Is a claim evidence of truth?

[bhsmte]

I think the bottom line is that if you agree that eyewitness evidence counts as evidence, then you should also agree that claims count as evidence because eyewitness evidence is essentially someone making claims about what they saw.

All claims don't include eye witness accounts.

Also, eye witness accounts, are prone to error, which is why in a court of law, when physical evidence contradicts eye witness accounts, physical evidence wins.

 

[bhsmte]

Physical evidence is not required to form the belief that someone has a garden. If someone claims to have a garden, then you can form the belief that it is true based only on that claim. They might hand you a photo of them weeding their garden as corroborating evidence, but that's just another claim in itself. Perhaps it's a photo of them in someone else's garden, or a photo of someone else posing as them, or it could be photoshopped, but regardless of the truth of whether they own a garden, you could not form the belief that they do without evidence at the minimum, and their claim is the only candidate.

Claiming to have a garden, is not a claim most people are going to question, because lets face it, who really cares if someone has a garden or not.

If I told you I was 6 feet 4 inches tall, you would probably believe me, because it is not uncommon for people to be this height, just as it is not uncommon, for people to have gardens.

If I told you I was 8 feet tall, you likely would not believe me, without me providing physical evidence, to confirm the same.

 

[Chriliman]

Claims stand on their own merit. True claims, can be demonstrated with evidence, outside of the individual making the claims, subjective perception.

This is beside the point. The point is that a claim is evidence that the claim is either true or false. Not all true claims can be backed by physical evidence. In the case of an eyewitness, they saw or experienced a real event and have information about the event that cannot be accessed any other way other than by asking them personally. Their claim is evidence of what really happened, whether their claim is true or not is beside the point, the point is that the claim is evidence of truth.

 

[Soyeong]

All claims don't include eye witness accounts.

Indeed, but all claims are evidence for the same reason that eyewitness evidence is evidence.

Also, eye witness accounts, are prone to error, which is why in a court of law, when physical evidence contradicts eye witness accounts, physical evidence wins.

Of course, claims can be prone to error as well, but the probability that something is false changes how we weigh the evidence, not whether it counts as evidence. If you were the eyewitness, then you might weigh what you saw differently.

 

[Hieronymus]

Hmmm....
Just noticed this topic..
A claim is certainly a lead.
Even if it's unbelievable, because (un)beliefs don't decide what (im)possible..
Is the claim serious? That's what's important.
Does the claimer mean what he says?
It could be a flawed perception of an actual event.

I think a lead is evidence too, yes.
But it will turn out to be either an actual lead or a red herring.
If it turns out to be a definite red herring, i think the claim was not evidence..
...well, it may still be evidence of deception...

 

[Soyeong]

Claiming to have a garden, is not a claim most people are going to question, because lets face it, who really cares if someone has a garden or not.

If I told you I was 6 feet 4 inches tall, you would probably believe me, because it is not uncommon for people to be this height, just as it is not uncommon, for people to have gardens.

If I told you I was 8 feet tall, you likely would not believe me, without me providing physical evidence, to confirm the same.

Indeed, we all need what we consider to be sufficient evidence before we'll believe something and the harder something is the believe the more evidence we'll require before we'll consider it to be sufficient. However, whether or not you consider a claim to be in itself sufficient evidence does not disqualify it from counting as evidence.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Hmmm....
Just noticed this topic..
A claim is certainly a lead.
Even if it's unbelievable, because (un)beliefs don't decide what (im)possible..
Is the claim serious? That's what's important.
Does the claimer mean what he says?
It could be a flawed perception of an actual event.

I think a lead is evidence too, yes.
But it will turn out to be either an actual lead or a red herring.
If it turns out to be a definite red herring, i think the claim was not evidence..
...well, it may still be evidence of deception...

The problem is, our species is too unreliable for a mere claim to serve as evidence of anything other than the capacity to make the claim. Even when people are being honest, our individual perceptions are so unreliable that no individual confirmed witness account is considered meaningful without additional evidence to back it up.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I think the belief in the existence of Santa Claus is far more reasonable than belief in the existence of unsubstantiated beliefs.

That would depend on if you would consider a belief founded in fallacies to still be, in its own way, substantiated. I mean, would believing in wizards after reading the Harry Potter book series be a substantiated belief? If not, then yes, unsubstantiated beliefs can and do exist. I kid you not, I tried to cast one of the spells in the book; my toy did not, in fact, levitate.

It doesn't matter what it is, a book, a TV show, a trusted adult, etc., something supported or proved to the child that Santa Claus is real, so their belief is substantiated, or else they wouldn't have formed that belief in the first place.

Then your definition of substantiated differs from mine. Which is fine, I don't think the official definition of that word demands one way or the other. Just for the sake of clarity, a claim you would view as substantiated by erroneous information and fallacy would be viewed as unsubstantiated by most people, including myself. Also, a rose by any other name is still a rose; the overused Shakespeare quote is to the effect of: if you count errors and fallacy as still being enough to qualify a belief as substantiated, that's not going to make that belief on the same level as one based in reliable evidence evaluated properly, even though you are trying to shove it into the same category.

Trusted adults in themselves count as evidence in a similar way that trusted eyewitness evidence counts as evidence.

No eyewitness, no matter how trustworthy, is considered to serve as strong evidence by themselves, because eyewitness testimony is consistently one of the most unreliable sources of information.

Again, to say that someone can believe something without evidence or have an unsubstantiated belief is to say that their belief is uncaused because whatever caused their belief substantiated it.

What if they think the evidence exists, but they were lied to? That would cause them to believe something that was unsubstantiated, because from their perspective, they falsely think it is substantiated. No one is saying people believe stuff without a reason to believe it; the category of unsubstantiated belief usually covers false information and fallacy as sources of belief. If it doesn't to you, that sounds like a personal semantics gripe, and it won't change the reality that those claims, whether you call them unsubstantiated or not, are still invalid.

Naturally, we don't form a belief until we consider there to be sufficient evidence and the harder something is to believe, the more evidence is required before we'll consider it sufficient.

Yup. Notice how that isn't objective.

However, it is not fallacious for someone to believe something based on what they consider to be sufficient evidence when you disagree that it is sufficient to form your own belief.

That is fair, but, some people are stubborn to the point that their resistance to an idea is in and of itself a fallacy. As in, there comes a point in which the evidence for something is so significant, that it is viewed as a fallacy not to view the logical conclusion that stems from it as the most likely one to represent reality. For example, you'd consider it a fallacy for someone to think I was male if they saw me naked in person, and had access to my medical records, and heard me identify as female, even though there is technically a very low chance that their conclusion of me being male does represent reality.

There is nothing fallacious about taking someone's word to be sufficient evidence.

It's so fallacious to take someone's word as sufficient evidence that the only reason we do it so frequently is due to convenience. People are that unreliable thanks to lies and distortions of perceptions and memories. When my biological father denied being my father in court, do you think it would have been smart to rely on his word instead of the DNA test?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Indeed, we all need what we consider to be sufficient evidence before we'll believe something and the harder something is the believe the more evidence we'll require before we'll consider it to be sufficient. However, whether or not you consider a claim to be in itself sufficient evidence does not disqualify it from counting as evidence.

Except the only limits to claims are the human imagination (meaning the majority of possible claims won't represent reality). I don't even have to know what a fairy is to have claimed to see one, I just need to know the word. Do you honestly think these claims are evidence for the events and items they bring up?

1. I rode into battle on a chimera in the year 2037, and fought through the hoard of rabid banana people to obtain the time machine necessary to make this post in the year 2016. The banana revolution can still be prevented if you burn all the rainforests.

2. My sister is pregnant with twins. My mother is very disappointed in her, because she is so young, and she doesn't even know who the father is.

3. My favorite color is blue.

None of these statements are true, but you'd have no hope of disproving the 3rd one, and you probably wouldn't care if I was lying or not over something so trivial. The 1st statement would also be pretty much impossible for you to disprove, because any counters with my birth certificate and other evidences I could make excuses for. The statement is so ridiculous, however, that it demands evidence in order to be believed, and even then, I would have a rough time convincing most people it was true. Heck, I could present people a living banana person, and there would still be some people so shocked by it that they couldn't believe it. The 2nd one is the only statement of the three that can actually be disproven via ultrasound, and a few other means if the incorrect part of the statement was my mother's disappointment, or my sister not knowing the father, or my sister being young.

Do you honestly think the first statement serves as evidence of anything other than my imagination and snarky inclinations?

 

[Armoured]

I'm saying the claim "I have fairies at the bottom of my garden" is evidence that the claim is either true or false.

Can you give us an example of a claim, any claim, that isn't either true or false? What other options are there?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Indeed, we all need what we consider to be sufficient evidence before we'll believe something and the harder something is the believe the more evidence we'll require before we'll consider it to be sufficient. However, whether or not you consider a claim to be in itself sufficient evidence does not disqualify it from counting as evidence.

Evidence of what?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

...If someone believes that God does not exist, then it is only because after they weighed the evidence they reached the opposite conclusion.

What evidence? that people believe in God?

A claim is simply a proposition; it has no truth value of itself without supporting evidence (facts). It is not even evidence of the belief or interpretation of the claimant. However, the overall context of the claim may be taken as indirect (literally circumstantial) evidence for the truth of the claim. For example, the honesty or trustworthiness of the claimant can be taken as indicator of the likelihood that they believe the claim is true, and the Bayesian prior probability of claims of that kind being true (e.g. how mundane or extraordinary it is), indicates the likelihood that the claim is true in the absence of supporting evidence.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The claim that God does not exist is evidence of the truth that the claim is either true or false.

As already mentioned, this is tautological. A claim is a proposition (a statement with a truth value), so you're simply stating that the claim that God doesn't exist is evidence of a proposition that God doesn't exist; in other words, the claim that God doesn't exist is evidence of a claim that God doesn't exist...

If the claim is backed by sound reason and logic then this is evidence that the claim is true, rather than false.

No; it is only evidence that the claim is logical and reasonable, so we should not dismiss it on logical or rational grounds; i.e. it's logic and/or reason are not evidence against it. That something is not evidence against a claim doesn't make it evidence for the claim.

Unfortunately(or fortunately), there are no reasonable and logical explanations for why God does not exist, therefore it's unreasonable to believe God does not exist.

There are many reasonable and logical explanations for why God does not exist, so, at best, it is a matter of opinion. There are also logical reasons why people might believe in God whether God exists or not.

So the the logic and rationale for and against the existence of God is a disputable matter of opinion, and the existence of believers is and unbelievers is not evidence either way. In the absence of factual (testable, falsifiable) evidence, the existence of God remains an unsupported claim. For me, the circumstantial evidence (e.g. multiple contradictory God beliefs, physics, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience) speaks powerfully against it. YMMV.

 

[Hieronymus]

Indeed, we all need what we consider to be sufficient evidence before we'll believe something and the harder something is the believe the more evidence we'll require before we'll consider it to be sufficient. However, whether or not you consider a claim to be in itself sufficient evidence does not disqualify it from counting as evidence.

Yes, but you can only determine it in hindsight, if something was evidence or just a pointless claim, i think..

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... In the case of an eyewitness, they saw or experienced a real event and have information about the event that cannot be accessed any other way other than by asking them personally. Their claim is evidence of what really happened, whether their claim is true or not is beside the point, the point is that the claim is evidence of truth.

That requires a bunch of unsupported assumptions:
1. that the claimant is honestly describing what they experienced (for the sake of argument, let's take this as given).
2. that they accurately perceived the event (our perception is unreliable, particularly of the unexpected).
3. that they accurately recall the event (our episodic recall is very unreliable).
4. that they have correctly interpreted the event (our interpretations are extremely dependent on expectations and biases).

To take an extreme example, when people honestly report waking to find themselves paralysed and terrorised by shadowy figures or abducted and probed by aliens before being returned to their beds, it is anecdotal evidence that they had those experiences; however, it is not evidence that those experiences were of objectively real events.

Studies have shown that not only are eyewitness reports of real-world events are unreliable, their memories of them - even of personal details at 'flashbulb' moments - are even more so. For example, there was a large survey of New Yorkers taken in the week after 9/11, asking where they were, what they were doing, and how they felt, at the time they first heard about it. A year later, they thought they remembered it clearly, but their accuracy of recall of the personal facts they'd previously reported was only 63%, and accuracy of recall of their emotions was only 40%. So when people say they'll never forget what they were doing when.. <moon landing; JFK assassination; 9/11; Columbine massacre; etc.>, they've probably already forgotten most of it and actually remember plausible fabrications.

 

[Chriliman]

Can you give us an example of a claim, any claim, that isn't either true or false? What other options are there?

I can't give an example, but that's beside the point. The point is the fact that a claim has been made is, in of itself, evidence of truth. The claimant is claiming to have knowledge that is unknown to others and the act of professing that knowledge is evidence to others that their knowledge is either true or false.

It's either fact that the knowledge is true or its fact that the knowledge is false. If no claims are ever made by a first source of knowledge, then no truth or facts can be determined by anyone.

 

[Pentateuch and Yeshua]

I love this phrase : That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Scripturally, we need witnesses, evidence is a form of witness, as is a claim of direct observation which stands up to scrutiny.
Scripture is all testable by Torah, and Torah is not just a claim, but is witnessed and evidenced many-fold. Moses was witnessed by the entire nation of Israel at Sinai, and his claims can be tested - obedience to Torah brings the blessings prescribed. Scientifically and historically it is evidenced too - all of the scientific evidence IN THE ABSENCE OF THEORY (which is what all neo-darwinian and atheist claims require in order to use science to refute scripture) supports creation, the flood, the non-Adamic man originating in Gen 6:4, etc, and historical parallels of Moses in the shape of Thutmosis II leading the Egyptian slave Hyksos tribe into the desert, etc etc etc all witness for the Torah, and the Torah witnesses itself in many cases - you often see the same verses repeated in more detail in the next chapter, or we see two books that recount laws - Deuteronomy and Leviticus which perfectly compliment eachother and over-lap but one concentrates more on the duties of the average man and one concentrates more on the duties of the Levites, and we can therefore know for sure that we can use Torah as a precedent for anything that comes after it.

Many claims, though, are unverifiable (and even refutable) via the same methods. We can provide evidence of Yeshua/Jesus existing, and we can use the Torah and the Tanakh to provide much evidence of his messiahship and the Torah is already demonstrated to be reliable.

Many christian claims, Orthodox Jewish claims and even Paul of Tarsus's claims are JUST claims, which require faith alone in order to support, and are NOT evidence. "Paul says he is a pharisee and trained under Gamaliel, therefore he was a pharisee who trained under Gamaliel" is a recent example I've posted about here. The so-called Oral Law that provides the foundation of the Talmud requires the same faith in a claim, as do other books in the New Testament, the book of Mormon, Muhammed's claims, The Catholic creeds, etc etc all rely on claims, and of a claim can be disputed, BUT cannot be supported with evidence beyond a claim, we have grounds to disregard the claim (if a claim has no reason to be disputed, nor has supporting evidence or reliable witness that itself is verifiable, then it is down to the individual to discern, but very few important claims ever are so flimsy, they're either supported or refuted, sometimes both, rarely neither).

 

[Chriliman]

As already mentioned, this is tautological. A claim is a proposition (a statement with a truth value), so you're simply stating that the claim that God doesn't exist is evidence of a proposition that God doesn't exist; in other words, the claim that God doesn't exist is evidence of a claim that God doesn't exist...
No; it is only evidence that the claim is logical and reasonable, so we should not dismiss it on logical or rational grounds; i.e. it's logic and/or reason are not evidence against it. That something is not evidence against a claim doesn't make it evidence for the claim.
There are many reasonable and logical explanations for why God does not exist, so, at best, it is a matter of opinion. There are also logical reasons why people might believe in God whether God exists or not.

So the the logic and rationale for and against the existence of God is a disputable matter of opinion, and the existence of believers is and unbelievers is not evidence either way. In the absence of factual (testable, falsifiable) evidence, the existence of God remains an unsupported claim. For me, the circumstantial evidence (e.g. multiple contradictory God beliefs, physics, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience) speaks powerfully against it. YMMV.

An eternal God can logically be compared to an eternal multiverse(both could have possibly created our universe). The fact that people claim to have experienced an eternal God and that no one has ever claimed to have experienced an eternal multiverse, is evidence that an eternal God is more reasonable to believe in than an eternal multiverse.

An eternal multiverse is still possible and an eternal God is still possible, but the fact that people claim to have experienced the eternal God is evidence in favor of the eternal God, but this has no effect on the possibility of an eternal multiverse, it's just that no one has ever claimed to have experienced an eternal multiverse, therefore, no rational reason to believe it's true.

 

[bhsmte]

This is beside the point. The point is that a claim is evidence that the claim is either true or false. Not all true claims can be backed by physical evidence. In the case of an eyewitness, they saw or experienced a real event and have information about the event that cannot be accessed any other way other than by asking them personally. Their claim is evidence of what really happened, whether their claim is true or not is beside the point, the point is that the claim is evidence of truth.

If a claim is "evidence of truth" as you state, if I claim, I was visited by aliens last night and they demonstrated to me, how they created human life and there is no God, my claim by itself, is evidence of truth?

 

[bhsmte]

Indeed, we all need what we consider to be sufficient evidence before we'll believe something and the harder something is the believe the more evidence we'll require before we'll consider it to be sufficient. However, whether or not you consider a claim to be in itself sufficient evidence does not disqualify it from counting as evidence.

When the prosecutor makes a statement; "the defendant is guilty of the crime they are charged with", is that considered evidence of guilt, or does the prosecution then have to provide evidence to support their claim?