looking about and seeing none, I say, “No, I see none. There are no elephants in the room.”

The inference from “I see none” to “There are none” in this example is justified. With respect to elephants in this room, I’m not agnostic; rather, I positively affirm: There are no elephants in the room. In this case, absence of elephants in the room is evidence of their absence. But this inference doesn’t hold for Example 2.

Example 2. The Grand Canyon Fly (Absence of Evidence ≠ Evidence of Absence)
We’re standing atop the Grand Canyon and someone asks, “Is there a fly way down there?” After a quick glance I say, “No, I see none. There is no fly down there.”

As in the last example we move from “I see none” to “There is none”—but unlike the last example the conclusion is unjustified. Agnosticism regarding the fly is the appropriate response here. So in the Elephant Example we don’t have to be agnostics, but in the Grand Canyon Fly Example we do. Why? Notice that it is not the relative size of the object which creates the difference (The zookeeper might have asked you on your zoo trip, “Do you think an elephant is in the cage in the next room?” to which your reply might be agnosticism: “I have no idea. Maybe.”)

The salient difference between these two examples has entirely to do with your epistemic situation — which is, roughly, the extent and limits of your ability to know something through your primary sources of knowing (i.e. perception, memory, introspection, testimony, etc.) — and the fact that only in one situation (Elephants in the Room) do we expect to have knowledge which we lack. My epistemic situation regarding knowing whether an elephant is in the room is quite good, while my epistemic situation regarding knowing whether a fly resides at the bottom of the Grand Canyon is quite poor. Why? When are we in an epistemically good situation in order to say, “There is no X”? What conditions have to be met? At least two. In the absence of evidence of an object O you may deny that O exists only if these Criteria are met:

Evidence Expectation Criterion. If an object O existed, then we would expect there to be evidence for it.

Knowledge Expectation Criterion. If there were evidence of object O, then we would expect to have knowledge of the evidence.

In short, in the absence of evidence, we can deny the existence of something O only if we should expect to possess evidence sufficient to know that O exists but in fact lack it.

To prove his position the atheist has his task cut out for himself: What he must do is show that (a) the epistemic situation in which we find ourselves with respect to belief in God’s existence satisfies the above Criteria; and (b) demonstrate that we lack sufficient evidence for knowing that God exists. Equivalently, he must show that all the arguments for God are unsound and then argue that if God existed then we would expect to be in a position to know whether God exists. But as we’ll see, there is good reason to think (a) is false because our epistemic situation in which we find ourselves with respect to belief in God’s existence does not satisfy the above Criteria.

Source: ReasonableFaith.org

Part 2 is coming soon...

Is the Bible a Reliable Historical Account?

An interview with Lee Strobel about the Reliability of the Bible in Comparison with the Gnostic Gospels.

The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God

Matt Slick on the the Transcendental Argument for God's Existence:

An Atheist's Attempt at Refuting the Kalam Argument by Disproving the Universe

By Ryan Hemelaar

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a very strong argument for God's existence. However, the leader of the Brisbane Atheists thinks that he has found a way to refute it. To summarise his argument:

1. There is an equal amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe.
2. Negative one plus one equals zero.
3. Therefore, the sum of the total matter of the universe is equal to zero.
4. Therefore the universe does not exist.
5. Therefore the universe never had a beginning.
6. Therefore there was no cause to the universe

As you can probably already see, there are many problems with this argument.

Firstly, there is no evidence to think that there is an equal amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe. Some Big Bang theorists speculate that there should have been equal amounts of matter and anti-matter made at the Big Bang. However, no anti-matter domains have been detected in space within 20 megaparsecs (6.17*10^20 km) of the Earth.

Even one of the leading advocates in the search for antimatter in space, Samuel Ting, laments:

"At the beginning, equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created [in the “big bang”]. Now there seems to be only matter. There have been theoretical speculations about the disappearance of antimatter, but no experimental support." ^[1]

Secondly, it is a total misunderstanding to think that even if there was an equal amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe that therefore nothing exists. That is as illogical as saying that if I have a certain amount of debts and a certain amount of money, therefore I have zero money. Even if on balance it does equal out as nothing, the debts still exist and the money still exists, they're not nothing. Similarily, even if the matter and anti-matter were on balance, equal, the anti-matter still exists and the matter still exists!

Thirdly, his conclusion that the universe does not exist I think is absurd. As Descartes said, I at least exist. Even when I doubt that I exist, who is there to do the doubting? I doubt, therefore I am. There simply must be something that exists.

So in conclusion, this Atheist's attempt at refuting the Kalam Cosmological Argument falls down at numerous points. Therefore, if one cannot refute the Kalam argument, a rational person is still obligated to believe that God exists.

Notes

^[1] Antia, M., Ready to takeoff, antimatter experiment takes some flak, Science, 280:1339, 1998.

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 7

The last sign, #7, is “Lizards lose limbs”

Australian lizards called skinks are dropping their limbs to become more like snakes. And, according to a genetic family tree, some skinks have gone snaky in just 3.6 million years, relatively fast in evolutionary time. Scientists said the skinks’ lifestyle appears to be driving the change: They spend most of their time swimming through sand or soil. Limbs are not only unnecessary for this, they may be a hindrance. Once a skink goes snaky, they never go back, the researchers add. One of the snakelike skinks is shown here.¹²

If amoebas are going to evolve into avocados and archaeologists the organisms continually need to produce new structures. For natural selection to change a fish into an amphibian, for example, it needs to put legs on a fish. But here we see a process, a mutation that takes legs off. Mutations also remove eyes from fish. Mutations are going the wrong way. So, how did the legs get on the lizard in the first place? Not by natural selection. Note too that it does not take millions of years for a lizard to lose its legs. Just one mutation in one generation will do the trick. The loss of legs on lizards is consistent with, and thus points to the truth of, the biblical account of how the world came to be the way it is today—lizard leg loss is not a “sign of evolution”.

Source: Creation Ministries

< Part 6

Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 6

Sign #6: “Intermediate form supports flatfish evolution”

Flounder, sole, halibut and other flatfish have long struck biologists as evolutionary oddities: Both their eyes are on one side of the head, an adaptation that allows them to lie flat on the ocean bottom while keeping their eyes on the lookout for passing prey. The transition happens in the youth of flatfish, one eye migrating up and over the top of the head. Opponents of evolution argued that this curious anatomy could not have evolved gradually, as suggested by the theory of natural selection. That’s because there would be no advantage for an intermediate form –a fish with an only partially migrated eye. But now scientists have found those intermediate forms in museum collections. The 50 million-year-old fossils, including Heteronectes chantei shown here, have a partially displaced eye.

When flatfish die today they are not generally fossilized. Scavengers continue to eat their remains until there is nothing left. To fossilize a flatfish you need to bury it under sediment quickly. If a young flatfish was suddenly buried when its eye had only migrated part of the way around its head it would look just like the fossil pictured. It would not be a new species.

The sedimentary rocks of the world are filled with fossils that point to rapid burial. One example is a fish entombed in the act of swallowing another fish. Another is an ichthyosaur snap frozen in sediment while giving birth. The global Flood described in the Bible explains why we find so many fossils buried in sediment laid down by water all over the earth. Buried only 4,500 years ago, not 50 million years, sign # 6 is a powerful sign for creation.

Source: Creation Ministries

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Seven Signs of Evolution Refuted - Part 5

Sign #5 is “Toxic toad evolves longer legs”

A toxic toad, introduced in 1936 to wipe out a beetle species wreaking havoc on Australia’s sugar cane crop, has become an uncontrollable pest itself, evolving longer legs to help it hop across the country at an ever-increasing clip. For their first 20 years or so in the country, they spread at a pace of 6 miles per year. They now cruise at about 30 miles per year. Why? Researchers found that the toads leading the cross-country march had legs that were 6 percent longer than those of the stragglers. The added length gives more speed, which permits the long-legged toads to secure the best habitat at the newly conquered terrain.

A toad with longer legs is just a toad. It is not evolution—I.e, a process of unlimited change, with the capacity for adding lots of new information (and thus potentially turning a toad into something radically different in time). It’s clear that all that is happening is a simple genetic shift in the proportion of a population having a particular characteristic that already exists in that population—in this case, long legs. The genetic information for long-leggedness has not appeared out of nowhere (i.e. evolved) but is part of the variation built into the toad kind at Creation.

Such simple shifting of relative gene frequencies can go either way. A year after the invasion front arrived at their research site near the city of Darwin, researchers found that the average fell back to 40% of body length, as the shorter-legged toads caught up.

A long-legged toad is still an amphibian and is not evolving into something else, such as a reptile, as the evolutionists claim happened in the past. Think of the fundamental design changes needed to transform an amphibian into a reptile. For example, toads grow from tadpoles whereas lizards hatch straight from eggs. A toad with longer legs is no closer to becoming a new species than a human with longer arms. The remarkable life cycle of the toad is an example of intelligent design and points to creation.

Source: Creation Ministries

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