Evidence of Absence - Overview

Overview

See also: Distinguishing an "absence of evidence" from "evidence of absence"

The difference between evidence that something is absent (e.g. an observation that suggests there were no dragons here today) and a simple absence of evidence (e.g. no careful research has been done) can be nuanced. Indeed, scientists will often debate whether an experiment's result should be considered evidence of absence, or if it remains absence of evidence. The debate is whether the experiment would have detected the phenomenon of interest if it was there.

The argument from ignorance for "absence of evidence" isn't necessarily fallacious, for example, that a potentially life saving new drug poses no long term health risk unless proven otherwise. On the other hand, were such an argument to rely imprudently on the lack of research to promote its conclusion, it would be considered an informal fallacy whereas the former can be a persuasive way to shift the burden of proof in an argument or debate. Carl Sagan criticized such "impatience with ambiguity" in cosmologist Martin Rees' maxim, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

In carefully designed scientific experiments, even null results can be evidence of absence. For instance, a hypothesis may be falsified if a vital predicted observation is not found empirically. (At this point, the underlying hypothesis may be rejected or revised and sometimes, additional ad hoc explanations may even be warranted.) Whether the scientific community will accept a null result as evidence of absence depends on many factors, including the detection power of the applied methods, and the confidence of the inference.