Objective Evidence and Absence: Comment on Sober

Elliott Sober argues that the statistical slogan “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence ” cannot be taken literally: it must be interpreted charitably as claiming that the absence of evidence is (typically) not very much evidence of absence. I offer an alternative interpretation, on which the slogan claims that absence of evidence is (typically) not objective evidence of absence. I sketch a definition of objective evidence, founded in the notion of an epistemically objective likelihood, and I show that in Sober’s paradigm case, the slogan can, on this understanding, be sustained. 1. Confirmation and Couture Statisticians wear T-shirts advancing the following thesis: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What proposition is expressed by this fashion statement? Sober (2009) advances one suggestion; in this commentary, I will fabricate an alternative. Science, I will propose, makes a distinction between merely having reasons to believe