[emn13]

Well, depending on how hard you look and what the false negative rate is like, bayesian reasoning would like to differ.

You know what I love about the internet? You think something like this, and you just know somebody's looked into it in some details :D - https://cocosci.princeton.edu/papers/absentData.pdf

[IncRnd]

Inference isn't evidence. Inference is drawn from evidence and is an educated guess. A guess is not evidence. You fell for the clickbait headline of a pdf.

[solveit]

Evidence isn't absolute proof and there are degrees of evidence. See: Weak evidence, strong evidence.

[IncRnd]

The idiom that I mentioned is still true, whether you discuss circumstantial or direct evidence. Lack of Evidence isn't Evidence of Lack.

[solveit]

Lack of evidence is always weak evidence for evidence of lack, and pretty strong evidence if you've looked hard enough. If you've trawled through loch Ness with a fine toothed comb for decades and haven't seen Nessie, well then that's pretty good evidence for lack of monster.

[IncRnd]

You're confusing correlation with causation. Regarding your point about searching - Have you ever lost your keys, searched for a long time without finding them, then found them by happenstance at a later point when not looking? Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.

[solveit]

I am saying your definition of evidence is overly strict and at odds with both how we use the term in common speech and with what is useful. My definition of evidence for A is an observation B such that P(A|B)>P(A), and with this definition, lack of evidence most certainly is evidence of lack.