User:JREverest/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar group 6/Evidence

Evidence

Evidence can be defined as the information which may be provided in order to prove the truth or validity of a proposed statement or belief. The nature of the evidence may differ, for example:

• Evidence may be qualitative or quantitative.
• Evidence may take many different forms including, but not limited to, testimonies, physical evidence such as objects and scientific research reports.
• Evidence may provide differing strengths of support to a statement or belief.

In this way, evidence will take different forms depending on the discipline within which is it being used.

Evidence can be defined as “anything that helps to prove that something is true, or not” . We can therefore associate evidence with proof. For example the phrase "there are A.D.N fragments of the suspect on the victim's body" may be considered (rightly or wrongly) as proof that the suspect was in contact with the victim. Or, the demonstrative proof that if A = B and B = H, then we can say that A = H.

All evidence is based on the affirmation of an existence. To assert the truth of what we think, it is important to be able to justify what we say. Proof is required by a doubtful mind; if we did not doubt, we would not need to prove and convince others that what we are saying is true.

Types of evidence

• Personal experience: Evidence that is sensory; related to the individual it concerns. It is usually the sum of experiences a person has, and forms an empirical unity, such as a year of life. Cognitive Psychology experiments prove that personal experience is not a reliable form of evidence in many situations, as it is completely dependent on a range of uncontrollable variables: people will experience things different depending on their personal outlook, morals, etc. Additionally, memory can cause errors in recall; for example, many eyewitness accounts differ hugely, due to witnesses "filling in" the gaps in their memory, embellishing/mis-remembering memories (due to time delay), or from different angles/perspectives.
• Digital evidence: Evidence given in digital form. Throughout recent years, the use of digital evidence has increased in legal situations. Today, most courts will accept emails, instant messenger history, ATM bank details, databases, spreadsheets, and digital/audio files as evidence during a trial. Digital evidence is often criticised for it's authenticity, as many argue that it can be easily modified/tampered with.
• Scientific evidence: Evidence formed of data collected from scientific research and experimentation, this can take years to collect and may require many expensive resources. Scientific evidence is based purely on data and as such we would expect the results to be completely 'truthful' of the situation, and the conclusions drawn from such results to be objective and unbiased of opinion. Additionally unlike other sources of evidence scientific researchers are obligated to have their findings reviewed by their scientific peers before this research can officially become evidence. There is a strict criteria in the scientific community about what can be used in order to show theories as accurate. Once data is shown that has been verified by other scientists, and that can be used in order to prove the correctness of the theory, this is then called evidence for the legitimacy of the theory. Another point to add is that science is an ever-growing discipline hence there is always the topic that correct theories with evidence are just the most up to date theories created with the resources and knowledge of the current technological standpoint.
• Testimonial evidence: Evidence given by a witness which allows investigators to to get a better understanding of a crime scene. it is generally considered less reliable and more subjective than other types of evidence such as physical evidence as it relies on the memories or understanding of an individual rather than tangible proof.
• Physical evidence: (Also referred to as real evidence or material evidence) is any object that plays some role in proving a fact that has been put forward based on the characteristics of the object.

Evidence in different disciplines

Evidence in Science

In science, evidence is needed to support or dismiss a hypothesis. To do this, a scientist must rely on the results and observations of an experiment. When the evidence supports a claim, the person must be able to defend their claim categorically. The evidence should be verified by many experiments and many other scientists. The rules for evidence used by science are collected systematically in an order to avoid the bias that is inevitable to anecdotal evidence. Evidence is at the heart of science - it is what all scientist actively seek.

Evidence in Law

In law, there are the Federal Rules of Evidence. Evidence covers the burden of proof, admissibility, relevance, weight and sufficiency of what should be admitted into the record of a legal proceeding. There are four main types of evidence in legal proceedings: real evidence (tangible), demonstrative (model), documentary (documents) and testimonial (witness testimony).

Direct evidence refers to evidence which proves the facts in issue, whereas indirect evidence is evidence which is used to prove the facts from which facts in issue may be inferred. Physical objects can be either direct or indirect evidence; with technological advances, many forms of evidence in law are now submitted digitally. If an electronic record, for example, needs to be proven to exist to support a legal issue, the electronic record is a form of direct evidence.

Evidence in Math

In mathematics, evidence is an inferential argument for a statement, it is called a proof. It is a sequence of logical statements, each of these statements implies the next one, and explains why the last statement is true. These statements are called theorems: old ones can be used to deduce and prove new ones. Before a statement is proven, it is not considered true. Mathematical proof is absolute. These proofs have a foundation of basic math theorems that serve as "laws". These are called axioms, or postulates, and serve to be a starting point for any other mathematical concepts to be built on. Hence, if mathematical proofs can show that its foundations are the axioms then it must be correct evidence.

Evidence in History

In history, evidence is used to reconstruct the past. The main source of evidence are primary sources, which are original documents dating back to the specific event in history that is being studied, such as letters. Other types of evidence are secondary sources, which usually involve an analysis of a primary source, and oral traditions, stories that are passed down from generation to generation. In this discipline, evidence is very open to interpretation.

Evidence in Medicine

Up to date evidence is crucial in medicine for making the best decisions for patients. By combining expertise within the clinical world and external evidence from research, we are able to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of diagnosis. The specifics of research further allows us to gather evidence in order to identify the predicaments of individual patients. Evidence is acquired through clinical tests with patients and the outcomes invariably lead to improved accuracy and precision. The resulting evidence invalidates accepted diagnostic tests and treatments but these are also malleable in the sense that tests may be replaced with those more efficient. Without ongoing research evidence can become out of date resulting in potentially detrimental effects in this field. Evidence in Anthropology

Whereas historians traditionally turn to archives as evidence, and sociologists to statistics, anthropologists carry out ethnographic fieldwork, which acts as evidence within the field. Ethnography is a method of gathering empirical data, and is based on personal experience and testimony; ethnographers live within the communities they are studying, and immerse themselves. They stay for at least a year, to properly appreciate/build connections within the society, and then publicise their research. It is a form of "participant observation"; in order to understand the community, it is vital to interact intimately with those being studied. In this way, evidence is gathered through personal testimony and interviews with locals.

Evidence in Public Policy

Evidence in this discipline is necessary to inform policy makers on how to improve the public sector by implementing more adapted policies. This evidence is mainly found through social cost benefit analysis. This method of evaluation allows to weigh the social costs and benefits of a certain public policy or project to measure its overall positive or, alternatively, negative outcome on society. Financial evidence relating to areas such as investment costs, derived profits, tax use, etc. are analysed in parallel to social costs like pollution, health, etc. Such evidence-based policymaking allows us to produce a holistic change with limited resources. The evidence used here, unlike scientific experiment based evidence, is not static and can change over time due to the different factors that affect a society.

Evidence in Statistics

Statistics can be a useful way to present evidence so that it can be clearly understood and interpreted by people. However, there have been many cases where evidence has been distorted through the misuse of statistics . The choices made when reporting certain statistics have a big impact on how people view that information. When producing statistics, it is important to consider that the choices made displaying the information, can influence the interpretation of the result. For instance, even though saying that 9 out of 10 people don’t smoke is the same as saying 10% of people do smoke, these two statements could be interpreted differently. Even though the evidence is clearly there to read, the way the evidence is presented can have an implication on how the evidence is interpreted (one could draw a completely different conclusion from something). Methods of disguise can omit certain details. When, for example, not starting a graph at 0 but rather 100, evidence can appear larger or stronger than it really is. This is done through either purposeful manipulation or by accident. Often, what is included can be as important as what is excluded.

Issues with evidence

Evidence reliability and validity

In qualitative research - Qualitative research is based on subjective, interpretive and contextual data

Often used within business, this type of research aims to find and record opinions as well as personal motivations. Through the collection of non-numerical data, there is no firm statistical evidence derived from it, but patterns can be recognised and analysed. This type of evidence often includes the use of focus groups or interviews to obtain results that provide a direction for future action.

In quantitative research - Correlation vs causation: even though the occurrences of two events may correlate it does not mean that the occurrence of one is necessary to the occurrence of the other. For example, smoking is correlated to alcoholism but smoking doesn't actually cause alcoholism. People need to beware of bold claims made from correlated data points. Data can be used to show what someone wants you to see: numbers can be manipulated. It is the interpretation of the data that can make it subjective.

How to collect evidence? There are various ways in which one can collect evidence. Empirical evidence involves collection of information and evidence by means of the senses- thus this type of evidence arguably comes most naturally to humans and can be used in a wide range of disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, psychology and anthropology. Evidence can also be collected through more discipline specific means such as ethnography within anthropology. Ethnography is a subfield of fieldwork which involves collecting evidence to study human cultures and societies.

collecting evidence in science: This involves carrying out experiments to collect data which may or may not prove a certain hypothesis. If the data works with the hypothesis, it becomes evidence. There are certain methods used in scientific research to make sure the evidence collected is reliable, for example using a control experiment, which makes up for anomalies and human error.

This is a common concern because evidence is expected to be 'truthful' so it important that evidence does not get contaminated. For example, in a crime scene, it is expected that law enforcement block off the area where the crime was committed to avoid anyone who wasn't involved interfering. This is similar to biology where instruments are kept sterile and sanitary for the same reason but on a smaller level.

Bias in Evidence

Potential bias is introduced by meta-analysts, researchers who compile data from numerous sources and studies, and identify trends in the findings across similar research studies. In essence, they compile evidence, and rearrange it for readers to interpret it. The reliability of a meta-analysis is thus deeply dependent on how much research the writer has done, and the range of literature they have read. Their background will influence which evidence they compile and present, and this curation of evidence can arguably lead to biased conclusions. This links to the concept of publication bias, where the publishing or omitting of data is influenced by a writer's subjectivity. ("Publication Bias in Meta-Analysis: Prevention, Assessment, and Adjustments" edited by H. R. Rothstein, A. J. Sutton, M. Borenstein.)

Empirical data obtained through the scientific method is typically considered to be objective and reliable, but in some cases it may actually be subject to bias. Especially in cases where scientists might benefit from obtaining certain results, there is a risk of unreliability in their data, particularly if it depended on estimations, qualitative observations, or the selection or omission of certain data.

A study on the bias in estimation of treatment effects concluded that potential bias could arise in studies with an insufficient approach regarding the method of an experiment. In other words, if the procedure is not clear or adequate in that it does not account for all possibly confounding variables, it may leave room for researcher bias. ("Empirical Evidence of Bias: Dimensions of Methodological Quality Associated with Estimates of Treatment Effects in Controlled Trials" by Kenneth F. Schulz, Iain Chalmers, Richard J. Hayes.) Thus, there is usually a potential for bias in evidence.

False Creation of Evidence

The application of evidence in law is the main circumstance under which the false creation of evidence is prominent, where such 'false' or 'forged' evidence is evidence which is not legally created or obtained, whether this be by the prosecution or defense parties or simply anyone which has a particular bias to either side. Most evidence is at risk of being falsely created, whether this be physical evidence, such as crime scene reports or photographs which are subject to the 'planting' of evidence items, or non-physical evidence, such as witness statements which may be entirely or partially forged. Beyond the false creation of evidence by either party with the intention of persuading the judge or jury of a particular viewpoint, evidence may also be declared false if the means under which it was collected as seen as unlawful - this is often unintentional at the hands of the police and crime scene investigators (assumed as unbiased parties although this is not always the case) although the act of 'parallel construction' where the context and origin of evidence is concealed by legal parties in order to prevent important evidence being written off as 'false', is seen as a deliberate attempt to manipulate the outcome of a court case using false evidence and is, as such, illegal.

However, the false creation of evidence is not limited to the legal context of a courtroom and may occur in most other settings where a particular party has an agenda to persuade others of a certain viewpoint. Many major cultural examples of the power of false created evidence exist within North Korea, where alternative evidence beyond that provided by the state is limited giving a particular prominence to false information. It is believed by the North Korean people that Kim Jong-Il had a divine birth during which a new star and double rainbow appeared in the sky above the sacred Baekdu Mountain because of the description of this in Kim Jong-iI’s official biography, despite the evidence available only to those outside of North Korea that he was infact born in the Siberian Village of Vyatskokye as stated in Soviet Records.

Manipulation of Evidence

A further major issue with evidence and the use of evidence is the potential for evidence to be manipulated, also usually found also in a legal context where evidence may be illegally 'suppressed' or purposely hidden from reveal by the prosecution team if this evidence does not support their case of the defendant as guilty in order to sway the judge or jury. The use of evidence in Science has increasingly been established as an area where manipulation of evidence is important and may have damaging effects, for example:

• Climate change
  • The evidence concerning climate change and whether global warming is really occurring or not is often speculated to be manipulated, with scientific results either being literally altered or taken out of context in order to reduce the effects of global warming as shown by such results.
• The pharmaceutical industry
  • Increasingly, scientific and academic literature published about evidence-based medicine has been accused of data manipulation by leaving out facts and figures which indicate no or negative effects of such medicine. A major case study of this was GlaxoSmithKline's research of paroxetine to treat adolescence depression, the results of which determined that the medicine was effective and well tolerated - it was discovered that the report which came to this conclusion left out reports of those using the drug actually experiencing mental health deterioration (which was left out because it was 'unacceptable commercially' to reveal such results as described in emails within the company), repeated tests to make the drug appear more effective and selectively choosing what data and context appeared in the report in order to support their claim. This report containing manipulated evidence formed the basis of the widespread use of the drug to treat adolescent depression.

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