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

There was a consensus to remove the tags that proposed a merge, because a deeper issue must be addressed first: can we really distinguish between scientific evidence vs empirical evidence using a reference at the scientific method. I argued above that we cannot. To continue the argument here I decided to search on Google with the query '"empirical evidence" "scientific evidence"'. Here are the first articles that I found and seemed relevant:

• Science Produces Explanations That Can Be Tested Using Empirical Evidence.
• What is empirical evidence?
• Empirical Evidence: A Definition
• Empirical Evidence
• Empirical Evidence vs Scientific Research-Based Evidence in Aromatherapy and Herbalism
• Empirical Evidence: Its Nature and Sources
• Expert opinion vs. empirical evidence: The precautionary principle applied to GM crops

I will add other articles to the list. Some articles might not be from academic sources, but they are still useful to get the common view, though I agree that the view of philosophers of science is more important. A key point is that I do not cherry pick. I include every article that seems relevant. I am not finished creating that list. I will continue later, because I have other responsibilities to address now in my life. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:00, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I think everyone agrees that empirical evidence is used to confirm scientific hypotheses. The central question is whether all and only empirical evidence is used to confirm scientific hypotheses, i.e. that there is no non-empirical scientific evidence and that there is no empirical evidence that does not qualify as scientific evidence. There are two reliable sources mentioned in Empirical evidence#Scientific evidence that deny the latter condition: [2] & [3]. Listing google searches may be a good way to get a first impression but in the end appeal should be made only to reliable sources. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:16, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, we will give a lot more weight to the well established philosophers of science, but if I see a lot of philosophers of science using empirical evidence interchangeably with scientific evidence, then the distinction becomes a specific point of view seen by few philosophers and organizing the entire topic on the basis of this view in wiki's voice is against NPOV. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:20, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

In some contexts, the difference between scientific evidence and empirical evidence may not be of importance, which is why in these contexts the terms may be used interchangeably. In other contexts, the difference matters and is then explicitly articulated, as the sources show.

In order to avoid having a pointless discussion: could you please clarify which change to the article "Scientific evidence" you wish to justify with your arguments since you already mentioned that you are not pursuing the merger proposal for now.--Phlsph7 (talk) 18:24, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The only reason why I agreed to remove the tags is that people see these kind of proposals as votes and we are not ready for a vote. I cannot say any more that I propose a merge, but it is not excluded either. It will depend on the outcome of our analysis of the sources. We might eventually ask advices at specialized notice boards (for undue weight, use of wiki's voice and misuse of the terminology), but before we do that we must do our homework and consider the sources. My bet is that the distinction between scientific and empirical evidence is only made when an author, perhaps rightfully, says that in accordance with "the" scientific method, this "empirical evidence" in a specific context is not valid. It's just the simple idea that when the evidence is not obtained in accordance with an accepted scientific method, then we may perhaps call it empirical evidence, but not scientific evidence. I am concerned that this simple point is artificially expanded in a way that is not done in sources, except perhaps one or two isolated sources, and thus is given undue weight. Worst, it is even done in wiki's voice, which also breaks NPOV. It is also inadequate, because it makes Wikipedia emphasize an interpretation of the two expressions that does not seem to be the most general interpretation in sources: most sources seem to use the two expressions interchangeably. That's why we must consider the sources. Right now, what I see from the sources that I collected is that it is given undue weight, the use of wiki's voice is not appropriate and there is a misuse of the terminology. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I just now read the sources [4] & [5] that you mentioned. These two sources are not so relevant. Sure, Heather Browning was a PdD student in philosophy at the time, which is significant, but the article itself is about a very narrow subject published in the specialized journal Animal Sentience. It's a "commentary on Birch on Precautionary Principle". It also does not mention empirical evidence, but uses the expression "anecdotal evidence" instead. The other source is more relevant. The subject Why not all evidence is scientific evidence is directly about scientific evidence. It is published in a journal on epistemology. Carlos Santana seems a professor of philosophy. According to Google Scholar, the article has received two citations (besides the citations by Santana himself), which is not that much. But, in any case, the paper also does not mention by itself "empirical evidence". It only mentions "shaky empirical evidence" inside a quote of another article. Besides, in this expression "empirical evidence" is not different from "scientific evidence"—"shaky" was needed to qualify it. So, we have no support at all for the terminology "empirical evidence" having a different meaning than "scientific evidence". It remains to consider the concept itself, irrespective of its name "empirical evidence". Sure, the concept that some observations do not qualify as scientific evidence in a scientific method is interesting to me. However, of course, this is not enough. We definitively need to find more sources to justify an article on this. Hopefully, if we find these sources, they will suggest a less problematic name than "empirical evidence" for the article. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:10, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't see a point in continuing the discussion here since the merger is off and you haven't made up your mind about what you want to change or whether there should be a change at all. The discussion on article-talk-pages should be directly related to changes to this article and not just about the topic in general, see WP:TALK. So it might be better to move the discussion to the user-space. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:31, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

But discussing sources needed to verify the article is the most natural and important thing to do in a talk page and it's exactly what I am doing here. Just recently I added two reliable sources that both use scientific evidence and empirical evidence interchangeably, but the key point is that I am sincerely looking for at the least one reliable source that makes the distinction that Wikipedia is now making in wiki's voice against NPOV. Phlsph7, please help me find at the least one source that makes this distinction. One source will not be sufficient for a global organization that names articles as they are named now, but at the least we will be able to mention it in this article with a proper attribution to avoid doing it in wiki's voice. Dominic Mayers (talk) 09:59, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Clarification added. This section mainly concerns important issues created by recent edits made on Empirical evidence in the hope that the merge will become unnecessary. Phlsph7 argued that the thread was pointless, because it does not concern this article. I felt Phlsph7 had a valid point, because the issues more directly concern Empirical evidence. So, I moved the thread in talk:Empirical evidence. However, Phlsph7 reverted this move, because his criticisms were now out of context. Fine, we keep the thread here, but then it is important that we all understand that many issues here are about Empirical evidence and yet indirectly related to this article, because of the possible merge that these may imply. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:05, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't want to spend more time on this thread, but in the hope that this settles the issue: this source talks about non-empirical evidence confirming theories in physics. Other similar sources: [6] & [7]. --Phlsph7 (talk) 16:44, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

These sources say that the notion of evidence does not need to be restricted to empirical evidence. But, we all agree with that. This has nothing to do with the issue that I raise, which is about the distinction between empirical evidence and scientific evidence. The third source goes more specifically into an argument why non-empirical evidence are important, but it still has nothing to do with the current issue. In other words, despite all our sincere efforts to find sources that discuss the distinction between empirical evidence and scientific evidence, we found nothing. The current argument to distinguish Empirical evidence from Scientific evidence seems to be that Scientific evidence is Empirical evidence, but in the narrower context of a specific scientific method. This argument fails totally, because the article Scientific evidence is not narrow at all, in particular, it is not at all restricted to evidence obtained in random control trials as suggested in the lead. It is very general. Sure, not all observations are scientific evidence, in particular, they must be repeatable and inter-subjective, but these are very basic notions that should be covered in this article. In other words, this article should cover every thing that must be said about empirical evidence as the concept is defined and used in sources. This should be obvious because, despite our efforts, we did not find any sources that make a distinction between scientific and empirical evidence. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:56, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I am not opposed to the importance of random control trials and all the criteria adopted in evidence-based medicine and other evidence-based practices. However, this cannot justify a distinction between empirical evidence and scientific evidence. Instead, the point of view that supports these evidence-based practices as central in science, even as a definition of science, should be explicitly included in the article. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:06, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Merge of Empirical evidence into this article

I accepted to remove the tags to merge Empirical evidence in this article, because I felt we should discuss locally the new situation obtained after recent edits on Empirical evidence. A local discussion before a RfC is a policy in Wikipedia and a merge request is like a special RfC. In particular, we absolutely needed to do our homework and search the sources, if any, that justify Empirical evidence as a separate article. We found nothing. @Biogeographist and Phlsph7: If there is any further discussion that may happen here before I put the tags back, please let us do that. This is the optimal approach for those who will come to help in the discussion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I too oppose the proposed merge for the reason stated in Empirical evidence § Scientific evidence: Scientific evidence is closely related to empirical evidence. But there is a sense in which not all empirical evidence constitutes scientific evidence. The reason for this is that the scientific standards for evidence are high and therefore exclude certain evidence that is legitimate in other contexts. I think this article, Scientific evidence, which is currently underdeveloped, should be mainly about those "high standards" for scientific evidence. I'm sure there are differing views about those standards, just as there are differing views on the demarcation problem in general. Deborah Mayo, for example, would say that scientific evidence is evidence that has survived "severe testing". She has a chapter on this, among chapters by other philosophers, in: Achinstein, Peter, ed. (2005). Scientific evidence: philosophical theories and applications. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801881188. OCLC 56617162. One of William Bechtel's standards mentioned in this article also strikes me as an important differentiator of scientific evidence from other empirical evidence: strong coherence with well corroborated mechanisms (i.e. "how it works"). Scientific evidence (according to some standards like the one from Bechtel that I mentioned) strongly coheres with a mechanismic understanding of why the evidence answers a particular question. This is especially important for facts that are not observable. The article Empirical evidence is more general than this. Biogeographist (talk) 18:57, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I don't get your point. What is a high standard is a view point. Just to remove a possible misunderstanding, I have no issue against Wikipedia having its own scientific standard to define what are reliable sources in scientific articles or in any article that includes scientific content. Of course, Wikipedia must adopt its own scientific standard, just as it adopts its own style standard WP:MOS. But this is different from Wikipedia saying in wiki's voice in an article that some standards are better than others. It is very very important to distinguish these two ways that relate Wikipedia to scientific standards. It's totally against NPOV to create an article that is supposed to be about a description of these high standards. Is it you and Phlsph7 that draws the line? The argument that you offer seems also a bit theoretical (not based on the current situation), because the current article says basically nothing about these high standards. It mostly discusses philosophical considerations that are very general. It should discuss the standards, but this in itself does not implies that we should have a separate article for the "low" standards. The general nature of Scientific evidence as it is now is natural and does not justify this separation. Again, who draw the line? Moreover, you have not said a word about my point that no sources at all make a distinction between empirical evidence and scientific evidence. I am very sad if we cannot have some agreement. At the least, we should agree that "Empirical evidence" is a bad choice to make that distinction, because it's not at all the way "empirical evidence" is used in the literature. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:21, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

As I said above, this article is currently underdeveloped. I was suggesting some ways that this article could develop; that's why my suggestions don't match what is currently in the article.

I was not at all suggesting that Wikipedia saying in wiki's voice in an article that some standards are better than others is a good idea. That needs to be fixed, as anywhere else in the encyclopedia; for example, I agree with you that what this article says about RCTs in the lead needs to be referenced and qualified.

You said: It's totally against NPOV to create an article that is supposed to be about a description of these high standards. No, if we report all that we can find about what experts say in reliable published sources and report it as their views, that is actually the definition of NPOV.

You said: the current article says basically nothing about these high standards. Again, as I said, this article is currently underdeveloped. And "standards" isn't the only relevant word: definitions, criteria, and factors are appropriate synonyms, and there are probably others.

You said: no sources at all make a distinction between empirical evidence and scientific evidence. That's not true; relevant sources have been presented.

You said: it's not at all the way "empirical evidence" is used in the literature. This is the only claim in your comment above that strikes me as relevant, but as I see it, the way "empirical evidence" is used in the literature would support merging Scientific evidence into Empirical evidence, and not the other direction, as you proposed.

My point is that the reasons for keeping the articles separate are stronger than the reasons for merging Empirical evidence into this one, but I can see a case for merging Scientific evidence into Empirical evidence. Biogeographist (talk) 20:20, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

We progress here and I recognize you. I was not so much criticizing what this article is or will be as I was concerned with the relevance of a separate article Empirical evidence. So, I agree with all your points that defend this article. You are also indeed right that my request should instead be to rename this article to "Empirical evidence" and then find another name for the current article Empirical evidence or merge it into the new Empirical evidence. My preference is a merge, but a big issue would be addressed by a move of Scientific evidence into Empirical evidence, which should itself be moved into something else and its scope reconsidered. So, there is only one point of disagreement. I maintain that "no sources at all [among what was presented to me] make a distinction between empirical evidence and scientific evidence" and I am talking at a conceptual level. Could you be more specific about which sources you have in mind and perhaps show some excerpts here so that I can understand how exactly we disagree. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:45, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

In this article, the term "empirical evidence" is used in the sense of ongoing sense experience. This would also be the most natural reading of the term "empirical". This seems to be incompatible with the idea of high standards for scientific evidence (e.g. mentioned by Biogeographist or my sources earlier) that would exclude certain sense experience, like shady empirical evidence mentioned in another source. There are also various sources holding that scientific evidence has to be public (I can look them up if necessary) while ongoing sense experience would be a private matter. I agree that some authors use the terms interchangeably. But this by itself is not a sufficient argument for the merge. I guess various authors use these terms in different ways: in some cases they overlap, in other cases they don't.

I agree with Biogeographist that if there has to be a merge, it should be from scientific evidence to empirical evidence. But I would prefer to keep the articles separate. Phlsph7 (talk) 20:53, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I am always against content forking, and I agree with Dominic that there is a serious danger of content forking here, but at the same time there are very different uses of the term "empirical evidence". It is difficult to find a single source that makes a clear explicit distinction between "empirical evidence" and "scientific evidence" (using those exact terms) because the term "empirical evidence" is so widely used in the philosophy of science literature. More relevant is the fact that "empirical evidence" is used differently in more traditionally empiricist epistemology. Here's an example of that, if one is needed: Firth, Roderick (1956). "Ultimate evidence (in symposium: The concept of empirical evidence)". The Journal of Philosophy. 53 (23): 732–739 (736). doi:10.2307/2022617. JSTOR 2022617. This traditional doctrine about the nature of empirical evidence, as I have so far described it, can be summed up in two propositions: (1) Sense experiences are evidence for perceptual judgments, and (2) Sense experiences are evidentially ultimate. Biogeographist (talk) 21:00, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I will have a look at these sources. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:33, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I just added this as a reference: Boyd, Nora Mills; Bogen, James (June 14, 2021). "Theory and observation in science". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Incidentally, its second section, "Observation and data", discusses some issues relevant to this discussion. That section led me to another source by the second author: Bogen, J., 2016, "Empiricism and After," in P. Humphreys (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 779–795. The introduction to that chapter summarizes Bogen's view of the difference between the traditional empiricist conception of empirical evidence as perceptual evidence and Bogen's alternative account of scientific evidence. "Familiar versions of empiricism overemphasize and misconstrue the importance of per­ceptual experience as a source of scientific knowledge", according to Bogen. It's a good exposition of some reasons why the traditional empiricist conception of empirical evidence is insufficient for science. This is also addressed to some degree in the SEP article. Biogeographist (talk) 02:52, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I haven't read the mentioned sources yet, but even before I read, I have no doubt that the different notable views on what constitute good scientific evidence needs to be included, but in itself this does not at all justify a separate article. The purpose of the second article, which was to separate strong scientific evidence from anecdotal empirical observations, is a legitimate purpose in science, but having a second article was not the adequate encyclopedic approach. The adequate encyclopedic approach is to directly present the notable view points on this fundamental issue. The organization of a topic should not be used to present a view, but only to make the different views easier to access, i.e., to better organize them. If there was a separate view in the scientific community that science could be build on anecdotal evidence only, we could have a separate article that discuss this view that does not really fit in the main article (just like Creationism has its own article). However, this view does not exists. In all notable views of science, there is room for anecdotal evidence in the overall scientific process and, in no notable views, science should be built on anecdotal evidence only. But again, I haven't read the sources. So, my opinion might change. Its possible that we will think of a need for a second article on a subtopic—there is never only one way to organize a topic under one or more articles—but I don't see that the current organization of the topic Empirical evidence is valid. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:02, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I am glad you are raising this issue, because these two articles have always been weak. Another argument for merging this one into Empirical evidence is that it will focus more editor attention on the subject, perhaps making it more likely that the content will improve through controversy among editors. Why don't you propose an RFC on "Should Scientific evidence be merged into Empirical evidence?" Biogeographist (talk) 14:02, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I am retracting my last suggestion for an RFC because I just read WP:RFCNOT and saw that RFCs are not used for merging. According to WP:PAM your option to get more editors involved is to notify the talk page of the appropriate Wikiprojects: WT:WikiProject Science, WT:WikiProject Philosophy, and WT:WikiProject Skepticism. I still don't support the merge, but now I am more neutral than opposed. Biogeographist (talk) 14:32, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Also, Dominic Mayers said: The purpose of the second article, which was to separate strong scientific evidence from anecdotal empirical observations, but this is not exactly correct, in my view. Anecdotal evidence is already an article. I see that Phlsph7 mentioned anecdotal evidence, but that's not the main issue. To simplify, I see it like a Venn diagram: scientific evidence is one circle, empirical evidence is another circle, anecdotal evidence is another circle. There is some overlap between them, but the overlap does not necessarily indicate that we should merge them all into one article. Biogeographist (talk) 14:48, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the Venn diagram is a good visualization of the main point. The point is not to have one article for scientific evidence and one for non-scientific anecdotal evidence, as Dominic Mayers suggested. That would eradicate the overlap that is there. I see three arguments against the merge, each one would be sufficient by itself if successful.

1. There is empirical evidence that is not scientific. This is the argument that Biogeographist and I have already spelled out in this subsection.
2. There is scientific evidence that is not empirical. I gave various sources for this argument earlier but it hasn't been spelled out in detail.
3. The terms "scientific evidence" and "empirical evidence" have a different meaning. Scientific evidence can be defined as what provides support for scientific theories. Empirical evidence means evidence constituted by or accessible to sensory experience.

The first two arguments are extensional, the third one is intensional. So even if there was a full overlap concerning the cases, there would still be a different sense in which we refer to them. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:07, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

So far, one argument has been presented for the merge: in the scientific literature, the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. This argument by itself carries some weight but is not sufficient to justify a merge. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:19, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Phlsph7 said: Scientific evidence can be defined as what provides support for scientific theories. Or as what refutes scientific theories. I would guess that Dominic, being very interested in critical rationalism, would not want you to omit the refutation part. And he would be right.

And: in the scientific literature, the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. It could be said that the two terms are very often used interchangeably, but that's still doesn't outweigh the reasons against the merge. Biogeographist (talk) 15:32, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

You are right about the disconfirmation part. So far not many reliable sources have been presented to justify the "very often" but it might well be the case. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:54, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

If one reads the context, I obviously used "anecdotal evidence" to refer to what is unfortunately called "empirical evidence" in the discussion here, because I refused to use "empirical evidence" in a way that is never to my knowledge used in the literature. Maybe it's because I have not yet read the new sources proposed, but in what I have seen it's not that the two terms are often used interchangeably. They are always used interchangeably. If we start to adopt a local jargon, then the discussion will not work. If you want to oppose what I am saying here, you have to refer to sources and give some excerpts to show some uses of empirical evidence that cannot be replaced by scientific evidence. The only cases that are borderline are when we have "shaky empirical evidence" or other qualified uses, but even then we could say "shaky scientific evidence" and it would work.

I agree that the above is only about terminology, but it is an important part of the issue. But, I go further than that. It's not just terminology. It is also that the three arguments presented by Phlsph7 do not work. They are very good points, but not to justify a second article. About the first argument, first we have to consider what it really says, so that we are not caught in a particular formulation. It only says that some observations or data are not obtained through a "good" scientific method. Not only this is relative to what we mean by a "good" scientific method, but more importantly why exactly this means that we must have a second article? I don't see it at all. On the contrary, it's a fundamental issue in the topic of empirical/scientific evidence and it fits in the article on this topic. A similar counter argument hold for the second argument. The third argument is said to be intentional. I suspect that there is a reference to the distinction between extensional definition vs intensional definition. Well, this is seriously problematic, because then we refer more formally to definitions of the two expressions and I cannot even find sources that do not use these expressions interchangeably and this means in particular that I have not seen these definitions or anything that can play the same role as these definitions. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:47, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Phlsph7's third argument that Dominic doubts: Empirical evidence means evidence constituted by or accessible to sensory experience. The one-sentence definition of empirical evidence from Roderick Firth that I gave above is standard empiricist doctrine, from early modern epistemology through some of the logical empiricists. For example, search for "empirical evidence" + "sense experience" OR "sense experiences" (though other terms could work as well) and you will find plenty of other examples of this usage of "empirical evidence". It is standard in that literature. Biogeographist (talk) 18:10, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Not "intentional" but "intensional". This article could be helpful. But this is just a way to categorize the arguments, they stand on their own also without this distinction.

The evidence presented so far suggests that they are sometimes (or often?) used interchangeably in the scientific literature. This is very different from claiming that they are always used interchangeably in any context.

Argument1 has been spelled out and has sources, so have a look and present your counterarguments if you don't agree. The argument as I presented it does not refer to 'a "good" scientific method'. From the argument it follows that there is a difference between the two terms, so they are not identical. This hasn't been refuted. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:13, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Phlsph7, I misspelled intensional, but I know very well the concept and the article that you offered was not needed. Next time, please assume that I know the basic concepts of elementary logic and mathematics definitions, which every one learns in high school, at the least in my time in my country. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:01, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Not adding tags for now

Please don't readd the tags, there was consensus to remove them just 2 days ago and not much has changed since then. You started a thread that was mainly of personal interest to you and you even acknowledged that it was pointless. Sources have been presented both that some empirical evidence is not scientific and that some scientific evidence is not empirical. You decided to dismiss these sources and took the unwillingness of other editors to spend their time on a pointless thread as a sign that despite everyone doing their homework, nothing was found. This is just a severe misrepresentation. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:15, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I am not going to readd the tags while there is a discussion going on. However, obviously no consensus can prevent me from adding tags, putting comments in notice boards and use any procedure to attract the attention of other editors, because the purpose of these tools is often to question the validity of a local consensus. Don't accuse me of being a bad editor (that misinterpret others, etc.) as you did above because I don't have consensus while there are only three editors in the discussion. Regarding "pointless", you take me out context. It seems that it is you that misinterpret me. Also please do not start your own RfC without first presenting the question that will be asked, because it's not efficient. It's way better to know the question among us first, so that we can make sure it is fully discussed, perhaps modified so that it can best play its role of creating a consensus. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:27, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I didn't accuse you of being a bad editor, I accused you of misrepresentation. The assertion that "We found nothing" is a misrepresentation. It should read: "We found nothing that Dominic Mayers accepts as ultimate evidence for the distinction". Your criteria of what is acceptable evidence seem to be very high for evidence presented by your opponents but not for yourself (see google searches as evidence). Phlsph7 (talk) 20:57, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it was my opinion. There was no need for me to say that it was in accordance with my opinion. Let's not judge the attitude of others and try to understand what they say instead by asking pertinent questions. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:06, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Continuing the discussion about the merge

We are getting loss into details if we reduce the question of whether a second article is needed to the question of whether we can define scientific evidence differently than empirical evidence. I will argue that we have not really succeeded to define them differently, but even if we did, it would not be enough to justify a second article, because it will still remain that we have a single topic which makes use of these two definitions. Biogeographist pointed to a definition of "empirical evidence". I haven't looked at the reference that he provided, but what he wrote reminded me that, obviously, philosophers have tried to define the concept of empirical basis in different manners. They did not all use the expression "empirical evidence", but making a big deal about this would be an example of getting loss into details of terminology and definition. So, I assume that we all agree that there are different views out there on this basic concept that depend on the point of view adopted. For example, it has not always been accepted that observation is theory-laden. Moreover, philosophers, including Popper in the 1930, insisted that observation cannot be used as evidence (they perhaps used a different terminology) if it cannot be repeated. They also knew that there were errors in these repetitions and that statistic would have to be involved, though many, including Popper, did not go much into the details of statistics, RCT, etc. In her 2018 book, Mayo mentions that she communicated with Popper about that and he replied to her "I regret not studying statistics" and that her thought was then "not as much as I do". So, the notion of "empirical evidence" used by many philosophers is not fundamentally different than what we want to call "scientific evidence" here. Yes, sure some might have proposed a more permissible definition, but that just mean that there are indeed many definitions possible depending on what we want to emphasize. Therefore, it is not fair to say that we have different definitions for empirical evidence and scientific evidence. In that sense, I don't see that you have really refuted my claim that the two expressions can be used interchangeably, but by insisting on this I am myself guilty of putting too much importance on terminology and definition. I mean that, even if we accepted that there exists two different definitions, it will not change the fact that it is nevertheless a single topic with many possible views on what is evidence in science. It's not because we defined scientific evidence differently than empirical evidence that a second article for a supposedly new topic must be created. In the same line of thought, let's consider Phlsph7's second argument that scientific evidence is not always empirical evidence. BTW, this essentially contradicts the second sentence in the lead : "Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and interpretable in accordance with scientific methods." Nevertheless, this is certainly a possible definition of scientific evidence, which would distinguish it clearly from empirical evidence. But, I don't see that just because we adopt this definition that a second article is justified. This is what I mean at the start of the paragraph by we are getting lost in details if we reduce our question to a superficial question of terminology and definition. But, there is indeed an important concept, irrespective of any definition, in the fact that we often support theories by other things than empirical evidence. This could indeed be a topic in itself, but I don't agree that we should have a separate article on scientific evidence in addition to empirical evidence only to support this sub-topic. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:06, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I have a few thoughts about some of this.

You said: I don't see that you have really refuted my claim that the two expressions can be used interchangeably. I agree this has not been refuted, but I think we're all subjectively giving different weight to this in our balance of considerations. I vacillate about how important it is.

You said: I mean that, even if we accepted that there exists two different definitions, it will not change the fact that it is nevertheless a single topic with many possible views on what is evidence in science. I would delete "in science" from the end of this, because Empirical evidence is also about empirical evidence in philosophy and perhaps also in everyday life. Leaving that aside, the rest of this statement is an argument for the merger that Phlsph7 failed to mention in their summary above. I would call it the "anti–content forking" argument and I would state it differently: "We don't want separate articles because our treatment of these perspectives will be stronger if we approach them as if they were a single topic in a single article." I have some sympathy for that argument, especially because I think that the traditional empiricist definition of empirical evidence is obviously outdated.

You said: BTW, this essentially contradicts the second sentence in the lead. I noticed this and have been thinking about how to fix it. One way is to add a qualifier like "Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence, which can include both sensory evidence and other sources" or something like that. In his "Empiricism and After" chapter, Bogen says: "I'll call the view that knowledge about the world can be acquired from instrumental as well as sensory evidence liberal empiricism, and I'll use the term empirical evidence for evidence from both sources." Biogeographist (talk) 23:31, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure that you understood Phlsph7's second argument or it's me that misunderstood it. I think he referred to our way to support modern theories in physics which are beyond observations. It is with this understanding that I say this could be a topic in itself. Dominic Mayers (talk) 23:41, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I noticed that a couple of Phlsph7's sources referred to that, and you're right that I didn't go far enough in my proposed fix of that statement. It would be important to note that empirical evidence is not just sensory evidence, but scientists also use other kinds of evidence beyond that. Bogen argues that under certain conditions simulations can be considered scientific evidence but are not empirical. Another example that occurs to me is that a meta-analysis of empirical evidence may be called "empirical evidence" but may not be empirical evidence in the same way that the evidence in the original studies were empirical evidence. Biogeographist (talk) 00:02, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

In any case, I started this issue with "BTW", which meant that it was just a point aside, which I used to bring out that using this specific extended definition is a choice, but it's not an essential part of my argument. Fixing that in the article will not affect my argument. Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:07, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the weight given to the expressions being used interchangeably, you missed the point that I said myself that I consider that focusing on this is to get lost in details of definition and terminology. In fact, one of my main point is that Phlsph7's arguments are too much based on definitions and terminology. Yes, I indeed argued that you have not succeeded to show that we have distinct definitions for the two expressions, but I warned before and reasserted after that even if you had succeeded, it would not be important. Thus, my main argument is not based on definitions, but on concepts. I think you missed this. This main argument relies on the fact that there many concepts of empirical basis or empirical evidence or whatever we want to call it. In particular, a duality traditional empirical evidence vs scientific evidence is a false dilemma. There are many other concepts of empirical evidence. In particular, I mentioned that Popper's concept of empirical evidence, repeatable, statistical errors to be considered, etc. is getting close to what we mean by scientific evidence. In contrast, the counter arguments that I see are simply trying to set the scope of scientific evidence so that it is by construction different than empirical evidence. Of course, it's possible to do that and you succeeded, but it's artificial. Don't get me wrong. The concept of evidence (i.e. way to support theories) that are not empirical is not artificial and this is a topic in itself. What is artificial is to insist that scientific evidence covers this and therefore it must be a separate article different from empirical evidence. I don't buy this. Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:32, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Why you couldn't you write about all of that in Empirical evidence without merging it with Scientific evidence? Just change Empirical evidence § Scientific evidence to Empirical evidence § In science and edit away, adding as much as you think needs to be added, or some other similar changes to Empirical evidence. Merging the articles isn't required to address what you just said you wanted to address in Empirical evidence. You may have to negotiate with other editors on the talk page of that article if there are disagreements, but you don't have to wait for consensus to merge. Biogeographist (talk) 00:45, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

You misunderstood my argument. I explained that there are many concepts of empirical evidence not to complain that these concepts must be covered somewhere, but to bring out that the separation between scientific evidence and empirical evidence is artificial. We could decide, say, that scientific evidence starts when there are some kind of statistical tests, but the article that would cover these statistical test could hardly be named "Scientific evidence". It should be named in accordance with this limited scope. This separation would be fine, but the current separation that we have now between Empirical evidence and Scientific evidence is different and has a big overlap. I know that you argued the scope of scientific evidence goes beyond the scope of empirical evidence and, in the opposite direction, that the scope of empirical evidence goes beyond the scope of scientific evidence, but this can be easily managed. It can be managed by deciding what is the scope of the main article Empirical evidence or Scientific evidence, whatever name we choose, and what should be covered as subtopics in other articles. I can think of different approaches. One approach is to decide that the scope is essentially Empirical evidence in science with perhaps a small section on the related subject of empirical evidence outside science. This small section could have a main article on this subtopic if needed. So, to sum up, my point is that the issue of having different scopes for scientific evidence and empirical evidence to deal with in a merge can be managed way more easily than the issue of having no natural way to separate the overlap between scientific evidence and empirical evidence when there is no merge. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:43, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

OK, but I doubt you're going to get consensus on this talk page about that. You could continue to try, but with my last question I was suggesting a different strategy: Start by editing Empirical evidence instead. Make it really good. Then you can come back here and you'll have an unbeatable proposal: "This article is crap, and the other article covers most of what we would want this one to cover, so let's just redirect Scientific evidence to the appropriate section of Empirical evidence." That's a slam dunk proposal, and you would win. Biogeographist (talk) 01:55, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, I don't think this article is crap and Empirical evidence is not as good, but not crap either. They would just benefit from being merged. The only thing I could do that is close to what you suggest is to start to do the merge. Since I feel this article is way better, I am not interested in merging into Empirical evidence—the other direction is more natural. Of course, I could do the work in a sandbox, but I am not interested, because it could be done for nothing. More importantly, I don't see how you can know that I cannot get consensus. I know that two people besides you were opposed. I can see that Phlsph7 seems not able to get my point, but it's not obvious that others also cannot understand. So, now that you said OK, I would appreciate that you formulate what you understood that made you say OK, because that would help me in the argument. Also, perhaps the OK was not based on a complete understanding. I say that because otherwise you would consider the current split unacceptable and would not question my intention. The point is that they are essentially the same subject, despite the argument that they have different scopes, because the large overlap is the most fundamental part. Moreover, one of the parts that do not overlap, empirical evidence outside science, can easily and should naturally be expanded in a different article. So, the merge that is necessary because of the overlap is not problematic at all. Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:16, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

My last response was to explain why I asked my question and to get you to answer it, which you did, so now I understand better why you're not editing Empirical evidence and why you're not interested in merging into Empirical evidence. I'm surprised that you think that this article is so much better; is that because it mentions Popper? (As it should. I don't expect an answer to that question.) I think the two articles are about the same low quality, even though this one is shorter.

You wrote: One approach is to decide that the scope is essentially Empirical evidence in science with perhaps a small section on the related subject of empirical evidence outside science. This sounds more like a move than a merger; are you essentially proposing moving this page to Empirical evidence in science, with a redirect from Scientific evidence? If so, I don't think we would need a small section on the related subject of empirical evidence outside science; that is covered in Empirical evidence. But I can imagine Phlsph7's objection that the article would omit scientific evidence that is not empirical. To address that objection would you be willing to allow that there could be a small section on scientific evidence that is not empirical? I imagine it would mostly be brief pointers to other articles.

You wrote: they are essentially the same subject, despite the argument that they have different scopes, because the large overlap is the most fundamental part. Yes, I completely agree that Empirical evidence in science and Scientific evidence are essentially the same subject, except for the much smaller subject of scientific evidence that is not empirical, which could be covered in a small section. Biogeographist (talk) 02:51, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

My proposal is not a move. I did not explain myself correctly, sorry. The main article is Empirical evidence. My point is that there is some flexibility in the scope of the article after we have fixed its name. We use this flexibility to respond to arguments specifically advanced to justify a split that is not acceptable. Not so many people worry about empirical evidence outside science or about scientific evidence that are not empirical and, for people that worry about that, we make them a natural part of the main article. So, it can contains a small section on Scientific evidence that is not empirical, because it is related. Difficulties in the use of empirical evidence to justify laws (or even to falsify them), which are seen more dramatically with the modern theories of high energy particles, but exists with all theories, suggest naturally that we consider the role of non-empirical evidence. If this related subject is seen as very important by some, it can be expanded in its own article. We can also use a similar strategy with Scientific evidence as the main article. It might be better, because now the part that is only related to the main article is "empirical evidence outside science" and I would not care to not even mention it (but that's me). Dominic Mayers (talk) 04:08, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

It seems no direct argument against argument1 has been presented since my last post. I'll respond to the indirect ones.

Dominic Mayers: "Therefore, it is not fair to say that we have different definitions for empirical evidence and scientific evidence."

But that is what our sources say.

Dominic Mayers: "I mean that, even if we accepted that there exists two different definitions, it will not change the fact that it is nevertheless a single topic with many possible views on what is evidence in science.".

We are talking about empirical evidence in general not just about empirical evidence in science.

Dominic Mayers: "In the same line of thought, let's consider Phlsph7's second argument that scientific evidence is not always empirical evidence. BTW, this essentially contradicts the second sentence in the lead : "Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and interpretable in accordance with scientific methods."".

I'm not sure which lead you are talking about. But that some empirical evidence is scientific is logically independent from whether some scientific evidence is not empirical. There is no contradiction.

Dominic Mayers: "In fact, one of my main point is that Phlsph7's arguments are too much based on definitions and terminology.".

The only sourced argument for the merge is terminological: that the terms are used interchangeably. You are undermining your own position.

Dominic Mayers: "The separation between scientific evidence and empirical evidence is artificial.".

It seems you put very little importance on definitions and consider all (or all the mentioned) definitions to be artificial. As far as I can tell, this is your personal opinion not shared in science or epistemology, the two fields most relevant here.

Dominic Mayers: "I can see that Phlsph7 seems not able to get my point".

This seems to be based on an unfounded assumption on your side.

Dominic Mayers: "the point is that they are essentially the same subject, despite the argument that they have different scopes, because the large overlap is the most fundamental part.".

Your point would be valid for the topics "scientific evidence" and "empirical evidence in science", but not for empirical evidence in general.

Dominic Mayers: "Not so many people worry about empirical evidence outside science".

It seems you argue only from a scientific perspective. But as has been pointed out several times before, empirical evidence is relevant for many other fields.Phlsph7 (talk) 05:07, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

You are not focusing on the essential of my arguments and also ignore the context. I reply in reverse order:

1. "Not so many people worry about empirical evidence outside science".

   This argument assumes, as you correctly say, that we consider a focus on science. It would have been more correct for me to say that, it's fine (assuming its the choice of the editors) to have a narrower topic that only focus on science. For example, "Empirical evidence" (with in science assumed) is a completely natural topic and the policies and guidelines are flexible about the scope of an article. We could have an {{about}} tag that explains the more restricted scope. But, in any case, in the continuation of the argument (a context that you ignored), I added that we can add a section to cover the empirical evidence outside science, in case the consensus is in favour of this larger scope. So, my argument was safe on the essential in many ways.

2. "the point is that they are essentially the same subject, despite the argument that they have different scopes, because the large overlap is the most fundamental part."

   It's the same thing as point #1. Indeed, if you give a lot of importance to one of the parts that is not shared, then something important is missing. From your comment, I conclude that you do not consider that the subtopic Scientific evidence that is not empirical is important or fundamental. I am not sure why you made this choice, but in any case, as I say in #1, the continuation of my argument says that we can include this part anyway.

3. "I can see that Phlsph7 seems not able to get my point".

   Well, of course, this corresponds to my perspective. The important is that it is still respectful. More importantly, it is not essential in the argumentation, because it was a discussion at the meta level regarding whether a consensus was possible.

4. "The separation between scientific evidence and empirical evidence is artificial."

   This is also closely related to point #1. Again, the idea is that it's fine to focus on the main part that is common to both. Moreover, in the continuation of the argument, I add that we can cover the other part that is not directly included, but related.

5. "In fact, one of my main point is that Phlsph7's arguments are too much based on definitions and terminology.".

   You counter argued that I am the only one that refers to definitions and terminology and that I am undermining my own position. On the contrary, I explained very clearly that my main argument is based on the different concepts of empirical basis and I can assure you that they are part of the literature, i.e., sourced. Now, on your side, you insist that empirical evidence is not restricted to science. I feel this is an insistence on a definition of empirical evidence. For some, by definition, empirical evidence is a scientific concept. For example, I looked in the web and the first two definitions said that empirical evidence is an essential part of the scientific method and they said nothing about its use outside science. Your insistence that empirical evidence is also important outside science is not seen at all in these definitions.

6. "In the same line of thought, let's consider Phlsph7's second argument that scientific evidence is not always empirical evidence. BTW, this essentially contradicts the second sentence in the lead : "Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and interpretable in accordance with scientific methods."".

   You counter argued that there is no contradiction. First, this is not an essential part of my argument: it starts with "BTW". Second, you are the only one that do not see the contradiction. The second sentence in this excerpt refers to the lead of this article. The evidence that is expected to be empirical in the lead is scientific evidence. In (what is essentially a) contradiction, you wrote: "scientific evidence is not always empirical evidence".

Dominic Mayers (talk) 06:48, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Summary of the issue

The original argument against the merge was something along the line that Scientific evidence is more about the rigorous scientific method whereas Empirical evidence is about empirical evidence in general. In other words, it was the same topic, but approached with two different focuses. This argument was refuted as being some form of content forking: the high standard methods in one article and the other methods in another article. The counter argument was also made that this global distinction between Scientific evidence and Empirical evidence does not exist in the literature. The idea of this counter argument is that even if we are sympathetic to the idea of a focus on "rigorous", "modern" scientific evidence, versus a more general focus on empirical evidence, we meet the issue that there is no source that discuss that distinction. Even if there was a few sources that discuss it, it would still be a view point and not sufficient to organize the topic accordingly. To base the organization of the topic on this view, it would have to be a well established non controversial view. It does not seem possible to make this distinction in an encyclopaedic manner. As a result, the discussion shifted on whether Scientific evidence and Empirical evidence have different scopes, but this is actually a different issue.

The scopes of Scientific Evidence and Empirical Evidence

In this other approach against the merge, it was argued that they have different scopes as illustrated in the diagram. In this perspective, the issue is how to cover the common notion of scientific empirical evidence. In the current organization of the topic, this natural subtopic must be split into two articles Empirical evidence and Scientific evidence. It's impossible without duplicating this subtopic in both articles, because an article named Empirical evidence restricted to Empirical evidence outside science makes no sense and, similarly, an article named Scientific evidence restricted to scientific evidence that is not empirical also makes no sense. Large duplication is some times necessary when the two articles offer two different focuses on a same topic. An example is Crusades with a focus on the military history versus Crusading movement with a focus on the ideology and institutions. In our case, I see the two different scopes as illustrated in the diagram, but I don't see two different focuses at all.

A more efficient and natural organization is to have one main article that covers the common notion with sections for the non shared subtopics, which can be small and expanded as needed in their own main article.

Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:12, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Pageviews and redirects

I wouldn't oppose merging Scientific evidence into Empirical evidence, but I would still oppose merging in the other direction. Dominic's original proposal was to merge in the other direction. "Empirical evidence" is mentioned in more sources (e.g. in Google, Google Scholar, JSTOR, and WorldCat) and is more consulted on Wikipedia: pageviews for "empirical evidence" are much higher (279,702 in the past 6 months, versus 21,097 for "scientific evidence"), but the pageviews may be so much higher in part because it is the target of so many redirects, namely:

• A posteriori (epistemology)
• A posteriori (philosophy)
• A posteriori knowledge
• À posteriori
• A-posteriori
• Aposteriori
• Empirical content
• Empirical data
• Empirical experience
• Empirical knowledge
• Empirical reason
• Empirical validation
• Empirical
• Factual observation
• Observed fact
• Semi-empirical
• Sense experience
• Sense observation
• Sense perception

Two terms redirect to Scientific evidence:

• Scientific proof (redirect to section Concept of "scientific proof")
• Statistical evidence

Biogeographist (talk) 17:18, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree that if there has to be a merge, this would be the direction. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I retargeted all the above-listed variants of A posteriori to A priori and a posteriori (but not A posteriori knowledge, which currently has a separate entry at A posteriori (disambiguation)), because it seems clear that they are just variants of A posteriori and should have the same target. If anyone disagrees, we can revert and discuss at Talk:Empirical evidence. Biogeographist (talk) 19:28, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

No consensus, but toward a consensus

It seems to me that we have discussed this topic at length but have made very little progress towards a consensus. I don't have the impression that there will be significant change if we continue the discussion. We have 1 editor (Dominic Mayers) in favor of merging "empirical evidence" into "scientific evidence" and 3 editors (10stone5, Biogeographist & Phlsph7) against it. That makes a strong point against it. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:22, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I admit that some of my arguments to support a merge expressed a preference for one direction, namely toward Scientific evidence, but despite this preference for one direction, it has never been a big deal for me whether the target name was Scientific evidence or Empirical evidence. Essentially all my arguments simply expressed why a merge of the two articles was needed. An unrelated issue is that I feel that Scientific evidence is a better start for the new article. In other words, even if the final name is Empirical evidence, I would start with the content of Scientific evidence and add content from Empirical evidence to it. But even that is open to discussion and it's better not to discuss that now. So, it seems that we have or are moving toward a consensus for a merge Scientific evidence $\rightarrow$ Empirical evidence. @10stone5, Biogeographist, and Phlsph7: It will useful to try establish a clear consensus among us, at the least make sure that the position and the arguments of every editor is as clearly expressed as possible, before we ask help from non involved editors. Biogeographist's position is clear enough that he does not oppose the merge. He also expressed a few arguments in favour of it, including avoiding content forking. Phlsph7, are you still holding on the argument that the subtopics Empirical evidence outside science and Scientific evidence that is not empirical, which are illustrated in the above diagram, are important enough that we need two separate articles: Empirical evidence to include the former and Scientific evidence to include the latter? If not, it's not clear what are your arguments to split the topics into two articles. As a policy, it is asked that editors present their argument before we ask for help. Please, try to summarize it in less than two paragraphs. Avoid criticizing my arguments, because this will lead to useless repetition. Instead, simply express yours.

It's possible that we will need to ask the NPOV notice board, depending on the arguments that are expressed. Also, I think I will create a summary of the previous discussions here and in talk:Empirical evidence (based on diffs of course), before asking for help. It will make their life so much easier. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:03, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I am against merging "empirical evidence" into "scientific evidence" for the following reasons stated and justified earlier. (1) There is empirical evidence that is not scientific: not all empirical evidence meets scientific standards. (2) There is scientific evidence that is not empirical: non-empirical evidence is sometimes used to confirm or disconfirm scientific theories. (3) The terms "scientific evidence" and "empirical evidence" have a different meaning: scientific evidence can be defined as what provides support for or against a scientific theory while empirical evidence means evidence constituted by or accessible to sensory experience. (4) Empirical evidence includes private sensory experience while scientific evidence has to be public. (5) The argument for the merge that the terms are used sometimes or often interchangeably in the scientific literature doesn't take into account other fields, like empiricist epistemology, which would not fit well into the article "scientific evidence". (6) Considerations of the wideness of the topics, the number of mentions in the sources and the number of page views of the articles suggest that if there is to be a merge, it should be in the opposite direction.

As for the merge in the opposite direction: the term "empirical evidence" seems to be wider since it is relevant for both the fields of science and epistemology. This direction does not avoid all the problems mentioned above but it is definitely less controversial: it seems to me that the issue of empirical evidence outside science is more important than the issue of non-empirical scientific evidence. I think there is sufficient reason to justify having a separate article for scientific evidence in principle, but I'm not sure that the contents of the current article on scientific evidence meet the requirements for such separate treatment.Phlsph7 (talk) 05:13, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

The distinction that you make between the respective scope of "Empirical evidence" and "Scientific evidence" assumes rigid rules that prevent an article to include a content because of formal definitions. The scope of an article is never formally restricted in this manner. Also, it's not necessarily an issue that some related content is covered elsewhere, while being mentioned or not in the article. I consider argument #1 as an example: Empirical evidence has already a section that goes beyond what is empirical. An article named X can cover what is related to X. Similar counter arguments apply to arguments #2 to #6 as well. I am more favourable to this other opinion of yours (emphasis mine): "there is sufficient reason to justify having a separate article for scientific evidence in principle, but I'm not sure that the contents of the current article on scientific evidence meet the requirements for such separate treatment." However, my appreciation of this opinion has nothing to do with the different scopes illustrated in the above diagram and related arguments. It has a lot to do with the paragraph that precedes it. Indeed, in principle, there might be room for a separate article that focuses more on contemporary methods in science and on the associated notion of scientific evidence, whereas Empirical evidence would be more oriented toward the traditional notions of scientific/empirical evidence. As long as we speak of contemporary versus traditional, not of high standard versus low standard, there is no (problematic) content forking. However, in practice (which is not like in principle), articles on "contemporary" methods refer to "traditional" notions. The issue here, expressed by the use of the quotation marks, is related to the fact that the dichotomy "traditional notion" versus "modern notion" is a false dilemma. There are many notions of empirical evidence in philosophy and it's difficult to draw a line between traditional ones and other ones. I remain favourable in principle to the idea of a separate article with a different focus more oriented toward contemporary science. However, we need to have the content based on sources and, as you say yourself, the current article does not have this content. Despite being favourable in principle, I have doubt that this content exists and it has perhaps to do with the fact that, at a fundamental level, the distinction does not exist. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:49, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you acknowledge that the arguments1-6 make valid points, you just think that their points are not very important for the issue of the merge.

Instead of merging "scientific evidence" into "empirical evidence", I would prefer to have one section in "empirical evidence" that summarizes the article "scientific evidence", for example, "empirical evidence in science", and links to it. The reason for this is that merging all of "scientific evidence" into the section "empirical evidence in science" would result in a very large section. But I would be in favor of the merge if it turns out that a lot of content in "scientific evidence" is poor and would be shortened.Phlsph7 (talk) 05:21, 28 June 2021 (UTC)