No, Not Proof, Evidence
What was that I was just saying the other day about people translating ‘evidence’ into ‘proof,’ thinking the two words are interchangeable, just plain confusing the two? You’d think at least science journalists would know the difference, wouldn’t you? Well you’d be wrong, apparently.
Sir Patrick said scientists used peer review “almost exclusively” to publicise findings. But he said researchers could still attract publicity “for highly questionable results even when they offered no evidence that their research had been checked”. This was evident earlier this year when the Raelian sect announced the births of human clones. The only proof the sect’s US-based company Clonaid produced to support its assertion was a photograph of one of the children alleged to have been born in Japan.
See? You’d think it would be obvious, wouldn’t you. The juxtaposition is right there, evidence in one sentence, proof in the next but one. You’d think it would be all the more blindingly obvious given the nature of the example – given the fact that supporting an assertion (and a highly improbable one at that) is precisely the subject at issue. You’d think the writer would notice – that if a photograph of a child hardly qualifies as evidence that said child was cloned, the idea that it’s proof is even more nonsensical, so nonsensical that, hey, wait, I have the wrong word here. But no. No, clearly people really do think the two words are interchangeable, think it so automatically that they don’t even know they think it. But it’s so basic! The difference between the two, and between the claims for the two, is so extremely basic! And yet apparently most people aren’t even aware there’s a difference. Which means that most people don’t have a clue how science and inquiry work. Which is a pretty alarming thought.
It is a pretty alarming thought indeed. When you first mentioned that, I rushed to my dictionaries to look them up, because — mea culpa — I had been using them interchangeably. Alas, language dictionaries tend to give “evidence” as a synonym of “proof.” Only after careful scrutiny can you make a distinction. I stand corrected. Thanks for bringing that up.
My pleasure. And the culpa isn’t really yours, because it is such a very common translation – I’m only now realising how common – and these things are contagious. Meme-like. If we hear and read the two words used interchangeably all the time, we start to do it ourselves without ever realising it. But scientists, as far as I can tell, apparently don’t. That fact in itself is quite interesting. Scientists need to know the difference, of course – but the truth is, so do we all. It’s really quite interesting that we’re apparently not taught it as thoroughly as scientists (and, I daresay, lawyers and cops) are.