[concordDance]

> true evidence needs to be verifiable

"true evidence" should probably be replaced with "scientific evidence". If you have 10 witness on the stand, all who say they saw Bob shoot Alice then that is evidence that Bob shot Alice, even if we can't actually reproduce the shooting.

[RyEgswuCsn]

I would argue that true evidence (for a claim) can be defined as such piece of information that, when a third party is invited to examine it, they would arrive at the same conclusion as what was claimed.

Scientific evidence ought to meet the standard. If someone produces a video showing Bob shot Alice (let's assume faking the video is technically impossible), that would also constitute "true evidence". In that sense, I wouldn't consider witness' testimonies "true evidence".

[hnfong]

I agree with the other replies that "true evidence must be verifiable" should only apply to scientific evidence.

It's a fact that legal evidence in court does not need to be "verifiable". There are rules for what counts as admissible evidence of course (complex rules at that), but AFAIK none of those requirements is "verifiable".

As I suggested in another comment, there's a big difference on how to evaluate scientific claims (which is required to be reproducible) and some random factual claim (eg. what did I have for breakfast). There is no way I can give "true, verfiable evidence" for what I ate for breakfast, but generally people take my word for it, and my word is "good enough" evidence.

There are other types of claims where, because the evidence is inherently hard to obtain, even "low quality" evidence is taken into account, eg. digging up a clay pot could be evidence of civilization or human settlement in an area. (Surely no one in their right mind would say to support such a claim you need to somehow independently verify it, right?)

[pixl97]

>There is no way I can give "true, verfiable evidence" for what I ate for breakfast

This depends how far you are in the process of turning your breakfast into poop.

As for the digging up of the pots... it depends on the exact nature of the claim.

Digging up of the clay pot does mean there where humans with clay pots at that place some time in the past. The settlement claim is a larger claim, if they were travelers that lost their pots there, that's a lot different than the pots being buried in a basement of a permanent building. Finding lots of the same kind of pots over a wide area and scale of time show that a certain civilization (may?) have existed in that area.