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wedrifid comments on Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence - Less Wrong
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If absence of proof is not proof of absence, but absence of evidence is evidence of absence, what makes proof different from evidence?
Example: we currently have no evidence supporting the existence of planets orbiting stars in other galaxies, because our telescopes are not powerful enough to observe them. Should we take this as evidence that no galaxy except ours has planets around its stars?
Another example: before the invention of the microscope, there was no evidence supporting the existence of bacteria because there were no means to observe them. Should've this fact alone been interpreted as evidence of absence of bacteria (even though bacteria did exist before microscopes were invented)?
Yes we do. We have evidence about how physics (ie. gravity) works and about the formation phases of the universe. That earth and the other planets here exists is evidence. We just didn't happen to have one particular kind of evidence (seeing them). And no, until we developed (recently) the ability to see evidence of them ourselves you would not have been entitled to that piece of evidence either. Because we should not have expected to see them. Seeing planets with tech that should not see them would have been evidence that something else was wrong.