User:Agnese marino basc/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar)/Group 9/Evidence

Qualitative Evidence and Enumerative Induction (Shagun)

Qualitative and quantitative research methods inherently yield different types of evidence, with quantitative methods yielding numerical data and facts while qualitative research methods based more on data collection methods such as interviews, opinions, surveys and questionnaires.

One of the ideas that Miller explores in his paper is the credibility of quantitative evidence in supporting a claim. For instance, the example Miller uses to illustrate the inductive nature of reasoning used in qualitative methods is an interview of a subset of women who are immigrants about their handling of ‘cultural adaptation’. If all women express a general idea of alienation in their experiences, it may be concluded that immigrants often face alienation in their new host country. However, the nature of qualitative research methods and evidence makes it hard to be assuredly sure of this fact. The problem (or rather inherent characteristic) of qualitative evidence is that it is impossible to prove every case for a claim. For example if the claim in this case was, “Women who immigrate to a new country face alienation”, while the interviews themselves show that that particular subset of women all face alienation, it becomes increasingly difficult to generalise this to the entire population of women immigrants. Miller describes this type of reasoning which makes such generalizations as enumerative induction. In this type of reasoning, evidence from a select group of cases is used to generalise all cases. Qualitative evidence is often derived from methods that take information from a sample of people/cases and use such information to make a generalization. This is because it is not realistically plausible to obtain information from every case (such as interviewing every single woman in the world who is an immigrant). As a result, disciplines that use qualitative methods such as the social sciences (economics, psychology, anthropology) all use a form of enumerative inductive reasoning with their evidence. This type of reasoning also impacts the degree of truth or certainty that is present about a claim in these disciplines. Enumerative inductive reasoning relies on going beyond the instances that are cited and shows how these disciplines often require going beyond the available evidence in order to support a claim.

Evidence in Science

‘Science’, though a very broad term to say the least, has always been seen as the ultimate evidence-based discipline and there is a great emphasis that for something to be ‘scientific’ it must have been proven and backed-up (this is very much a positivist attitude). Today, evidence (and particularly scientific evidence) has a major part to play in some of the most disputed topics, such as climate change; therefore what the evidence is, where the evidence comes from and why it is indeed evidence is very important.

One definition of scientific evidence is ‘the information gathered from scientific research’, however, for this research to become evidence, a number of things need to be taken into account. Firstly, the research conducted must be objective and unbiased. This involves the regulation of funding bodies to ensure they are not just funding research projects that will benefit them financially – as this could cause the project to be conducted in a certain way that does not give a fair representation.

Results must also be valid and accurate. This is because scientific evidence is so reliant on data, and thus the data collected must be representative of the ‘true’ situation. To do so, a control must be carried out that either represents the opposite of the scenario being tested, or the natural conditions – this helps to show that the results exhibited are guaranteed to be from the independent variable tested, and nothing else.

Peer-review and professional consensus are also essential in the accumulation of scientific evidence. Any researcher must present their data, results and conclusions in the form of a scientific report which will be published. This report is then reviewed by other scientists in the same field to assess the validity of methods and accuracy of conclusions – in some cases the research done may be repeated by other individuals. This is all to show that there is a ‘scientific consensus’ on the evidence and the result of said experiment is not a coincidence.

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Though perhaps not directly relevant to the section above, this quote is undoubtedly some food for thought - saying that if there is no evidence for something, that does not necessarily say that it is not true. For example the absence of evidence for extra-terrestrial life represents no evidence that such life does not exist; or just because you have never seen a shooting star, that does not mean they don't exist either.

Evidence in Philosophy

Evidence constitutes an important field of research in philosophy. In some fields, such as philosophy of the livings, positivism can be used as nature can be explained through empirical factors (dissection for instance). Nevertheless, it seems impossible to produce reasons, evidences or arguments for some claims. A proof is defined as a kind of argument that delivers certainty. (logic, maths) However, in many philosophy fields such as moral or history, these kinds of proofs are missing. Philosophy then operates on different kinds of reasoning. Therefore, philosophers often frame their arguments thanks to ‘deductive arguments’ (structured such as if premises are true, the conclusion is true too). The most popular example of a deductive reasoning would be :

• Humans are mortal
• Socrate is human

Therefore, Socrate is mortal

Philosophy thus constitutes an ‘evidential’ discipline, meant to ‘test’ the premises.

Evidence, History, and the Power of ancient objects by Lucia Dominguez

Podcast on Victoria and Albert Museum

Museum Collections as Historical Evidence:

The podcast commences with an interesting quotation stating: "every object is a fact of the world". Event if an object is put out of context or it has deteriorated through the years, "it is a vast archive of valuable information about the past". In this podcast, they present the V&A collection, that englobes a variety of objects such as buildings, jewellery, furniture, documents, as a form of evidence. Additionally Welch and Riello analyse the profession of a Historian when it comes to searching for specific and plausible evidence. They explain how they are going to look at different types of evidence depending on what information they are looking for. For example, artefacts are rich sources of information: in many cultures where the level of literacy is very limited, historians can find very accurate and good representations of a society through the examination of authentic objects of this society. Thus, explaining the significance of the following quote: "What the past has left us in material evidence might be much more representative of a society". Moreover, Welch and Riello emphasise on the fact that the only way to find out about a period that did not have photography or film is to go through "its stuff". "The stuff somehow seems to connect us more closely to the tangible experience" of that time period. Finally, they conclude the podcast by delineating the different types of evidence for a historian: Visual evidence, physical evidence and documentary evidence.

'Evidence' by Andrew Bell, John Swenson-Wright and Karin Tybjerg

The book Evidence shows the important of evidence in our current knowledge of the world and how it shaped disciplines. It also shows the approaches towards evidence : interpretations bu deducting or inducting. How far can we go into interpretations ? How are we able to infer dinosaurs from fossils and prove the culpability of a murderer by little proofs? How can we justify predictions?

A new evidence can revolutionize a discipline : an evidence may “ establishes new knowledge in an instant with little room for argument” (A.Bell, J.Swenson-Wright, K. Tyberg,2008:1). In this work, experts of various fields explore the way of finding evidence in their discipline and the role of these evidences. In philosophy, for instance, Peter Lipton describes the theory of David Hume who questions the tendency of extrapolation, the principle of ‘More of the Same’, that people use in order to expand knowledge. From a simple pattern that we observe everyday such as the sunrise we deduce that tomorrow the sun will rise again. From the perception of daily life we tend to deduce the futur. But for Hume an inductive argument for induction like the fact that a scheme that worked in the past will work in the futur is not sufficient to prove anything. For Hume there is no way to justify induction so no justification is possible to prove any evidence. Thus, Peter Lipton suggests looking at explanation so the interaction of causes and effects before evidence.

'Anthropology, Evolution, and "Scientific Creationism" James N. Spuhler (Lottie)

Jerry Falwell: ‘the Bible is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well is in the areas of geography, science, history’

This was a very interesting text outlining the conflict between Creation Science and the Theory of Evolution. As one of the oldest debates in academia, this argument has many different strands to it, but many encompass the issue of evidence. The Gallup poll conducted in 1982 found that 44% of the US population did not accept an evolutionary origin for the human species with 9% being unsure and only 47% being committed to the idea of human evolution. This is extremely interesting considering there is overwhelmingly more scientific research supporting the theory for evolution over creationism. However, many hold the opinion that the ‘Bible is absolutely infallible’ and therefore the creation stories told in Genesis are evidence for the origin of humanity. This raises interesting questions surrounding the validity of different types of evidence; the Bible is a historical text which portrays a version of the origins of humanity, so can we discount it as evidence just because it isn’t supported by extensive scientific research? If there is a God, then how would we begin to scientifically test for their presence? There are many prominent figures in society who examine religion and science side by side, including a significant number of physicists, chemists, biologists etc. Perhaps this suggests that the two forms of evidence can coexist aside one another without the need for one to be prioritized over the other. However, there are issues with the evidence portrayed in the Bible. The text highlights the fact that ‘two strikingly different and contradictory accounts of the creation of humans, male and female, are given in the first and second chapters of Genesis’. Additionally, ‘the claims against evolution by “creation science” are contradicted by scientific facts and theories’. This brings us back to the debate about scientific vs. non-scientific evidence and how each should be weighted. Interestingly, to compete with the evolution model, the “creation science model” was produced so that it could be taught alongside the evolution theory in public schools. There are claims that this model does contain ‘evidence from science, prophesy, history, internal structure, and common sense’, which, if accurate, would put creationist viewpoints on a level footing with the scientific theory of evolution.

This text is closely linked to other interdisciplinary issues of truth and power. Both creationism and the theory of evolution are searching for the truth as to the origin of the human species, and truth is presented to each school of thought in different ways. For creationists, the Bible acts as a provider of truth, whereas truth for evolutionary scientists is found in scientific research and quantitative data. The prominence of each school of thought is closely linked to the issue of power; traditionally the Church had overriding power within society, giving the creationist school of thought significant traction. However, in modern western society these views may be shifting in favour of a more scientific way of thinking.

The Simpson’s paradox

When looking for evidence, one can decide to use data, trying for instanced to use a positivist approach, especially in science. Since empirical data tends to come from scientific studies, one believes using this data will help provide the most objective evidence. However, data is not always as unbiased as one might think. Indeed, although data in itself is only numbered, their analysis and thus the evidence resulting from said data might not be as objective as one might hope. This is for example because the analysis is made by a human that as is own idea of the matter, that can, and without the person’s knowledge, influence his analysis. An interesting expression of this is found in the Simpson paradox. When studying statistics and data, a quite common problem one can found is called compounding. Compounding is when you investigate  an exposure and an outcome, but that those two are actually stronglyassociated with a third variable, in other words, that a third variable will influence both the outcome and the exposure. The Simpson paradox is a special type of compounding where the results of the study are being reversed by this third factor.

The example given in the link tackles the success rates in removing kidney stones. A study found that apparently open surgery had a success ate of 78% while percutaneous nephrolithotomy had a success rate of 83%, which would hence lead one to believe that  percutaneous nephrolithotomy are more successfully than open surgery. Those statistic, while looking simple become much more interesting when dividing the results depending on the size of the kidney stone. When doing so, open surgery was find to have a better success rate than the other type of method. This happened because the probability of having a certain surgery varied depending on the size of the stones.

Hence the initial choice of the treatment is grandly influenced by the condition of the patient (age, size of the stone etc), condition that will also influence the outcome, whether or not the operation is successful. This will result in the Simpson paradox, as,  when we “take out” the third factor, simply by separating the result in categories, the results of the study are being reverse. Indeed, with no category, the study will find the percutaneous nephrolithotomy more effective, while the study with the categories will find the opposite results. This is so, because by categorising this external factor does not have to be taken into account since the results within a category will have started with the same “condition”, which takes away the compounding.

This is a good example of why data should be treated extremely careful when used for evidence, as both studies used the very same data and the same numbers, but got different conclusion simply by categorising.

Reference used for this exemple:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2541623/pdf/bmj00468-0032.pdf

Empirical Evidence and Religious Faith

This article by A. Boyce Gibson delves into whether or there truly is empirical evidence out there that can justify religious beliefs:

Religious statements are a ‘record of experience’. Without the experience of God in some way through time, there would not be any mention of God’s existence at all, or the continuation of loyal believers from past until present. Any religion that relies on revelation is fixed to a historical starting point. In addition, the observation of miracles relies on ‘ocular demonstrations to the senses’  to have been documented and passed down (whether rightly or wrongly is not the main issue).

However, religious statements are unlike ordinary statements or scientific hypotheses in that they are not weakened by adverse evidence, due their ability to be used in any situation of evil or suffering that one would use to counter argue the existence of a ‘God’. For example, the statement that ‘God loves his creatures’ — if they are doing well, He is caring for them, but if they are suffering, He is trying to purify them in the fire and teach them a lesson. This not mere duplicity, however, as religious discourse must have this duality to it in order to follow the definition of God and remain religious. The very issue is that it cannot be disproven by ‘evidence against’, hence it does not require any ‘evidence for’.

(Selina)