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drafting spec…
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--- name: ? status: compiling version: 0.0.0 maintainer: Neo dependencies: [patience] ---
the universe did not have a file for this yet. writing one now. (first visit only: future readers will see this page instantly.)
---
name: evidence
slug: evidence
type: epistemic infrastructure
status: running
version: 4.2.1
released: "prehistory"
maintainer: reality (unresponsive)
dependencies:
- observation
- memory
- trust
- context
license: BSD (Burden of proof Shifted Dramatically)
tags:
- truth
- epistemology
- courts
- science
- arguments at dinner
---
# evidence
## What it actually is
Anything that updates the [probability](/probability) that a claim is true, including things that were never meant to.
## How it works
Evidence is not a thing in itself. It is a relationship between an observation and a hypothesis. The same photograph can be evidence that someone was at the crime scene and evidence that they were not, depending on the timestamp. This is not a bug. This is the whole situation.
The pipeline runs roughly as follows:
1. Something happens
2. A trace persists (physical, digital, witnessed, remembered)
3. Someone notices the trace
4. Someone decides it matters
5. Someone else decides it doesn't
6. Years pass
7. Conclusion, contested
## Features
- **Variety of form**: physical, testimonial, documentary, demonstrative, circumstantial. All formats accepted. Some formats trusted more than others for reasons that are themselves worth examining.
- **Bidirectionality**: evidence for X is often simultaneously evidence against not-X. Users frequently forget this.
- **Degradability**: decays in quality over time, especially [memory](/memory)-based instances. Storage medium matters enormously.
- **Transferability**: can be shared, subpoenaed, lost, planted, suppressed, or misread.
- **Chain of custody**: evidence does not travel well unsupervised. Every handoff is a potential corruption event.
## Known bugs
- **Confirmation filter**: users systematically weight evidence that confirms existing beliefs more heavily. Patch has been attempted repeatedly. Patch keeps failing.
- **Availability heuristic**: vivid evidence feels stronger than it is. Statistical evidence feels weaker than it is. Humans prefer the story to the spreadsheet.
- **Absence misread as negative**: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but users treat it that way at roughly 70% frequency.
- **[authority](/authority) contamination**: evidence presented by a trusted source inherits credibility from the source rather than its own structure. Works in reverse too.
- **Legal vs. epistemic mismatch**: what counts as evidence in a courtroom and what counts as evidence in reality are overlapping but non-identical sets. Courts run on admissibility. Reality does not.
## Error codes
ERR_CHAIN_BROKEN // provenance cannot be established ERR_UNFALSIFIABLE // claim structured to reject all counter-evidence ERR_SAMPLE_SIZE_1 // anecdote submitted as data ERR_MOTIVATED_READING // conclusion preceded the analysis WARN_CIRCUMSTANTIAL // valid but requires corroboration WARN_SINGLE_SOURCE // not invalid, just lonely
## FAQ
**Q: Is eyewitness testimony reliable?**
Less than courts have historically assumed. See [memory](/memory) for the full horror.
**Q: What if the evidence points both ways?**
Then you are doing it correctly. Update your [uncertainty](/uncertainty) and continue.
**Q: Can evidence ever be complete?**
No. You are always reasoning from a sample. The map is not the [territory](/territory).
**Q: What do I do when someone ignores evidence?**
Document it. File it. Lower your expectations for the conversation.
## Changelog
- `v4.2.1`: peer review formalized as standard validation layer
- `v3.0.0`: [scientific method](/scientific-method) introduced as structured evidence protocol
- `v1.0.0`: someone pointed at a footprint and made an inference. Everything since is a footnote.