Hi Alex, nice post. To what extent would you apply this principle in general, especially with respect to so-called "conspiracy theories"? After all, countervailing narratives will almost always be harder to find and much weaker sourced than mainstream narratives due to funding, publishing, reporting, reputational and other incentives. How would you re-weight available evidence in light of this, if at all?
Interesting reading. As always, you lay out a well-argued and persuasive case. But I think you overstate your case. Let me tell you why, in a way intended less as criticism and more as a suggestion.
First, drawing adverse inferences is a tricky business. As Cicero is said to have said (but didn't): “Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.” As a logical matter, lack of evidence is not evidence. Silence is ambiguous. It doesn't prove anything one way or the other.
Drawing inferences from any piece of evidence is necessarily subjective, and that's doubly so for drawing adverse inferences from silence. That is an inductive process, not a deductive one. It is suggestive, not probative, and thus subject to abuse.
That potential for abuse was clear enough even back in 1789 that a prohibition was written into the Constitution against drawing adverse inferences from a criminal defendant's silence. To this day a judge will instruct a jury that it cannot draw any such adverse inference.
And that's a good rule, proven time and again. Demanding that a party produce evidence to prove their innocence, and then making an adverse inference against them if they don't, doesn't lead to truth and justice. Just the opposite. Truth and justice demands that a defendant be presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
That's why demanding that China produce documents to exonerate itself doesn't help the search for truth, but hurts. China might have valid reasons to want to keep its documents secret. Even if China did produce exonerating documents, those making the demands could just call them fake (which might well be true). Drawing adverse inferences is the argument of conspiracy theorists, not people looking for the truth.
Second, those who argue that a lab leak is the likely cause of the pandemic (and I am one) really do only have inductive evidence to rely on. There's little if any deductive evidence (what you call direct evidence) to support the lab leak theory. And that's a problem. Inductive evidence is only "consistent with" evidence, and to build a case you need "proof of" evidence.
That's an important difference, one similar to that in the scientific method. When using the scientific method you are free to use inductive evidence (statistics, probabilities, intuition, guesses, models, observations) to build your hypothesis, but you cannot use inductive evidence to test your hypothesis. You need deductive evidence to do that.
Third, does overstating your case really matter? I think so. Overstating your case (a) is counterproductive, (b) is unfair, and (c) destroys trust. If we demand that people provide evidence or respond to our claims, their response is rarely to do what we demand. Instead, they clam up (and hire lawyers). If we accuse people of causing the death of 18 million people but don't provide proof, we are not being fair. If we claim that we have proved our case when we can offer only inductive evidence, we destroy trust (especially if we make that claim as scientists or lawyers).
Much better to understate our case rather than overstate it. Instead of saying, "I'm 99% sure that the virus leaked from a lab", we might say, "I have seen a lot of evidence that is consistent with a lab leak, but it's hard to say I've seen any real proof". That approach will (I think) be more productive, more fair, and more likely to build trust.
Hi Alex, nice post. To what extent would you apply this principle in general, especially with respect to so-called "conspiracy theories"? After all, countervailing narratives will almost always be harder to find and much weaker sourced than mainstream narratives due to funding, publishing, reporting, reputational and other incentives. How would you re-weight available evidence in light of this, if at all?
Interesting reading. As always, you lay out a well-argued and persuasive case. But I think you overstate your case. Let me tell you why, in a way intended less as criticism and more as a suggestion.
First, drawing adverse inferences is a tricky business. As Cicero is said to have said (but didn't): “Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.” As a logical matter, lack of evidence is not evidence. Silence is ambiguous. It doesn't prove anything one way or the other.
Drawing inferences from any piece of evidence is necessarily subjective, and that's doubly so for drawing adverse inferences from silence. That is an inductive process, not a deductive one. It is suggestive, not probative, and thus subject to abuse.
That potential for abuse was clear enough even back in 1789 that a prohibition was written into the Constitution against drawing adverse inferences from a criminal defendant's silence. To this day a judge will instruct a jury that it cannot draw any such adverse inference.
And that's a good rule, proven time and again. Demanding that a party produce evidence to prove their innocence, and then making an adverse inference against them if they don't, doesn't lead to truth and justice. Just the opposite. Truth and justice demands that a defendant be presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
That's why demanding that China produce documents to exonerate itself doesn't help the search for truth, but hurts. China might have valid reasons to want to keep its documents secret. Even if China did produce exonerating documents, those making the demands could just call them fake (which might well be true). Drawing adverse inferences is the argument of conspiracy theorists, not people looking for the truth.
Second, those who argue that a lab leak is the likely cause of the pandemic (and I am one) really do only have inductive evidence to rely on. There's little if any deductive evidence (what you call direct evidence) to support the lab leak theory. And that's a problem. Inductive evidence is only "consistent with" evidence, and to build a case you need "proof of" evidence.
That's an important difference, one similar to that in the scientific method. When using the scientific method you are free to use inductive evidence (statistics, probabilities, intuition, guesses, models, observations) to build your hypothesis, but you cannot use inductive evidence to test your hypothesis. You need deductive evidence to do that.
Third, does overstating your case really matter? I think so. Overstating your case (a) is counterproductive, (b) is unfair, and (c) destroys trust. If we demand that people provide evidence or respond to our claims, their response is rarely to do what we demand. Instead, they clam up (and hire lawyers). If we accuse people of causing the death of 18 million people but don't provide proof, we are not being fair. If we claim that we have proved our case when we can offer only inductive evidence, we destroy trust (especially if we make that claim as scientists or lawyers).
Much better to understate our case rather than overstate it. Instead of saying, "I'm 99% sure that the virus leaked from a lab", we might say, "I have seen a lot of evidence that is consistent with a lab leak, but it's hard to say I've seen any real proof". That approach will (I think) be more productive, more fair, and more likely to build trust.
Truth teller
https://m.beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2021/11/explosive-dr-david-martin-who-they-are-the-names-and-faces-of-the-people-who-are-killing-humanity-video-3761634.html