Talk:Scientific evidence

Theorem?

From the article:

Scientific evidence is evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theorem or hypothesis.

Shouldn't "theorem" be replaced with "theory"? -- Wonderstruck 14:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I say yes - a "theorem" is for mathematics. I'll boldly make the correction.  :-) gnomelock 23:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Real smart. People edit this page, have corrections suggested and then show they still don't understand the words they are correcting from or to. 86.11.86.4 07:34, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! It would be constructive if you say what the words mean to you !

I would say 'Theory' is general - the whole sum science of understanding : 'a Theorem' is a single specific 'atomic' ( = indivisible) unit of theory. For an example of less-abused words that have the same relationship, contrast 'Strategy' and 'a Strategem' ! Once the distinction is made, you will think twice before talking of 'a theory' or 'a strategy' - they would have to be different 'universes', such as "Number Theory is a theory in Mathematics" or "Hitler's strategy was a strategy of deception".

I may be alone in this, but dictionaries seem to support this. Language does tend to move on, though, leaving the dictionaries behind.

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 02:45, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

First sentence of this article is nonsense

This starts out saying:-

"Scientific evidence is evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis."

That is a logical fallacy. That means any evidence of any kind is scientific if it either supports or counters a scientific theory or hypothesis. So if I say, I believe every action has an equal and opposite reaction except under water, the evidence of my belief is scientific evidence.

[Well, actually such a statement would in fact be evidence; but, there's a REALLY fundamental flaw here: there is NO SUCH THING AS "SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE." You have the scientific method, period. Anything, typically "observations," may be considered as evidence, provided such is analyzed scientifically. The word scientific applies to the process, not the evidence.] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.99.66.65 (talk) 03:55, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Well done Wikipedia for getting it wrong again and in the first sentence too - probably not the first time. 86.11.86.4 07:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are misled by your own use of words.

Is a scientific theory ( or, better, a scientific theorem ! ) really supported or countered by your belief ? Will your belief cause it to stand or fall ? Belief is not evidence !

"... the evidence of my belief is scientific evidence."

Do you have evidence that Newton's 3rd Law doesn't work underwater ?

What you say sounds a bit like faith, rather than evidence

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. "

You could consider there to be two kinds of evidence: 'scientific-evidence' and 'belief-evidence'. Science is not based on belief-evidence. Even if you disbelieve Science, it still works (for others, at least)! 'Belief-evidence' that is not empirical (ie not scientific-evidence) is rejected by Science. It is only valid in the fields of Magic or Religion.

Note that I am not saying that only Science is real ! Placebo outcomes are real, but not scientific-evidence. Placebo effect is something of a mis-nomer or oxymoron, since 'effect' implies 'cause'. The effect is real, but the cause is not.

In the case where you believe that a scientifically-valid medicine will not cure you, or even make your illness worse, I suppose that Science may fail. Ethical considerations may prevent investigations, even if the evidence were to be considered 'scientific'.

You seem to believe that saying something makes it true. That would be a false and dangerous belief.

( In my opinion, of course ! )

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 02:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

You could argue that the definition is slightly circular. I can arbritarily and subjectively decide to exclude evidence by calling it unscientific. Similar to the way 'Survival of the Fittest' begs the question 'Fittest for what ? ' whose only answer is 'Fittest to survive ! '. Or am I confused ? --195.137.93.171 (talk) 04:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

In modern web parlance - as a 'meme' or 'snowclone':

"obvious troll is obvious"

"fittest survivor is fittest"

"scientific evidence is scientific"

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 21:49, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I tried to find a web definition of scientific evidence, but didn't find any, so we'll have to rely on consensus. Feel free to adapt it to what you find more correct. Mikael Häggström (talk) 14:09, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Various edits

If either of the propositions is not accepted as true, the conclusion will not be deemed to follow from them (it may or may not be true).

The explanation seems unnecessary.

Evidence is information, such as facts, coupled with principles of inference (the act or process of deriving a conclusion), that make information relevant to the support or negation of a hypothesis .

This is rubbish, I find no evidence that anyone, besides the editor who wrote this, defines evidence in this way. Also, it's obliquely contradicted by the circumstantial evidence article, which —of course— lacks citations. I hope no one misses it. :S (This[1] is the closest thing to verification I could find.)

Scientific evidence is evidence where the dependence of the evidence on principles of inference is not conceded, enabling others to examine the background beliefs or assumptions employed to determine if facts are relevant to the support of or falsification of a hypothesis.

This is just terrible. Rewording it to:

Scientific evidence is evidence that does not concede the dependence of the evidence on principles of inference. This allows the relevancy of facts to a hypothesis to be determined by examining the assumptions made.

I think this is clearer. I hope it still means the same thing.PatheticCopyEditor (talk) 21:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, I think it was clearer the first time. Unless someone can relate this in plain English with appropriate citations, I suggest that this paragraph be deleted.

--Coconutporkpie (talk) 05:19, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

"Scientific evidence is evidence that does not concede the dependence of the evidence..."

(Under "Principles of inference"): Unless someone can rewrite this paragraph in plain English, I suggest that it be deleted entirely.

--Coconutporkpie (talk) 05:25, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Merge this article

Can anyone explain why this article should not be merged into the article Empirical evidence? That article defines its subject as "a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation". Presumably that could be used to "either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis". Is there something that makes certain evidence so acquired especially "scientific" and different enough to merit its own page? It seems to me that this article merely cobbles together various elements (inference, the scientific method, statistical analysis) with no logical cohesion, and that those subjects are adequately treated elsewhere with regard to the scientific disciplines.

--Coconutporkpie (talk) 05:54, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Empiricism is defined as "... a theory which states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience." It has been argued that not all scientific evidence is empirical—that scientific evidence requires deduction, understanding, judgement, and logic (i.e., interpretation) as well as observation and sensory experience. I'm not sure that this question has been resolved by philosophers of science. Thus, I suggest that "Scientific evidence" and "Empirical evidence" should remain separate articles. Sunray (talk) 20:26, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Not just pure science

This article is about the concept of scientific evidence in pure science.

This statement implies that scientific evidence is relevant in pure science, but not in applied research, which is incorrect.

For that reason, I changed it to:

This article is about knowledge derived from the scientific method. For the legal term, see Scientific evidence (law).

Merger proposal (in the opposite direction)

@Sunray, Coconutporkpie, Speednat, Gregbard, Trabucogold, Sunrise, K, LlywelynII, Gehrlich, IntoThinAir, Abb3w, and Diannaa: As pointed out in the section Merge this article, Scientific evidence should not be merged into Empirical evidence, but a merge in the opposite direction makes sense because the sourced content in the article Empirical evidence is not sufficiently elaborated to justify a second article. In fact, the argument supports a merging, because separating two views on a same subject that are related by a discussion in the literature is against WP:CFORK. The non sourced content in the article Empirical evidence would not be merged unless sources are provided. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:38, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

• No, disagree —- keep the articles separate, they are separate subjects 10stone5 (talk) 22:38, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

  The issue raised was not that the two articles have the same subject.

• against merge: Scientific evidence involves high scientific standards, which do not apply to empirical evidence at large, see Empirical evidence#Scientific evidence. The difference is also reflected in the fact that the 2 articles have quite different contents. I've expanded the article Empirical evidence in various ways recently, which diffuses the argument that "the sourced content in the article Empirical evidence is not sufficiently elaborated to justify a second article".--Phlsph7 (talk) 06:44, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

  I accept the argument for now, because we need to address a more important NPOV issue. It seems now that a scientific method is presented in wiki's voice as being the scientific method. Even if we think that a scientific method is well accepted as the scientific method, this is sufficiently controversial to make the use of wiki's voice a violation of NPOV. This issue might be present in Scientific method itself. I have not looked at this yet. This issue must be addressed first, because it influences how clear is the distinction between scientific evidence and empirical evidence. Dominic Mayers (talk) 10:16, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I can follow your train of thought. Are you saying that the scientific method is not properly presented in wikipedia articles? Or are you criticizing the (scientific?) standards used here to categorize contributions as NPOV? In any case, it seems you agree that the merger should be suspended for now, in which case I would go ahead and remove the templates. This is a good source for the relation between the two types of evidence and for why science should ignore some forms of evidence. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:44, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

  I agree that a more appropriate tag should be used. In your question, you still refer to the scientific method (with the singular instead of the scientific methods in plural) as if there was a unique shared view on what is science. This is the NPOV issue. But, after thinking more about it, I see another issue. I do not think that the idea that some empirical evidence are scientific evidence works. Instead, it is how the empirical evidence is used that might not be scientific in accordance with a scientific method. So, there are two distinct issues here. First, it is not clear that we have a single view on the scientific method. Second, even if we adopt one view, an empirical evidence is never by itself rejected as being non scientific. Only one particular way to use it might not be scientific in accordance with this view. Dominic Mayers (talk) 11:03, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

  Reference to "the scientific method" seems to be very common in the literature on this subject, but I agree with you that it is doubtful that there is univocal agreement on what it is supposed to be like or whether talk of different scientific methods would be more appropriate. You've raised some interesting points about the difference between evidence and its usage. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:42, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

  It's typical that we use the singular in such case. For example, we will speak of the ideology of crusading, even though when asked most historians admit that the ideology was different in different times and locations. In the specific context that concerns us, the use of the singular when referring to the scientific method as a way to distinguish between scientific evidence and empirical evidence is misleading. The point is that scientific evidence is different for the different scientific methods and the distinction becomes fuzzy. Moreover, I am even too generous here in admitting that scientific evidence is different for different scientific methods, because the method itself cannot create such a distinction irrespective of the specific usage of the empirical evidence. So, it's really very problematic. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

  One point of distinction, raised in the paper mentioned earlier, is that some empirical evidence, like anecdotal evidence, does not qualify as scientific evidence due to the high standards involved. This point remains valid even if we allow that different scientist may have different understandings of what the scientific method is. In this case, the different scientists would agree that there is a discrepancy but might disagree for which cases it arises. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:55, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Empirical vs scientific evidence in the scientific method

The only reason why I agreed to remove the tags is that significant edits were made at Empirical evidence and other issues must now be considered. People see RfCs and merge proposals as votes and we are not ready for a vote any more. A merge is not excluded. It will depend on the outcome of our analysis of the sources regarding NPOV and other policies. So, the removal of the tags does not mean that the discussion regarding a merge has ended, but only that we are not any more at a stage for a yes/no answer. This required discussion started here, but I moved it in talk:Empirical evidence#Possible merge into Scientific Evidence (moved from Scientific evidence talk page) where it fits better. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:46, 23 June 2021 (UTC)