Evidence of absence is evidence of any kind that suggests something is missing or that it does not exist. A simple example of evidence of absence: A baker never fails to put finished pies on her windowsill, so if there is no pie on the windowsill, then no finished pies exist. This can be formulated as modus tollens in propositional logic: P implies Q, but Q is false, therefore P is false.
Per the traditional aphorism, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", positive evidence of this kind is distinct from a lack of evidence or ignorance of that which should have been found already, had it existed. In this regard Irving Copi writes:
In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.Read more about Evidence Of Absence: Overview, "You Can't Prove A Negative", Existence of God
Famous quotes containing the words evidence of, evidence and/or absence:
“We perceive that the schemers return again and again to common sense and labor. Such is the evidence of history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“However backwards the world has been in former ages in the discovery of such points as GOD never meant us to know,—we have been more successful in our own days:Mthousands can trace out now the impressions of this divine intercourse in themselves, from the first moment they received it, and with such distinct intelligence of its progress and workings, as to require no evidence of its truth.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose application of the word. Consider the flea!—incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)