Talk:Empirical evidence/Archives/2023/November

a posteriori and a priori
I am not sure I understand why a posteriori points here and a priori points to A priori and a posteriori. Shouldn't they both point to A priori and a posteriori? speednat (talk) 03:45, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I have read a large deal on this subject and there are distinct differences between the two terms. This is why they are stated as such. They are in the same article because of their creator(s). To explain these differences and there origins is too lengthy and the article itself illustrates their meaning to a large extent very well.
 * --Xavier (talk) 02:29, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Other languages
Some translations are absolutely wrong, because there is a difference between science which is based on pure experimentation (=empirical science) and science based on other methods. See also the old wrong description of Experimental physics. --Fmrauch (talk) 22:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Which translations are you referring to?
 * --Xavier (talk) 02:31, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Some problems in this article
Over at Talk:Scientific evidence we have been having a discussion about merging Scientific evidence into this article. In the course of that discussion, I noticed some problems in this article that I want to mention here since I am not going to fix them right away. I will omit the issue of overlap with Scientific evidence that has already been discussed at Talk:Scientific evidence.

Problem 1: Redirects are not properly boldfaced. At, I listed all the terms that redirect to this article. The first occurrence of those terms should be bold text in this article per MOS:BOLDSYN & WP:R, and they should be clearly defined. Perhaps the most important redirect is Empirical, which leads to the next problem.

Problem 2: may be too narrowly defined when it first occurs in this article. During our discussion at Talk:Scientific evidence, I read the following source (and I added it to this article): Bogen says: "The term comes from an ancient use of "empeiria"—usually translated "experience"—to mean something like what we'd mean in saying that Pete Seeger had a lot of experience with banjos. Physicians who treated patients by trial and error without recourse to systematic medical theories were called "empirical" (Sextus Empiricus 1961, 145–146). Aristotle used "empeiria" in connection with what can be learned from informal observations, as opposed to scientific knowledge of the natures of things (Aristotle 1984, 1552–1553). Neither usage has much to do with ideas about the cognitive importance of perceptual experience that we now associate with empiricism."

Bogen's account suggests that since Empirical redirects here, these other meanings of should be mentioned in the lead section or very early. I didn't spend much time trying to verify Bogen's account, but a quick check of the Oxford English Dictionary and Encyclopedia.com suggests that Bogen is not wrong:

":

A. 1. a. Designating a school of medical thought originating in ancient Greece and Rome and holding that treatment should be based on observation and experience rather than on deduction from theoretical principles; (also) belonging to or advocating this school of thought (= empiric adj. 1.) Now.

b. Of a medical practitioner: lacking formal academic training or qualifications; practising folk or traditional medicine; (more strongly) engaged in quackery. Also: of or relating to such a practitioner. (Cf. empiric adj. 1b.) Now.

c. Of a medicine, treatment, etc.: prescribed by a practitioner without academic training; of the nature of a quack remedy (= empiric adj. 1c.) Now and.

d. Of medical practice or a medical treatment: based on experience of the outcome of previous cases; based on clinical judgement or diagnosis; (in later use) not dependent upon the results of laboratory investigations or formal clinical trials. (Cf. empiric adj. 1d.)

2. . Of a person: lacking knowledge or understanding; ignorant, unlearned; (also) that merely pretends to knowledge or expertise; that is a charlatan. Of behaviour, methods, etc.: lacking a sound basis in knowledge; characterized by presumptuous ignorance or incompetence; characteristic of a charlatan. (Cf. sense A. 1b, and empiricism n. 3.) Now or merged in sense A. 4. In early use sometimes with direct allusion to sense A. 1b.

3. That pursues knowledge by means of direct observation, investigation, or experiment (as distinct from deductive reasoning, abstract theorizing, or speculation); that relates to or derives from this method of pursuing knowledge. Later also: relating to or espousing empiricism (empiricism n. 6) as a methodology. Now the most frequent sense in general use: see the note at empiricism n. 6.

4. Guided by or derived from previous experience or unsystematic observation, without a basis in formal learning or an understanding of underlying principles; influenced by specific events or situations, rather than conforming to general rules, policies, etc.; dependent on trial and error. (Cf. empiricism n. 4.) Frequently seen as undesirable.

5. a. . Of an object or thing: knowable or known through experience (esp. as opposed to ). Of a concept, idea, etc.: originating in sense experience. Of a statement, etc.: justified, or requiring justification, by reference to sense experience. (Cf. empiricism n. 5a.)

b. That espouses or practises philosophical empiricism (empiricism n. 5a) or its principles. Cf. n. (b) at Compounds."

In particular, the lead section's definition of as "constituted by or accessible to sensory experience" omits key aspects of definitions A. 3. and 4. in the OED definitions given above: "by means of direct observation, investigation, or experiment" and "derived from previous experience or unsystematic observation". These definitions of empirical are more concerned with than with. See the OED for plenty of historical examples.

Encyclopedia.com reproduces a definition of by Gordon Marshall from A Dictionary of Sociology:

"As applied to statements, particular research projects, or even to general approaches to research, the term 'empirical' implies a close relationship to sensory experience, observation, or experiment. Sometimes the term is contrasted with abstract or theoretical, sometimes with dogmatic, or sometimes with scholarly. In its derogatory uses, lack of attention to matters of principle or theory is implied. As a term of approval, for example from the stand-point of empiricism, the term implies practical relevance, or testability, as against bookish scholasticism or groundless speculation."

Again, we see in Marshall's definition some alternatives to "constituted by or accessible to sensory experience", namely an alternative emphasis on quality of method (which can be positive or negative depending on whether the term is used as an honorific or a pejorative) instead of sensory source. Biogeographist (talk) 15:12, 27 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking the time to list all those definitions. The formulation in the lead was not intended to spell out all the details of the definition of the term. That's what the section "Definition" is for. We would have to check whether it covers the main points you mentioned. The goal of the passage in the lead is to give the gist. The idea of the formulation "constituted by or accessible to sensory experience" was to cover both the experiences themselves, as in the empiricist tradition, and the physical things that are experienced, which would be more on the scientific side. This does not exclude the "means of direct observation, investigation, or experiment", it just leaves it open. This topic is covered in more detail in the section "Observation, experimentation and scientific method".


 * As for the problems with this article, I think they are less about what is there and more about what is missing. It is currently at 40,872 monthly views but still lacks a detailed treatment of the main fields, for example, one section each for empirical evidence in epistemology, science and maybe law. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:07, 27 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I just looked at the "Definition" section and the history, and I see that you added that section recently, which was helpful. I think it still needs more about the present and historical variations of the term . The sources above indicate that the term was historically associated with the informal, non-theoretical, or unsystematic. This seems quite contradictory to scientific evidence, if we consider systematicity to be an important (though not sufficient ) quality of the scientific. The current "Definition" section focuses on the OED definitions A. 3 and 5. This is appropriate since those are the most common. But definitions A. 1d and 4 seem to have been neglected. 1d is medical and is under-emphasized in the current "Definition" section. 4 absorbed the now-rare 2, according to the OED, and may be worth mentioning as a contrast to the others and to avoid confusion in case any readers have encountered that meaning in the wild. That is my first impression anyway. Biogeographist (talk) 20:45, 27 June 2021 (UTC)


 * At the risk of muddying the waters still further, I'd just like to point out that the terms empirical evidence, empiricism etc are also fairly widely used in historical scholarship, in relation to an approach to understanding the past that is heavily dependent on primary documentary (or material) sources, as opposed on the one hand to accepting received secondary narratives, and on the other to more theoretical approaches. Empiricist history is generally seen as having its roots in Renaissance scholarship, but is particularly associated with the name of Leopold von Ranke in the mid 19th century. It increasingly came under attack in the 1990s/early 2000s from postmodernists (who argued that documents, and the interpretation of them, are necessarily subjective, so that the idea of an objective fact-based knowledge of the past is unattainable, and historians should adopt a more theoretical approach), but the pendulum has now to some extent swung back the other way. There's an extensive literature on the subject: e.g. . None of this is touched on in this article, but a number of other history-oriented articles do use the term(s) in this sense, and link here – e.g. Leopold von Ranke, Antiquarian, Arthur Marwick. GrindtXX (talk) 21:13, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Good—sounds like we need a section on history. Biogeographist (talk)
 * We could add a short qualification somewhere in this section, maybe at the end. Something like "The term is also sometimes used in the sense of 'informal, non-theoretical, or unsystematic'". Definition A1d is close to the scientific definition but we could also mention it there together with short remark on A4.
 * The information on history is helpful. If we get enough sources on that, we could have one more section on it. Phlsph7 (talk) 04:47, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I added some boldface that should resolve problem 1 above. Biogeographist (talk) 21:21, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Moving this article to "Empirical evidence (epistemology)"
When I proposed the merge, my view was that the recently added emphasis on empirical evidence outside science was artificial and should be reverted or perhaps covered in a different article. My proposal to move this article to "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" is consistent with that view, except that looking at the recent discussion in the talk page made me realize that this content is not artificial in the general context of epistemology. Some people might be interested in Empirical evidence outside science, that is, in the general context of epistemology and that's fine. However, if you search for "empirical evidence" in Google scholar almost all entries refer to empirical evidence in some (scientific) study. Therefore, using "Empirical evidence" for this article, which has an emphasis on the concept outside science, does not respect WP:COMMONNAME. That's also why I maintain that Scientific evidence should be moved to Empirical evidence and there is no need in that case to add (science) or anything inside parentheses. Some might argue that the epistemological view on empirical evidence is part of empirical evidence in science, because the latter is a special case of the former. However, the same is true for the study of monoids versus the study of groups and yet they are different fields of study. The point here is that when you remove the context of science, it becomes a different topic (just as when you remove an axiom to group theory, it becomes monoid theory, a different topic). Had I realized that before, my arguments in the talk page of Scientific evidence would have been more specific: instead of Empirical evidence outside science, I would have used Empirical evidence (Epistemology) and I would have made clear that this topic deserves a separate article, instead of saying, as I did, that "I would not even mention it". Dominic Mayers (talk) 04:24, 28 June 2021 (UTC)


 * This article does not have its "emphasis on the concept outside science": it already covers both science and epistemology, see e.g. the section "Definition" and some subsections in "Related concepts". I think the most natural way to organize the topic would be to have one article, "empirical evidence", that covers the topic in the widest sense. If the sections on this article get too large, they can be spun off into their own articles. Have a look at the talk-section above this one, there are various proposals to add more detailed sections to this article like on empirical evidence in science, epistemology, history and law. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:24, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I see that, in a way, we are making progress, but, in another way, because of this progress, we now face an important point of disagreement. I have all the reasons to believe that I am discussing with people that believe in good faith in their perspective and defend it in an intelligent manner. Your position, the way I understand it, is expected from a lover of general epistemology. You want the global organization seen by readers to be determined by general epistemology. I disagree, because in this case it conflicts with WP:COMMONNAME. I have nothing against an article Empirical evidence (epistemology) (alias Empirical evidence) that presents a global organization based on epistemology, as you want to see. The article Empirical evidence (alias Scientific evidence) will present a global organization based on the most common interpretation of "Empirical evidence". However, a disambiguation tag at the top of both articles should explain the situation, so that the readers will know where to go if they want to know about "Empirical evidence" from the most general stand point of epistemology. If one of its sections is clearly a subtopic of Empirical evidence (alias scientific evidence), this section should be moved accordingly, but any part of this section can remain if it is important for the quality of the article. Because the two articles have different focuses, any necessary duplication is not an issue.


 * Let me anticipate a possible counter argument to my view: "Scientific evidence" appears more precise than "Empirical evidence" to refer to its most common interpretation. This counter argument fails in two ways. First, Empirical evidence is used way more often than  scientific evidence and it is used most of the times in the context of science, which is not surprising. Second, it would still remain that an article primarily without the scientific context with the name "Empirical evidence" will not be optimal for the readers, because most of the times they will be looking for the scientific context.  The disambiguation tags will help, but the names should in addition respect WP:COMMONNAME. Dominic Mayers (talk) 11:27, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

The OED definitions above may support Dominic's argument: The OED says that definition A. 3 is "the most frequent sense in general use: see the note at empiricism n. 6", and this is separate from the philosophical definition in A. 5. Definition 6 of empiricism referenced in A. 3 says: ":

6. Primary reliance on evidence derived from observation, investigation, or experiment rather than on abstract reasoning, theoretical analysis, or speculation; the use of such methods in any field. (Cf. empirical adj. 3.) Now the most frequent sense in general use. The development of this sense of empiricism is related to the emergence of modern scientific practice in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with its emphasis on systematic observation and careful experimentation."

An aside unrelated to the WP:COMMONNAME argument: Dominic has elsewhere shown an interest in critical rationalism, which is hostile to common epistemological concepts such as justification. In his footnote Dominic said: it should be said that many philosophers of science would disagree on an emphasis based on general epistemology. In particular, Popper ... True, and this critique of epistemology is not limited to Popperians and some other philosophers of science. One can find similar critiques in some pragmatists, and philosopher Barry Allen gave a succinct summary of his own hostility to epistemology: "The "justified true belief" formula should be set aside because the contribution of dialectics to knowledge is overrated, because truth is not essential, and because knowledge is not belief-plus. Knowledge is deeper than language, different from belief, more valuable than truth. It is exemplified in exemplary performances with artifacts of all kinds. It is itself an artifact of artifacts interacting in an artifactual ecology. What we know is a function of how we know, of our instruments, methods, apparatus, and antecedent knowledge, as well as an evolved neurology, while the "objects of knowledge" are not things-in-themselves but complex and densely mediated artifacts."

Allen's critique of epistemology is relevant to science, but as Joseph Rouse noted in a critique of Allen's book, Allen gave a surprising lack of emphasis to science: "His core examples of superlative artifactual performance come from architecture, structural engineering, industrial design, agriculture, and the arts. He emphasizes the multiple, densely intertwined artifacts that mark the emergence first of human cultures, and more importantly, the subsequent emergence of urban civilizations. The kinds of knowledge that become central on his view were already substantially in place before the canonical emergence of modern empirical science, and indeed, were the indispensable precondition for the more rarefied artifactual achievements of both experimental and discursive/symbolic understanding in science."

This may be no more than a lengthy aside, or it may be relevant to differentiating between the now more common meaning of "empirical" (OED definition A. 3) and the meaning in traditional empiricist epistemology (OED definition A. 5), insofar as the common meaning is more in line with the critics of traditional epistemology than with the epistemologists. On the other hand, I am a little concerned that Dominic may be such a Popperian that he is more motivated by this philosophical bias than he can admit. But if his argument is strong enough apart from this bias then his bias doesn't matter anyway. Biogeographist (talk) 14:35, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I thought of a killer counterargument to Dominic's proposal to rename this article as Empirical evidence (epistemology). It's quite obvious: Epistemology is not equivalent to traditional empiricist epistemology; epistemology overlaps with philosophy of science and other areas. This can be seen, for example, in Mario Bunge's three-volume Epistemology & Methodology, the table of contents of which includes: "EPISTEMOLOGY & METHODOLOGY I: EXPLORING THE WORLD – Part 1. Cognition and communication – 1. Cognition – The knowing subject – Cognitive functions – Development and evolution – 2. Knowledge – From cognition to knowledge – Modes of knowledge – Belief – Inquiry – 3. Communication – Subject and world – Social matrix – Communication – Part II. Perceiving and thinking – 4. Perceiving – From sensing to perceiving – Observing – Mapping reality – 5. Conceiving – Concept – Proposition – Exactification – Representation – 6. Inferring – From spontaneity to formality – Plausible reasoning – Discussing – Part III. Exploring and theorizing – 7. Exploring – Exploratory behavior – From intuition to method – Approach and research – Analysis of problems – 8. Conjecturing – From preconception to hypothesis – Scope and depth – Chance and cause – Requirements – 9. Systematizing – Classification and theory – Construction and reality – Convention and law – EPISTEMOLOGY & METHODOLOGY II: UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD – Part IV. Understanding and checking – 10. Understanding – Understanding and explaining – Systematic account – Unification – Forecasting – 11. Producing evidence – From self-evidence to evidence – Testability and indicators – Data – 12. Evaluating – Values – Empirical value indicators – Conceptual value indicators – Part V. Variety and unity – 13. Epistemic change – Cognitive novelty – Change mechanisms – Evolution and revolution – Limits and prospects – 14. Kinds of knowledge – Fields of knowledge – Science and technology – The knowledge system – Illusory knowledge – 15. Upshot – Social sciences of knowledge – Philosophies of knowledge – Maxims of scientific realism – EPISTEMOLOGY & METHODOLOGY III: PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY – Part I. Formal and physical sciences – 1. Formal science: from logic to mathematics – Generalities – Mathematics and reality – Logic – Pure and applied mathematics – Foundations and philosophy – 2. Physical science: from physics to earth science – Preliminaries – Two classics – Two relativities – Quantons – Chance – Realism and classicism – Chemistry – Megaphysics – Part II. Life science, social science and technology – 3. Life science: from biology to psychology – Life and its study – Two classics – Two moderns – Brain and mind – Strife over mind – From biology to sociology – 4. Social science: from anthropology to history – Society and its study – Anthropology – Linguistics – Sociology and politology – Economics – History – 5. Technology: from engineering to decision theory – Generalities – Classical technologies – Information technology – Sociotechnology – General technology – Technology in society"

The fact that Bunge considered much of this to be epistemology (and many other examples of the same broad scope of epistemology could be found) shows that epistemology overlaps with other fields. Dominic already concluded at Talk:Scientific evidence that Empirical evidence and Scientific evidence should not be separate articles largely because of their overlap. Empirical evidence in science and empirical evidence in epistemology overlap in the same way. Therefore Empirical evidence (epistemology) should not be a separate article from Empirical evidence.

Dominic said to Phlsph7: You want the global organization seen by readers to be determined by general epistemology. I disagree, because in this case it conflicts with WP:COMMONNAME. Dominic should have said it conflicts with WP:NPOV. And any NPOV issues in this article should be solved by editing the article. Biogeographist (talk) 22:35, 28 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't see how an example about how to organize subtopics in accordance with the general view point of epistemology can be an objection to my WP:COMMONNAME argument. I already agreed in my argument that the current article can be organized under this general epistemology view point and I don't object to that. Of course, I knew that empirical evidence in science was naturally included in this global organization. In particular, I know that there is already a section "Scientific evidence" in the current article. Yes, Mario Bunge had more than a small section in the context of science, but that is not the issue. If I was requested to write an article on Empirical evidence in the general context of epistemology, I would include way more than a small section on Empirical evidence in the context of science. But, I would still feel the need to make clear, say in a subtitle, that the subject is covered from the general standpoint of epistemology. In Wikipedia, we have the possibility to separate this topic in two articles and we do. It's not me that first asked to separate the two articles. I was against the split, but this was before I realized that Empirical evidence in the general context of epistemology is admissible. I now accept this article and its scope and the split, but the argument for a separation was there before. I know that it might superficially appear that my argument against the split apply to the current split, but this is not true. I argued against a split of the common part in this diagram and it's not what is being split here.  I always accepted that we could split a non shared part from the remainder and it's what is being done here under the topic Empirical evidence (epistemology). My argument still hold. I would like to add that it still hold even if an author has shown how the two perspectives are closely related. I already mentioned that overlap is fine if it makes each article better and it is especially important to include that kind of content. The two articles will still be very different. To make it short, this counter argument is about global organization, while my argument is about WP:COMMONNAME, which is independent of global organization. Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:14, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I may not understand what you're saying, but it may just be that we disagree. First you said: Therefore, using "Empirical evidence" for this article, which has an emphasis on the concept outside science, does not respect WP:COMMONNAME. Ph7sph7 defeated that when they countered: This article does not have its "emphasis on the concept outside science". Then you said to Ph7sph7: You want the global organization seen by readers to be determined by general epistemology. I disagree, because in this case it conflicts with WP:COMMONNAME. My response to that was that, given that Ph7sph7 was correct that this article does not have its "emphasis on the concept outside science", even the part about epistemology can be edited to be more compatible with the critics of traditional epistemology—Bunge, who is no friend of traditional empiricist epistemology, was an example of that—and the article can be edited to make the more common meaning more prominent, which is basically a WP:NPOV issue, not a WP:COMMONNAME issue. Biogeographist (talk) 00:54, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * If the prospect of editing this article is too unappetizing to you, what about if I offered to help you do it? I'm not a Popperian, but I'm sympathetic to what you don't like in this article, so if we worked together we might solve the problem you identified. Or it might go very badly, who knows? Biogeographist (talk) 01:22, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * It might be me that did not understand what you meant. Regarding editing the article, really I go one issue at a time and right now, what I have in mind is that the name of the article, if I understood correctly its scope, should be "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" or something else, but the fact that the book of Mario Bunge had the title "Epistemology & methodology", for me, was in support of this choice. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:27, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I believe you will have a better chance to understand me, if you consider the organization of a topic in different articles as a tree. There is a top article, which is the root of the tree and so on. The confusion between us seems related to what we mean by the scope of the top article. There are two possibilities and both make sense. The most natural one is yours: the scope of the top article is the entire tree. However, in the context of this discussion, mine is more useful: the scope of the top article is only the root, in the following sense that the top article leaves out the content of the other nodes to other articles. I believe that what is important in our discussion is the notion of scope as I consider it here (for the purpose of this discussion). So, yes you are right that Ph7sph7 defeated what I said about the scope, but only by using a different, but admittedly natural, definition of scope. So, that did not defeat at all my argument. What I am saying here corresponds to something very concrete. I am not being a non practical idealistic person here. In particular, really the scope of the current article leaves out most of empirical evidence under science: it only has a small section on this. Part of my argument is that, if Ph7sph7 wanted to change that, he/she will have to change her/his mind about the merge. It would be funny, because now it will be her/him that would argue for the merge. Please read again my argumentation in this new light. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:51, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Moreover, even if I use "your" definition of scope, my argument still hold, except that I cannot say "emphasis on the concept outside science", but I can still say that the focus is not entirely inside science and that's sufficient for my argument, because most people that will search for "empirical evidence" will expect that the main focus, the root we might say, is within science, with perhaps a link to general epistemology in a node below in the tree—it's a different tree, not the tree from general Epistemology. In any case, my argument is stronger when we consider the fact that the actual scope (the root) has only a small section in the context of science.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:00, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

You said: Part of my argument is that, if Phlsph7 wanted to change that, he/she will have to change her/his mind about the merge. It would be funny, because now it will be her/him that would argue for the merge. Yes, that is funny. I guess your argument is more directed at Phlsph7 than at anyone else, especially not at me, since I don't oppose merging Scientific evidence into Empirical evidence and changing the scope.

For me, the wider scope of epistemology in the Bunge book was an example of how this article's distinction between epistemology and philosophy of science presupposes a view of epistemology that is too narrow. (Barry Allen would reject "epistemology" instead of redefining it like Bunge, but Allen is also less interested in science than Bunge is. By the way, I have not read it yet, but I just discovered that Allen recently published a new book that looks relevant titled Empiricisms: Experience and Experiment from Antiquity to the Anthropocene. According to the book description, Allen proposes "to return empiricism from epistemology to the ontology and natural philosophy where it began". ) Here is the first definition in Bunge's book of "empirical evidence" (vol. 2, p. 67), just for comparison to what is currently stated in this article:

"We summarize the preceding observations into the following definition. An empirical datum e constitutes empirical evidence for or against a proposition or a proposal p (another datum, a hypothesis, a plan, a value judgment, etc.) if, and only if, (a) e has been acquired with the help of empirical operations accessible to public scrutiny (rather than made up, conjectured, taken from authority, or obtained by allegedly paranormal means): (b) e and p share referents (or predicates); (c) e has been interpreted in the light of some body of knowledge, and (d) some regular association (law or rule) between the properties represented by predicates in e and in p is (rightly or wrongly) assumed to exist.

The empirical operations referred to in clause (a) above are seldom purely empirical, particularly in modern science and technology. Thus the land surveyor employs scientific instruments, such as theodolites, together with geometry. Physicists, chemists and biologists use far more sophisticated instruments in conjunction with even more refined hypotheses. And, increasingly, they also use computers to drive microscopes, time the taking of pictures, control micromanipulators or servomechanisms, order the taking of measurements, and plot and even process the results of the latter. In all these cases a number of complex theories are involved in the design, performance, and utilization of empirical operations. In short, refined and exact empirical data are anything but theory-free perceptual reports. More in Section 3.

Data are seldom error-free. In particular, quantitative experimental data are likely to be subject to errors of two kinds: systematic (deriving from bias or defective design) and random (deriving, e.g. from random thermal motion and random external perturbations). We shall return to this point in Section 3. Let us now note only that, because data may not be error-free, they must be checked instead of being taken at face value. The new (checking) run of empirical operations may be done with the same technique or, preferably, with a rival (equivalent or better) technique. (Thus the ages of terrestrial rocks are estimated with a variety of methods, such as radioactive decay, accumulation of helium produced by cosmic ray impact, and even models of the evolution of the solar system.) Furthermore, ideally the checking is done by independent workers in order to minimize personal bias. Calculations are parallel.

In sum, the results of observations, measurements or experiments are not to be accepted at their face value but must be interpreted and screened. In particular, numerical data must be corrected in a number of ways, e.g. for parallax, pressure dependence, and sampling—not to speak of bias or systematic errors. Once corrected, the data are subjected to statistical processing, which yields aggregate data such as averages together with random errors (or scatters). In the process some data get eliminated ..."

Biogeographist (talk) 02:26, 29 June 2021 (UTC) and 17:20, 5 July 2021 (UTC)


 * You are saying, if I understood you correctly, that it's not only possible to cover the topic Empirical evidence under the global view of epistemology, but the topic will be better covered if we do that. I can agree with that. This view of yours explains why you have given me the details of how Bunge sees epistemology. It also explain why you are asking me what difficulties I see in covering the topic in this view. In principle, I cannot see any difficulty. But my point is that the issue that currently concerns me has not much to do with all of this. The explanation why it has not much to do with all of this is simply that there are many ways to organize a topic under different articles and yet explain the same concepts. In particular, both organizations of the topic under one or two articles can be used to meet your expectation.  I suspect that you interpret one choice of organization has a rejection of your expectation on the role of epistemology. That's a mistake, in particular if we never worry about duplication when necessary to explain a concept. I can even see that you try to explain to me that I should not interpret epistemology under the narrow view currently used in the article, but I understood this point of yours the first time you mentioned it. I am not saying that we have the same epistemological view of science or of reality in general. Most likely, we don't, but my current concern is at a different level.  To understand my concern you must appreciate that the more we split a topic under different articles, the more we offer different views on the topic to the readers. This is because every article tries to be self contained, to stand alone, and thus tries to be an entry point on the topic. It does not matter how many entry points are offered (i.e., under how many articles we split the topic) and which entry point is used by a reader, the same concepts are explained.  Of course, there is also a cost in having too many entry points, i.e., to split a topic under too many articles, because some duplication is necessary between the articles. For example, if there are many entry points that are almost identical, then it just confusing and a lot of unnecessary duplication.  In this picture, my concern is that we need an entry point that is mostly under science (as a node) and to respect WP:COMMONNAME it must be named "Empirical evidence". Dominic Mayers (talk) 03:25, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't think that WP:COMMONNAME supports the suggested move. We don't have an article, the content of which we agree but disagree about its name: the disagreement concerns the content of the article "Empirical evidence". This can be easily seen by the fact that a simple move wouldn't work: The contents of the current article "Empirical evidence" are too general for the article name "Empirical evidence (Epistemology)". I agree with Biogeographist's suggestion that we should focus instead on editing the article rather than moving it. Phlsph7 (talk) 04:08, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * This is like saying that we cannot decide how to organize a topic before we have written the articles. I say, on the contrary, we could discuss the organization of the topic even if we had nothing written, but certainly we can with the two articles that we have. This discussion naturally includes the name of the article(s). Dominic Mayers (talk) 04:17, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I would like to add that it may seem that I contradict myself when I argue that there are many ways to organize a topic under different articles (each way explaining the same concepts), because this argument could have been used to justify the split originally, a split that I rejected. The explanation is that I was arguing against what I thought was an attempt to split the shared part in this diagram. Moreover, because I believed in this general argument, I did say that in principle I cannot reject even such a split, i.e., a split of the shared part. It's just that in practice (as opposed to in principle), I could not see how to do this split. The situation is entirely different when we consider a split between the non shared part Empirical evidence outside of science and the remainder of the diagram. As I explained above, I  understand that a global epistemological view on both parts is possible and useful, but along with this, in a non contradictory manner, a split between in science and not in science is also possible and useful to provide a different entry point on the topic.   Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:55, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Correction: It's not exactly true that each way to organize a topic under one or more articles allow to cover the same concepts. On the contrary, a new entry point can allow to provide a new perspective, new concepts in a manner of speaking. But, my point is that you can only explain more concepts by adding an entry point—this is true when we don't worry about the necessary duplication—and, given a fixed global organization, each entry point give access to the same concepts through its links with the other articles. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:18, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: a split between in science and not in science is also possible and useful to provide a different entry point on the topic. The problem with this proposal is that there is currently no way to make a clean split. Someone would have to do a draft of the "not in science" article, or, even better, of both articles. And that would be a lot of work, so whoever wants to do it would have to be really motivated and convinced that they could achieve consensus for that organization. Biogeographist (talk) 15:23, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * This is what you believe (but I disagree). I suspect that it's why you supported the merge to begin with. (But note that it was not my motivation for a merge.) Are you saying that originally you were not entirely convinced, but now you are strongly in favour of a merge? Ok, maybe you want to know why I disagree before answering the question. Well, it is obvious that we can start to view the concept of empirical evidence from the window of philosophy of science and that's a different entry point, as different as group theory is different from monoid theory. I see your argument that epistemology and philosophy of science are too connected to have this different entry point, but that is not a valid argument. Group theory is also connected to monoid theory and they are covered separately. In some ways, epistemology is more connected to philosophy of science than monoid theory is connected to group theory. In other ways, it's the opposite. However, this analogy is sufficient to convey the point: it's not because they are closely connected that these different views on Empirical evidence cannot be distinct entry points. Again, keep in mind that duplication when needed is not an issue. So, I repeat the question. Originally, you were not entirely convinced that a merge of Scientific evidence into Empirical evidence was necessary. Are you really saying that now that we discuss WP:COMMONNAME, the situation has changed and opposing the merge will be complicated.    Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:59, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * My position at Talk:Scientific evidence was that I didn't oppose a merge of Scientific evidence into Empirical evidence. Above I said that I oppose renaming this article to Empirical evidence (epistemology) for the reasons given. My last comment said that a split between "in science" and "not in science" would be a lot of work, but I didn't take a position, as I am doubtful that anyone would do the work. Those are my positions on the three proposals. Biogeographist (talk) 16:48, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I am still waiting for your answer, but meanwhile let me explain why I disagree in terms of Mario Bunge's book. I have not read the book, but let us assume that we use it as a main reference. Are you saying that it is impossible to do a split of the concepts explained in this book that minimizes content given outside the context of science in one article and conversely minimizes content given in the context of science in the other article?  I don't believe that and if it was true it would be a very peculiar aspect of the book. Of course, if we do that, the article that focuses on the science context might have to be introduced differently than in Mario Bunge's book to allow it to stand alone as an entry point, but that's no problem.  In fact, this is what I mean when I say that adding an entry point might imply a different perspective, introducing different concepts in a way of speaking. And, of course, there are plenty of sources that discuss the empirical basis in the light of the philosophy of science. Also, keep in mind that we do not worry about any duplication that is needed to make both articles excellent articles, say getting to WP:GA and  why not WP:FA, both articles supporting the other article.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:27, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You asked: Are you saying that it is impossible to do a split of the concepts explained in this book that minimizes content given outside the context of science in one article and conversely minimizes content given in the context of science in the other article? No, I am not saying that; I just used the book to support my argument that epistemology can be conceived differently than it currently is in this article. Bunge's definition of empirical evidence contains aspects of what this article calls "philosophy of science" and what it calls "epistemology". If the articles are merged, the resulting article would benefit from a more sophisticated exposition about the relationship of epistemology and philosophy of science, though I can't foresee exactly what that exposition would say. See above for my position on the split. Biogeographist (talk) 16:48, 29 June 2021 (UTC) and 16:21, 11 July 2021 (UTC)


 * But you keep assuming that something can be lost in Empirical evidence (epistemology) (alias Empirical evidence) if we have a split. This is impossible, because I keep insisting that we must not worry about any duplication needed to convey important concepts. In other words, we can write the article Empirical evidence (epistemology) (alias Empirical evidence) just as you wish and move some of its content in Empirical evidence (alias Scientific evidence) when it is natural. It might mean that the concepts will now be spread over two articles and there will be some duplication,  but what's wrong with that?  You speak of NPOV. Perhaps you worry that most view points expressed in Empirical evidence (alias Scientific evidence) must be balanced with a view point in Empirical evidence (epistemology)  (alias Empirical evidence). If this is your worry, my response is that, on the contrary, applying a view point given outside the context of science in the context of science is Original Research. If no one bothered to apply the view point in science, then it's irrelevant in the context of science, because it makes a big difference. I am sure you do not worry that there might not be enough sources that consider the context of science, especially since this includes books on epistemology that also cover explicitly the context of science. You might worry that when it's done in a book in epistemology, we need some context to understand. Again, I will not worry about that because, I repeat, we must not worry about any required duplication. Because the entry points are different, we will still have very different articles.    So, I cannot see what is your argument.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:05, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't take a position on the proposed split, I just doubted that anyone would do it. Perhaps nothing would be lost in a split between "in science" and "not in science", but another issue that just occurred to me is that I am not sure that either of them would be the primary topic. OED definition A.3 (the most common meaning) is not limited to science. So Empirical evidence would have to be a WP:DAB page that lists the two articles. It couldn't be a redirect to the article on science. Biogeographist (talk) 17:23, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * But it is already done in a way, not in a perfect way, but clearly Scientific evidence focuses on science and the current Empirical evidence does not. So, nobody has to argue for the split and do it. We have the opposite situation: whoever wants to change the current organization would have justify it. The change of names that I propose is not a change in the current global organization. Yes, it's me that have to argue for this change of names, but that's not a split. Now, we discuss the real issue: WP:COMMONNAME. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Empirical evidence as a WP:DAB page is not an option that was proposed before. It would help if you would propose names for the articles that would be linked from the DAB page. Biogeographist (talk) 17:42, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The use of a dab page is only needed when there is no primary topic for a name. It's related, but different. It will have to be discussed separately. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:52, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Back to the issue of WP:COMMONNAME
, it's you that argued in term of Oxford dictionary to say that "Empirical evidence" is not restricted to science. I haven't looked at that, but I suspect it's very much dependent upon our interpretation of the definition. My argument relied on direct usage, which is what WP:COMMONNAME asks that we do. It is actually quite explicit about that. I made a search on Google scholar for Empirical evidence and it's clear that in almost all results it was used in the context of science. It's not surprising. Science is today's "religion". It's everywhere. Also, just in case, it's not "Empirical" and "Evidence" separately that must be considered, but "Empirical evidence". Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:47, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You should define "Empirical evidence" and then show that your sources use that definition. Scientific evidence does not define "empirical evidence". The fact that some Google search results show that some sources talk about empirical evidence in relation to science is not the same as showing that they use your definition that requires a separate article. Many of the sources may use a definition of empirical evidence that is shared with non-scientific sources. One of the Google search results says that empirical evidence is defined as "data gained through observation or experimentation" and an example is "ethnographic observations of a social scene": this definition and example are entirely congruent with the definition currently in Empirical evidence. It does not require a split. Biogeographist (talk) 18:17, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * No, WP:COMMONNAME is clear that formal definitions are not the criteria. The only question is, given normal usage in sources, does the title says what the article is about. However, you made me realize that an important question is how we do the disambiguation and what are the redirects. For example, the titles "Empirical evidence (science)" and "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" could be used, but the use of a disambiguation page (see below) would still be inadequate, a big tool that is not needed. Instead, clearly the primary topic is "Empirical evidence (science)" and "Empirical evidence" should redirect to it. The disambiguation can be done by a tag in the page with the primary topic. I suspect that you strongly disagree that "Empirical evidence (science)" is the primary topic, in particular because you are attached to definitions and are biased toward general epistemology, but it remains a fact that the vast majority of people searching for "Empirical evidence" will come from a scientific context. I know that this fact is not explained by a definition, but that is irrelevant. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:46, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I still oppose renaming this article to Empirical evidence (epistemology) for the reasons given above, and I expect still opposes it too, so you should propose another name. The name should be broad enough to include other fields. I don't oppose moving Scientific evidence to Empirical evidence (science) and redirecting "Empirical evidence" to it with a hatnote pointing to the other article. All this can be done through the WP:RM process. Biogeographist (talk) 20:10, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * By the way, if these articles go through the WP:RM process, incoming links will need to be fixed. An obvious example is the lead section of Evidence, where the exposition closely parallels the current lead of this article, with a link to this article defining "empirical evidence" in a non-scientific way. That link and all other incoming links like it would need to be changed. Biogeographist (talk) 20:28, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, the purpose of (epistemology) was exactly that, to broaden the scope. Epistemology is the study of knowledge in all its forms. I don't know what could be broader than that. You will have to help me understand what kind of knowledge (used as evidence) is excluded by the qualifier (epistemology). Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:51, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * See below. Biogeographist (talk) 21:59, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Use of a disambiguation page
This needs to be discussed separately and before, because how we do the disambiguation, the use of redirects, etc. change a bit the role of the article titles. I don't think a dab page is needed here, because we have only two closely related concepts and clearly when people search for "Empirical evidence", they usually come from a scientific context. The explanation for this fact might be that science is omnipresent, not the formal definition as you worry about, but this is irrelevant. This fact, irrespective of how we explain it, means that a page that is about the scientific context as less chance to disorient someone that searches for "Empirical evidence" by being too general. Moreover, the few experts that come from a general epistemological context are not going to be disoriented at all if they see a page that focuses on science. A disambiguation tag at the top of the page "Empirical evidence" (with a focus on science) will fulfil perfectly our disambiguation need. It's not like in the case of "proof", which is also often used in the context of Alcohol. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:14, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

It is not easier to start outside the scientific context
Also, I do not understand this needs to first ignore the scientific context. In my view, all the fundamental questions about knowledge, how it grows, etc. are much easier to address when we consider scientific knowledge. Certainly, if one is interested in scientific knowledge, nothing is gained by first addressing non scientific knowledge. When you consider the origin of scientific knowledge, you must consider the previous stage where there is no scientific knowledge, but this is the exception and it can be included while the main focus is on scientific knowledge. Anyway, I am not arguing that "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" is not an admissible topic, but I don't get at all why people seems to suggest that "Empirical evidence (science)" is hard to justify as a stand alone article and that there is doubt that editors will be interested in developing this topic. I am arguing that it should be the opposite: "Empirical evidence (science)" should be the primary topics associated with "Empirical evidence" and, based on the normal usage of the expression in sources, I don't think that I am the editor that is biased here. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:22, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You wrote: and that there is doubt that editors will be interested in developing this topic. I don't doubt that at all; what I doubt is that people will be interested in developing an article about "empirical evidence not in science"!!! Biogeographist (talk) 20:35, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Clearly, there is something I don't understand, because, for me, epistemology is the study of knowledge in general and I don't know what is excluded by that. So, "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" = "Empirical evidence (science) + "Empirical evidence (not in science)" = "Empirical evidence". This means that (epistemology) is just an indication that we use this general perspective on "Empirical evidence".  In this perspective, if no one is interested in "Empirical evidence (not in science)", then in practice "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" = "Empirical evidence (science)" and the current article should be entirely written so that it focuses on the context of science. So, there must be something that I do not understand.  BTW, the last equality with "Empirical evidence" is why I refused to get caught in argument based on formal definitions and insisted that WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DAB is mainly concerned about what is most often used in sources. For the same reason, I insist for a qualifier in parentheses that plays the same role as (epistemology), because even if it does not match with a useful formal definition, if such a thing exists in this case, people expect a focus on science when they see "Empirical evidence" by itself. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:42, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You wrote: the current article should be entirely written so that it focuses on the context of science. Both at Talk:Scientific evidence and above, I already suggested to rewrite the current article Empirical evidence, which makes way more sense to me than splitting into "in science" and "not in science" articles. Biogeographist (talk) 21:56, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * But, while I was proposing the merge, I mentioned that, personally, I would not even mention the part "Empirical evidence outside science". The only reason why I changed my mind and did not want the merge any more is because I had the impression that some people, including you or at the least Phlsph7, insisted for a larger scope. Only in that context, I proposed to move Empirical evidence to something else that suggests a broader scope and to have a separate article under the original name that focuses on science. I am totally confused about what the discussion was about. Of course, I agree with a merge toward an article "Empirical evidence" with a focus on science. This was my original goal. Why there was objections to the merge originally, even after I accepted to switch the direction? I wonder if it would not be wise to make sure that no one insists to have an article that covers Empirical evidence in the general context, which include science, but is not restricted to science and only discusses science after it has covered the general concept outside science. Because, I do not want to have this discussion again later. Better be clear now. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:23, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * In fact, I am not even sure that we need to ask if some editors want an article that covers Empirical evidence in the general context ... as I mention above. There are sources to make such an article admissible and therefore, to be robust, we must plan the global organization accordingly. If my understanding is correct (which is not obvious given the previous discussions), you are not interested in such an article, which I would name "Empirical evidence (some broadening qualifier)", but that's fine. We should still plan the article "Empirical evidence" with this other article in mind and whenever some content is suggested by an editor that would fit better in "Empirical evidence (some broadening qualifier)", we put the content into this other article and keep the focus of "Empirical evidence" on science. Again, applying a point of view that is not sourced in the context of science to the context of science is Original research. So moving this kind of content in this other article is certainly not against WP:NPOV. To be clear, I have not yet read Mario Bunge's book, but a priori this includes content in the book that is not in the context of science—the book is not entirely in the context of science. Content sourced outside the context of science can be included as a related content or as further support for a content sourced in the context of science—it's not black and white—but it should not be a point of view by itself about empirical evidence in science if it is sourced outside the context of science.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:49, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

The main point for me is that the article "empirical evidence" should be the widest in scope and cover all fields in which empirical evidence is relevant: in science, in epistemology, in history, in law, etc. These fields cover the term in similar but not identical ways, which is why this makes most sense. The argument for focusing exclusively on scientific evidence based on google scholar searches fails because of this similarity: these search results fit in well with how empirical evidence is currently treated in the article, as Biogeographist has pointed out. I'm opposed to moving this article to "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" but I'm not opposed to the creation of new articles with the names "Empirical evidence (some broadening qualifier)" as long as these articles have sufficient content. Phlsph7 (talk) 04:37, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree that there is some logic in assigning to "Empirical evidence" the broadest scope and, indeed, if it gets assigned the broadest scope, by definition it covers all uses of "Empirical evidence" in the literature. However, WP:COMMONNAME does not depend on formal definition, especially not a definition that we establish among us using some logic, even it is a good logic. Most readers have no clue about this logic. To respect WP:COMMONNAME, we must take into account the fact that the vast majority of the uses of "Empirical evidence" occur in a scientific context. For that reason,  I still maintain that the name used for the widest scope should include an extra qualifier that makes it more explicit that we refer to the widest scope. Despite the above mentioned logic. it's not true at all that it's obvious from the name "Empirical evidence" that we refer to the widest scope. The qualifier (science) is less needed in the case "Empirical evidence (science)", but it is better to be more explicit in this case also. Moreover, given that most uses occur in the context of science, it will be more useful for a vast majority of readers to redirect "Empirical evidence" to "Empirical evidence (science)". Please, in your argumentation, do not simply state some logic, but consider the real needs of the readers. Dominic Mayers (talk) 05:47, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Moreover, in some logic, "Empirical evidence (science)" is not really a narrower scope. This logic is that, it does not matter the kind of knowledge that we consider, scientific or not, if we try and succeed to model this knowledge to explain how it grows, how it is related to observations, etc. the model used will not be so different from a model for scientific knowledge. In this manner, by considering the case of scientific knowledge, we are not really restricting ourselves. It just easier and more natural to propose a model for scientific knowledge. This is why many philosophers consider that the best way to address the problems about knowledge in general is to address them in the context of science. Dominic Mayers (talk) 06:01, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * You should work on the articles Evolutionary epistemology and Growth of knowledge, both of which are in a sorry state and are the subjects you are talking about in the previous paragraph. The subject of empirical evidence is much narrower than all of that, though it would be great to explain in Empirical evidence how empirical evidence and empirical knowledge relate to the growth of knowledge and evolutionary epistemology. Biogeographist (talk) 12:02, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes I should perhaps. But, my strategy is to work on one subtopic at a time. For some reason, I picked the notion of empirical basis as my starting point. This choice was not based on a clearly expressed logic, but part of the motivation is that it is so much connected to fundamental notions such as inductivism, which is very closely related to growth of knowledge. It's not only that it would be great to explain [...] how empirical evidence and empirical knowledge relate to the growth of knowledge. It is actually impossible to say anything on this topic that is not controversial with regard to induction, growth of knowledge, etc. Take the way this notion is introduced in the first sentences of the lead. Phlsph7 argued that it gives the basic idea. Clearly, these first sentences are closely related to inductivism. (BTW, only adding that it can also support falsifications is very very far from addressing all the issues in these sentences.) On purpose, I do not discuss these issues at this time, because I want to focus first on the global organization. BTW, in most encyclopedia, "Empirical evidence" is not even covered as a topic in itself. But Wikipedia is different: every expression that has a meaning in a topic is a potential entry point, i.e., an article, into this topic. This approach implies a lot of duplication, but it's the accepted practice in Wikipedia. It's not a bad approach, because each entry point is a different perspective. Anyway, this explains why my comment about growth of knowledge, etc. was very much relevant to this article. In particular, my comment was the natural way to view the different scopes associated with the name "Empirical evidence". So, please let us focus on this.   Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:57, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Even though it may be a little off-topic (or maybe not), I want to respond to this: Clearly, these first sentences are closely related to inductivism. (BTW, only adding that it can also support falsifications is very very far from addressing all the issues in these sentences.) On purpose, I do not discuss these issues at this time, because I want to focus first on the global organization. BTW, in most encyclopedia, "Empirical evidence" is not even covered as a topic in itself. But Wikipedia is different: every expression that has a meaning in a topic is a potential entry point, i.e., an article, into this topic. This approach implies a lot of duplication, but it's the accepted practice in Wikipedia. It's not a bad approach, because each entry point is a different perspective. "Clearly, these first sentences are closely related to inductivism" is a very Popperian view. It's related to something I think I said in our conversations at Talk:Falsifiability about how Popper's "bucket and searchlight" views of science are not the only views of science; I see the bucket and searchlight as a false dichotomy. Science (not to mention knowledge that is not science) is bigger than inductivism and deductivism. But it is a principle of Wikipedia that if someone (like you) comes along with a reliable source with a dissenting view, it needs to be included in the article. So the article needs to be edited to address the Popperian view. But not only the Popperian view, and not only the view that Popper was reacting against. There are more than two views. I don't see the expression "empirical evidence" as a perspective, I see it as a narrow topic or subject, too narrow for most encyclopedias. Within the subject of "empirical evidence" there are multiple views, more than two views. Biogeographist (talk) 15:47, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * In fact, the subject is wider than "empirical evidence" due to all the redirects that point here. The article has to be wide enough in scope to accommodate all the redirect subjects as well. Biogeographist (talk) 16:26, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Back to the issue of scope, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DAB
I understand that it may seem that we got distracted from the main question of scope, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DAB, but I was not. , I understand that you are not in itself against an article "Empirical evidence (science)", but you say that no one will be interested in writing an article "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" in which we truncate the part in science. But, I thought we had clarified that the important is that all concepts are covered and it's fine if they are spread over two articles. This is why I could not understand your concern. Let me also emphasis again that duplication is not an issue if it is needed to cover a concept under "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" such as some link with "Empirical evidence (science)", because the two articles will still be very different with different perspectives. It's not as if we had an article only on "Empirical evidence (outside science)". You accepted that it could work that way. So, if this issue of scope is taken care of, it remains only to take care of applying WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DAB to two articles "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" and "Empirical evidence (science)". I think we are almost done, because you accepted that "Empirical evidence" redirects to "Empirical evidence (science)" with a disambiguation tag at the top to send the readers to "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" if needed. It remains to find a better qualifier than (widest scope). I still do not see the issue with the qualifier (epistemology) that plays exactly the same role as far as I am concerned. I do not artificially restrict the scope of Epistemology.

Biogeographist, has this summary presented your position correctly? I ask the question, because it is important to know clearly the position and best arguments of every editor before asking for help through RfC or other means. , I have seen your position that "Empirical evidence" (with no qualifier) should be the widest scope and I acknowledged that I see a logic for this, but I still maintain that your argument did not apply WP:COMMONNAME correctly and did not really consider the situation of a vast majority of readers. If you have nothing to add to your argument and Biogeographist confirm that I explained his position correctly, we only need to try find the best qualifier to replace (widest scope) or to at the least propose some choices—I still propose (epistemology)—and then ask other editors for help to continue the discussion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:38, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I am not taking a position on splitting into "science" and "not in science"; I still doubt that anyone will want to write the "not in science" article. I think that it makes most sense to edit the current article Empirical evidence and then reconsider a proposal to redirect Scientific evidence to Empirical evidence or to one of its sections. Biogeographist (talk) 15:47, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * But nobody is asked to take a position on splitting into "science" and "not in science". The terminology "splitting" can be confusing, because what we really do is create two articles with different perspectives. They are different entry points. Also, nobody will have to write a "not in science" article. This is clear given that we are looking for a name of the form "Empirical evidence (widest scope)". So, please clarify again your position. No, we cannot work on these articles before this minimal agreement on the global organization. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:57, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: what we really do is create two articles with different perspectives. There is a name for that: POV fork. Biogeographist (talk) 16:01, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Absolutely not. Having two entry points only offer more flexibility to enter into the topic. An organizational perspective is not a POV on the subject that concerns WP:POV. Every time editors choose a particular way to organize a topic under one or mor articles, they adopt such perspective. Therefore, if such a perspective was one point of view as discussed in POV fork, editors would violate WP:POV all the times that they cover a topic with a single article, because this is one organizational perspective, i.e., one way to organize the topic that ignores other ways. By allowing different entry points, we kind of allow different organizational perspectives on a single physical organization. If, as you incorrectly suggest, these perspectives are POVs (as in POV fork), then different entry points is better because they offer more POVs. I can see that, if we have one article only, editors will be forced to discuss some concepts that belong in this article and that creating a second article could be a way to avoid discussing these concepts, but there is nothing against WP:POV in this aspect of a second article. You cannot force editors to work on an article in this manner. Content fork is completely different. It's when editors disagree on the content, say when the topic is snow, one says that snow is grey, the other says that snow is white and instead of writing a single article that explains that it's grey in polluted area, etc., one editor writes an article that only says that snow is grey and the other writes an article that only says that snow is white. This is not at all what will happen if we have the two articles in our case. I know that it is confusing, because "outside science" is indeed different than "inside science", but the key point is that what is said "outside science" is not opposed to what is said "within science" and, moreover, all necessary connections are covered in both articles, as I keep repeating. So, there is absolutely no  POV fork. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:09, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: If, as you incorrectly suggest, these perspectives are POVs (as in POV fork), then different entry points is better because they offer more POVs. If I am incorrect, then what is the point of this sentence? If I am correct, then it's POV forking. Either way, we don't need different "entry points". Biogeographist (talk) 17:18, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you missed the logic. It's a simple argument by cases:
 * Case 1 They are POVs as in POV fork. In this case, it's good to have more of them, which means two entry points is better, even under the rules of WP:POV.
 * Case 2 They are not POVs as in POV fork. In this case, your POV fork argument immediately fails.
 * Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:32, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Case 1 is false. What is true is that if they are POVs as in POV fork, then it's good to have more of them. Biogeographist (talk) 17:34, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * But arguments by cases do not work that way. The whole point of an argument (or proof) by cases is that we don't need to worry about which case is true or false. But there is another issue. You say case 1 is false and then state exactly what case 1 says. I think that you simply did not apply WP:POV correctly to this case. WP:POV says that we should include all POVs so more is better. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:36, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should have said "Case 1 is wrong" instead of "Case 1 is false". Case 1 is wrong because it misinterprets WP:POVFORK, which is about how POVs are treated, not about the existence of POVs.
 * Have you considered writing a WP:SUBPOV article titled Empirical basis in Popper's philosophy? That would be acceptable per WP:SUBPOV. Biogeographist (talk) 17:46, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * But this would be an example of a POV fork, because now there is good chance that what I am going to write in this article will be opposed (at the topic level, not organizational level) to what is contained in Empirical evidence (science) and perhaps in Empirical evidence (widest scope). But, I agree that my argument by cases did not use WP:POVFORK and therefore I was wrong to say that case 1 was your assumption (that was not important in the argument anyway) and that your argument failed in case 2. Case 2 should have simply stated that in this case no extra points of view are added, which is pertinent to the remainder of the argument below.  I also agree that the fact that case 1 and case 2 did not refer to WP:POVFORK was confusing. In the remainder of the argument, I clearly go into what is POV fork and explain why Empirical evidence (science) is not a POV fork at all. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:14, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: Case 2 should have simply stated that in this case no extra points of view are added. The issue is not whether extra points of view are added; the issue is whether the two articles are different points of view on what should be one subject. Earlier you said: This is not at all what will happen if we have the two articles in our case. But this is not known, if we split "Empirical evidence" before we know what the content of the two articles will be; they may indeed be POV forks. I think it is likely that they would be POV forks due to what you said even earlier: It is actually impossible to say anything on this topic that is not controversial with regard to induction, growth of knowledge, etc. Take the way this notion is introduced in the first sentences of the lead. Phlsph7 argued that it gives the basic idea. Clearly, these first sentences are closely related to inductivism. (BTW, only adding that it can also support falsifications is very very far from addressing all the issues in these sentences.) I already gave my opinion that this is a very Popperian view. If, as you said, it is impossible to say anything on this topic that is not controversial, and if we do not know in advance the content of the split articles on "Empirical evidence", it seems highly likely to me that they will be POV forks, because people who should be working together to reach consensus on one article will choose to edit whichever article is closest to their POV instead. Biogeographist (talk) 01:41, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * But this would be an example of a POV fork, because now there is good chance that what I am going to write in this article will be opposed (at the topic level, not organizational level) to what is contained in Empirical evidence (science) and perhaps in Empirical evidence (widest scope). But, I agree that my argument by cases did not use WP:POVFORK and therefore I was wrong to say that case 1 was your assumption (that was not important in the argument anyway) and that your argument failed in case 2. Case 2 should have simply stated that in this case no extra points of view are added, which is pertinent to the remainder of the argument below.  I also agree that the fact that case 1 and case 2 did not refer to WP:POVFORK was confusing. In the remainder of the argument, I clearly go into what is POV fork and explain why Empirical evidence (science) is not a POV fork at all. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:14, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: Case 2 should have simply stated that in this case no extra points of view are added. The issue is not whether extra points of view are added; the issue is whether the two articles are different points of view on what should be one subject. Earlier you said: This is not at all what will happen if we have the two articles in our case. But this is not known, if we split "Empirical evidence" before we know what the content of the two articles will be; they may indeed be POV forks. I think it is likely that they would be POV forks due to what you said even earlier: It is actually impossible to say anything on this topic that is not controversial with regard to induction, growth of knowledge, etc. Take the way this notion is introduced in the first sentences of the lead. Phlsph7 argued that it gives the basic idea. Clearly, these first sentences are closely related to inductivism. (BTW, only adding that it can also support falsifications is very very far from addressing all the issues in these sentences.) I already gave my opinion that this is a very Popperian view. If, as you said, it is impossible to say anything on this topic that is not controversial, and if we do not know in advance the content of the split articles on "Empirical evidence", it seems highly likely to me that they will be POV forks, because people who should be working together to reach consensus on one article will choose to edit whichever article is closest to their POV instead. Biogeographist (talk) 01:41, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Dominic still seems to want to know my opinion about "Empirical evidence (widest scope)": I think it's a ridiculous name and I oppose it. If you want my opinion on a different name, propose a different name. Biogeographist (talk) 18:26, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * But I am not going to get into details of a name if you still insist that "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" should be the only article and that "Empirical evidence (science)" is POV fork. In fact, whatever understanding you have that makes you reject a "split" into two articles "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" and "Empirical evidence (science)" is very likely to interfere with your appreciation of any name. Also, you say "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" is ridiculous, but this is a very strong statement to make. Can you explain what exactly is ridiculous in this? That may help me understand you.  My logic is the following. Epistemology is the study of knowledge in general, not just scientific knowledge. Therefore, it's a good way to make more clear that the article has the widest scope. I see nothing ridiculous in that. Also, why can't you propose a name. This suggests to me that you don't care about the fact that for many readers it's not obvious at all that "Empirical evidence" is the widest scope. You might be biased in assuming that it should be accepted as the official definition and forget that WP:COMMONNAME is not about that. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:38, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Phlsph7 and I already rejected "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" for reasons given above. I reject "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" because it is a ridiculous name; there are no other Wikipedia articles with a name like this. I think that editing the current article is the best strategy, which is why I can't be bothered to propose a name for the "not in science" article. Biogeographist (talk) 18:44, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, anyone else reading this should keep in mind that this discussion presupposes the previous discussions about merging at Talk:Scientific evidence. Biogeographist (talk) 19:02, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Well, you wrote that "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" is ridiculous, so I asked why. Now, you say differently that "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" is ridiculous. It's not ridiculous, it just that readers will not necessarily understand what are the scopes in question. Widest among what? The fact that is not usual would have been irrelevant if it achieved its purpose. I only use it among us, because it does achieve its purpose among us, hopefully. I will read again the reasons given, but what I recall is that you wanted something that makes it clear that it is the widest scope. I replied that (epistemology) fulfils that purpose and provided the logic. You have not argued against this logic. So, this is why I ask again.  I see a pattern here. You said that "Empirical evidence (science)" is POV fork. You now say that we must edit the article "Empirical evidence (widest scope)". There is a form of POV pushing here. It's not, but it would be if we viewed entry points as POVs, because you reject a valid entry point and want that we focus on another entry point.  More importantly, you correctly pointed out some confusion in my argument by cases, but I corrected this and you have not commented on the corrected argument and its continuation that includes a clear consideration of POV fork. It is very important that we clarify that Empirical evidence (science) is not POV fork at all. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:09, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: Well, you wrote that "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" is ridiculous. No, I didn't. I said (twice) that "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" is ridiculous.
 * You said: You now say that we must edit the article "Empirical evidence (widest scope)". No! I say we should edit the current article Empirical evidence. The name "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" refers to an article that does not yet exist that would be about empirical evidence not in science. Biogeographist (talk) 20:04, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Just to add that I searched the "reasons given above" and only found The contents of the current article "Empirical evidence" are too general for the article name "Empirical evidence (Epistemology)". Please explain what is your definition of epistemology that justifies this argument. For me, on the contrary, Epistemology is very general. Of course, it certainly does not mean that the article focuses on evidence used in argumentation within epistemology. This interpretation is so ridiculous that it must be excluded. It means that it is Empirical evidence as an object of study of epistemology and this means that it refers to all kinds of empirical evidence, because epistemology studies all forms of knowledge in any possible context. It cannot be more general than that and there is no other natural interpretation.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:28, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: Please explain what is your definition of epistemology that justifies this argument. Above you argued that definitions are not important, and this request seems to contradict that. The core of my opposition to the name "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" is that philosophy of science and epistemology overlap too much to differentiate them. The theoretical problems of "empirical", "empirical evidence", and "empirical knowledge" overlap too much to separate into "Empirical evidence (science)" and "Empirical evidence (epistemology)". The core theoretical problems of empirical evidence in philosophy of science are not separable from those in epistemology. That may be the most important reason. Here is Wikipedia's definition of epistemology: "the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Epistemology is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with ethics, logic, and metaphysics." Biogeographist (talk) 20:04, 30 June 2021 (UTC) and 20:24, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Ok, I misread you when you wrote Dominic still seems to want to know my opinion about "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" because you misread me too if you believe that I insisted to have your opinion on that name. So, I interpreted you the only way that made a bit of sense to me, which is that I wanted your opinion on "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" to which you replied that it is ridiculous. Next you correct me because I prefer to refer to Empirical evidence as "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" even though it should be obvious from the context that I referred to your suggestion to edit the current article. The fact that I prefer to refer to it as "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" shows how much I consider that "Empirical evidence" to mean the widest scope is very unclear. I see that you might have a different opinion. However, to suggest that The name "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" refers to an article [...] about empirical evidence not in science as you did is ridiculous. This interpretation of yours gives me an idea why you also have a weird interpretation of the qualifier "(epistemology)". It is almost as if any qualifier would be interpreted as "not in science", perhaps because in your understanding an absence of qualifier means "in science" and therefore any added qualifier means "not in science". That's the only explanation that I can find for your very weird interpretation of "(widest scope)". Anyway, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that you can only view the discussion in the light of general epistemology (though you might not recognize the distinction for our purpose with philosophy of science). I see your argument that the concepts of epistemology that can be used in Empirical evidence are also concepts applicable to science and, therefore, a split is not necessary and would only be a lost. You even consider it a POV fork, unless you changed your mind. That reminds me of an exchange that I had with an experimental physicist while I was working as a theoretical physicist at Princeton. I was so much considering the details of an apparatus for quantum cryptography that I suggested to him that there is no distinction between theory and practice in physics. He replied to me "Yes, indeed, there is no distinction in theory, but there is one in practice". Of course, he knew what he was talking about. So, I think the same applied here. Yes, I understand your view that the split is not necessary from the point of view of the widest scope, but it is necessary from the point of view of the narrower scope. And No, it's not POV fork. Please read my argument that I gave after the argument by cases to explain that it is not POV fork. I know the argument by cases is incorrect, as you pointed out, but it was corrected in the subsequent discussion. Also, you might be right that the concepts of epistemology apply to science, but I am sure Mario Bunge and other philosophers must have applied them in that case. Therefore, they will perfectly fit in the article "Empirical evidence (science)". Perhaps you think that therefore "Empirical evidence (science)" is the article that you we should be interested in, but the name does not need to include "(science)". I agree with that, but I still think that the widest scope article is still useful. Just take this other article as a protection to make sure that the concepts covered in "Empirical evidence (science)"  are applicable to science in a verifiable manner and also to allow the angle, in particular in the lead, to be more oriented toward science.  If you are right that the distinction is not needed, then you should not worry that the important concepts of epistemology will not be used. You said that nobody would be interested in working in the widest scope other article, which you incorrectly interpret as "not in science". I disagree with that, especially when we consider what it means in terms of the perspective taken. The other articles will also include science, but the perspective will be different and perhaps it will rely on "Empirical evidence (science)" for some details. If you really cannot accept the distinction created by different perspectives (as is transparent in the two articles in their current state, but could be made clearer) or still see it as a POV fork, then try again to explain your point, but please read carefully my non POV fork argument.   Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking the time to summarize how you see the discussion. I am not sure whether I need to say anything more at this point. I see the pro and con arguments, but I don't have a clear vision of how the articles "Empirical evidence (science)" and "Empirical evidence (widest scope)" should differ, and you may be right that it is perhaps because in [my] understanding an absence of qualifier means "in science" and therefore any added qualifier means "not in science". Biogeographist (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I just thought of another strategy: First edit Scientific evidence so that it would say everything that Empirical evidence (science) would say . [Edit: I should have said: ; the definition of the term would be the same as "empirical evidence".] Then propose that Scientific evidence be renamed to "Empirical evidence" and that Empirical evidence be deleted as a content fork. Biogeographist (talk) 22:43, 30 June 2021 (UTC) and 23:44, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I really want to first fix the global organization and edit after. Also, I do not intend to be responsible for the article. My understanding is that you will be more than OK with a merge toward an article on Empirical evidence in science, which will make use of all epistemological concepts that apply—perhaps most of them. My understanding also includes that it is not clear to you what could be an article on Empirical evidence with the widest scope, a scope that includes both empirical evidence in a scientific method and empirical evidence outside science. Let me explain how I see the distinction. What is meant by "outside science" is based on sources. If an author defines a concept X and later uses X in a scientific context (or another author does it), then X is admissible in our article that focuses on science.  Otherwise, X is only admissible in the article with the widest scope or in some section  of our article in science that makes the connection with this other article. This other article (with the widest scope) would also be different in the fact that the lead would not even have to refer to science, the scientific method or to statistics, which is a scientific tool. Also, it would make sense in this other article to have a section for Empirical evidence in science. This would make no sense in an article that as a whole is already in the context of science. The current state of the two articles illustrate a bit that distinction. It would be important to have a much clearer distinction, but I don't think it is the current intention, not even of people that are against a merge and I find this problematic.  It is legitimate from me to consider an existing article to infer what might be strong intentions of some editors. I prefer two articles, because the in between situation is then harder to justify. You can also see why I want to name this other article (which in your view is not the current one, but some other article to be created) "Empirical evidence (epistemology)" or something like that. The reason is that the name would make the distinction clearer.  Therefore, to have a more robust situation, I prefer to have a second article under a name like Empirical evidence (epistemelogy), the only name that comes to my mind at this time, and then we can work in the article with the focus in science, reusing adequate content from both articles. You might very well be correct that if we have an article Empirical evidence (epistemelogy) nobody will be interested to work on it. This is paradoxical to me, because the current state of the article would fit perfectly under that name—(epistemology) is not a constraint at all, but only removes constraints. Despite this valid concern of yours, to be robust, I would still suggest to create an article Empirical evidence (epistemelogy) (or some other name, but if any qualifier does not work it will be difficult).  Eventually, if no one works on this other article, we can propose to suppress it. Another option is to merge the two articles toward "Empirical evidence (science)", with the qualifier "(science)" even if there is no other article. A qualifier can have another purpose than disambiguation. In this case, the purpose would simply be to make clear what the article is about, which is important. What I cannot accept is an unclear situation regarding what the article is about.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:40, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Dominic Mayers: Just to add that I searched the "reasons given above" and only found "The contents of the current article "Empirical evidence" are too general for the article name "Empirical evidence (Epistemology)"." Please explain what is your definition of epistemology that justifies this argument.
 * The argument is rather simple, we don't even need to mention definitions, which you see as unimportant anyways: the article is about both science & epistemology; science is not a subfield of epistemology; so the article is more general than epistemology alone.

Biogeographist: You said: "what we really do is create two articles with different perspectives." There is a name for that: POV fork.
 * Agreed.

Biogeographist: I think that it makes most sense to edit the current article Empirical evidence and then reconsider a proposal to redirect Scientific evidence to Empirical evidence or to one of its sections.
 * Agreed. Dominic Mayers will have a hard time getting consensus on vague suggestions about radical changes to several articles at once, especially if its not clear that anyone would put the work into actually implementing them, which would be needed to make these suggestions work. I think the better course of action is to work with the articles as they are, addressing the issues they have one at a time. Consensus on these smaller matters should be much easier to reach. Phlsph7 (talk) 04:37, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


 * OK, I decided to start a new way to discuss. I will only reply to one comment at a time, only the first one that requires an answer. I will ignore the others. I will also try to make one point at a time. If I am guilty of making many points, I will understand that we comment on each of them and will exceptionally answer them. This is because we must stop discussing several points in parallel. Also, it will force people to think about what is the most important point. Also, it prevent strategies that consist in flooding someone with many points to answer. Answer to the first point: I will interpret your argument in a way that makes some sense: I assume that you meant to say that the article is both about philosophy of science and epistemology. Indeed philosophy of science is not really a subfield of epistemology, no more than group theory is a subfield of module theory. This is a valid point. OTOH, all groups are modules and, as Biogeographist explains,  epistemology also studies scientific knowledge—it studies all kind of knowledge. So, the qualifier plays correctly its role of including all kinds of empirical evidence. Nevertheless, this argument shows that it's not perfect.  As I said above, I am not answering your two other points. However, I did read them and they are not really helpful to make the discussion progress. They only state opinions without providing any argument or they make criticisms that ignore my actual arguments and even suggest that they are not worth answering.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 05:11, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Maybe your counterargument could work if knowledge and evidence were the same thing. As it stands, it only shows that the fields are related, which is compatible with my point. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:13, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I should be ignoring this point, because I already replied to your other point below (in which you respond to Biogeographist), but I am making an exception, because the other point was an empty "I agree", which BTW wrongly suggests that Wikipedia works by votes. My reply to this point: The purpose of the qualifier is to show that we consider evidence in the widest scope, not evidence in the context of scientific knowledge only. So, "widest scope" refers to knowledge, not evidence. With a little effort to make the discussion progress, you could have found this interpretation in which my argument makes sense. When other editors will come to help and look at the history, they will evaluate whether an editor has made an effort to understand the arguments offered by others. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Other ways to clarify the scopes
At this point, I start to be interested in using other ways than the names of the articles to clarify their scope. My position is that we should have two articles with the respective scopes Empirical evidence (science) and Empirical evidence (widest scope). These are not their names, just ways to identify the scopes. Instead of arguing about their name, it will be interesting to discuss among us how we could help the readers to distinguish these two scopes. This includes discussing the content of disambiguation tags or possibly of a disambiguation page. We could also discuss their respective global organization in sections, in other words, their table of content—think of it as some kind of planning, something highly recommanded before we start writing. It will be easier to discuss the name of each article, and we might less worry about these names anyway, after their scope will be made clearer in these other ways. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:45, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't expect a quick answer to this from me. The last time I completely rewrote an article, about six months ago, it took me weeks just to do the preparatory research (in my spare time), and a few weeks to write it. If I thought that reorganizing these articles would be an easy task, then I would have done it already. I know you just want a table of contents, but when I write, the organization of an article emerges from the research; it's not something I impose before researching. Biogeographist (talk) 14:31, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, we will need an intermediary solution with informative tags at the top of both articles to inform of the situation and invite editors to help. I am not asking for a final table of content, but some brain storming with some suggestions will already give a pretty good idea of the scopes we have in mind. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:39, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, I came up with a quick answer after all, just by looking at the tables of contents of a couple of books with the term "scientific evidence" in the title. However, the fact that both books use the term "scientific evidence" and not "empirical evidence" strongly suggests to me that the title of Scientific evidence is not a problem, and all we would need is a disambiguation hatnote at the top of Empirical evidence, e.g.: "Empirical" redirects here. For its use in science, see Scientific evidence. For other uses, see Empirical (disambiguation).
 * Achinstein (2005) is divided into two parts: (1) philosophical theories of evidence and (2) scientific applications. The introduction says (p. 4): "Inductivism (Newton, Mill), explanationism (Whewell, Quine, Harman, Lipton), and falsificationism (Feynman, Popper) represent three of the most important views about evidence found in the writings of both scientists and philosophers of the present and the past. They yield conflicting concepts of scientific evidence, and thus conflicting views about whether, or to what extent, one can rationally believe the hypothesis on the basis of the data." But the chapters in the first part cover more views than this, and the variations within even the three views mentioned in this excerpt should not be overlooked. The second part on scientific applications contains chapters on alchemy, particle physics, biology, and psychology. Taper & Lele (2004) is divided into five parts: (1) scientific process; (2) logics of evidence; (3) realities of nature; (4) science, opinion, and evidence; (5) models, realities, and evidence. Together those tables of contents provide a menu for what could be included in the science article. Biogeographist (talk) 16:00, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I am not entering into the issue of name, but since you did, I'll only say that we need more than two books to decide. This is also true for the scopes anyway. Let's focus on the scopes of the two articles. Can you now provide an idea for the content of Empirical evidence (widest scope)? Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:38, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * If you agree that two collections edited and written by experts titled Scientific Evidence and The Nature of Scientific Evidence together give a rough indication of the proper scope of the "in science" article, and there are no comparable books titled Empirical Evidence that give a better indication of the proper scope of the "in science" article, then it is evident to me that Scientific evidence is appropriately named. I am good at finding sources, and I have found none titled Empirical Evidence with the proper scope for the "in science" article: I am empty-handed. I invite others to try to find what I have failed to find. As for the "widest scope" article, I don't have anything yet, but I will keep thinking about it. Biogeographist (talk) 18:55, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I am answering only one of your points. The other point was just a brief announcement anyway. The scope of an article does not have to be verifiable. This means that we don't have to find books or papers that have the same scope. It is sufficient that the content delimited by the scope is well covered in the correct context. In other words, a section or even only a few paragraphs clearly about empirical evidence in a scientific context are perfectly valid to verify content within the scope. Note also that the source does not have to use the terminology "empirical evidence". For example, the source could refer to how observations can be used to corroborate a law. Obviously, when we have such relaxed rules, we will find plenty of sources for Empirical evidence (science). Also, one aspect that is very important in order to distinguish ... well I had something important to add here, but I am not going to do that, because I want to make one point at a time. I made already two points, but they are very closely related.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:16, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: a few paragraphs clearly about empirical evidence in a scientific context are perfectly valid to verify content within the scope. But we're not talking about verifying statements in the article; we're talking about the whole scope. It is reasonable to request sources on the term "empirical evidence" of quality comparable to the books above, and with the appropriate scope, that would counter the evidence provided by the books above that Scientific evidence is the proper name for the scope. There is no guarantee that this issue will come up again, so I don't want to see it swept under the rug here. Biogeographist (talk) 19:39, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Remember, I reply to only one point at a time. The question of the widest scope will have to wait that we covered the first point. You will have to raise your second point again so that those who read the talk page don't have to look for it. Yes, we are not talking about individual content, but it is highly recommanded to do a synthesis of the sources and it is this synthesis that should determine the organization of the paper, not only two books. More to the point, restricting ourselves to sources with "evidence" in the title can create a bias. The name "Empirical evidence" is biased, because "evidence" often refers to proof, way to convince, etc. but that's OK as long as we do not pick content superficially based on the word "evidence". We cannot have an article that suggests that observations are used as evidence in a justification process in science, even if we would restrict it to a justification process for rejections—the Quine-Duhem thesis says that there is no justification to reject a law. BTW, I am not saying that the two books do not present this view. I am sure that they do, but there could be a bias anyway. I know that I made two points, but they are related—in fact, that's why I used "more to the point". Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:00, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, at this point in the discussion I am convinced that no mergers, moves, or redirects are needed. The names Scientific evidence and Empirical evidence look fine to me given the current state of the evidence in this discussion. And the scope of each article is best addressed by editing the articles and discussing when needed on each talk page. That is my current position. Biogeographist (talk) 21:29, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * And yet, you have not provided any idea what is the widest scope and you still hold that two books, because of the expression "Empirical evidence" in their title is sufficient to discuss the scope that is within scientific knowledge. This is why we need tags to explain the problematic situation and ask help from other editors. However, I am going to take a break, a few weeks, perhaps more, perhaps less, before I do anything, just to be sure that I have a clean fresh mind and some perspective that only time can provide when I do that. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:55, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I commented with some ideas about the widest scope but I removed it (it is the subtracted text in this diff) because you want to discuss one point at a time and if "one point at a time" is the rule then I am satisfied to conclude on this point if there is no further evidence on this point. Biogeographist (talk) 22:05, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, you can decide to hold to your position that two books chosen specifically because of "Empirical evidence" in their title is sufficient to have an unbiased perspective on a very basic concept that is discussed in every philosophy of science's book. This being said, we can switch to the widest scope. Besides, I did not meant to say that we must close an issue before moving to another issue—it's not a bad idea—but it's not what I meant. I meant that we should submit one point and wait for a reply, but the next point can be on a different issue even if the previous issue is not closed. The purpose is to have on  point to reply each time and also the flow is easier to follow for those who look at the history. There is also less chance that one point get loss in the discussion in this manner. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:14, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: an unbiased perspective on a very basic concept that is discussed in every philosophy of science book. The word "evidence" does not imply infallibility, invulnerability, indefeasibility, proofiness, etc. The editors could have used the term "scientific proof" or even "eternally incontrovertible unbiased scientific proof" but they used neither. Our goal is not an eternally incontrovertibly unbiased article, just one that presents "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views", and the Achinstein (2005) book seems to be trying to do that, so I take it to be a good model of an to do so. If you know of philosophy of science books that you think better indicate the appropriate scope for a Wikipedia article on scientific evidence or empirical evidence in science, feel free to name them. Biogeographist (talk) 01:22, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You still insist to use books selected because "Empirical evidence" occurs in the title. You cannot do that. Wikipedia's article are about concepts. They are not about the meaning of expressions as in the case of dictionaries. Are you saying that books that cover the concept of observations used as evidence are not valid sources for the scope because they do not have "Empirical evidence" in their title? You might be right that the two books do a good job. I am not concerned about these books. I did not even look at them yet. I am concerned about the fact that you insist that we only use them to determine the content within the scope. On top of it, having "evidence" in the title suggests a bias. The subject of a Wikipedia article must itself be without bias. This means that the subject of the article should not imply that justification of laws or their rejection is possible, nor should it suggests that it is impossible.  Now, please, please, do not accuse me of making accusations that such a bias exists without evidence. It is certainly true that I have no evidence—I have not even looked at the books. Still,  on the basis that their could be a bias, I legitimately request that we do not limit ourselves to these books.  I add that you cannot be the person that decides that there is no bias. So, we must apply the simple principle that any content that is covered in the appropriate context in a reliable source is admissible. And neither the scope nor the organization of the article need to be verifiable. Only the content must be verifiable, not the scope or how we decide to organize it. IMPORTANT: I am not rejecting the rough idea of the scope that you offered. It did not look bad to me. This is not what this discussion is about. I am only establishing the principle that we should be free to look at other sources when we discuss this rough idea of the scope and how to organize it.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:53, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You said: having "evidence" in the title suggests a bias. The subject of a Wikipedia article must itself be without bias. You are saying that neither of these articles should exist. Interesting. Biogeographist (talk) 02:10, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You know that I am not saying that. In fact, I already covered explicitly this point and I said that it's fine that the names suggest a bias as long as we do not set the scope accordingly. In fact, it's good that the name has a bias, because it opens the door for the opposite bias: it's part of the scope by being the opposite, as will naturally happen if we respect NPOV to make sure that these two articles are not a content-fork. It could very well be what is done in the two books—they might not be biased at all. I am just saying that I want to be on the safe side and I really have no clue why you see a problem with this request. Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:48, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Biogeographist: Well, at this point in the discussion I am convinced that no mergers, moves, or redirects are needed. The names Scientific evidence and Empirical evidence look fine to me given the current state of the evidence in this discussion. And the scope of each article is best addressed by editing the articles and discussing when needed on each talk page. That is my current position.
 * This is also my position. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:18, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * What is needed at this time is to have a better idea of the scope and organization of each article. Eventually, experimented editors will come and they will look for the actual arguments. The "agree"/"disagree" will be useless: Wikipedia does not work by votes. It's not a democracy. Also, this point of yours is the same as "I agree with Biogeographist" being addressed to all editors. When we respond to an editor, in fact, even when we notify an editor in the talk page, the comment is still addressed to all editors. Please make one point at a time (irrespective of notifications) to avoid discussions in parallel. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:23, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * What is needed at this time is to have a better idea of the scope and organization of each article. Eventually, experimented editors will come and they will look for the actual arguments. The "agree"/"disagree" will be useless: Wikipedia does not work by votes. It's not a democracy. Also, this point of yours is the same as "I agree with Biogeographist" being addressed to all editors. When we respond to an editor, in fact, even when we notify an editor in the talk page, the comment is still addressed to all editors. Please make one point at a time (irrespective of notifications) to avoid discussions in parallel. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:23, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

empirical evidence, personal experience and proof
I figure that some people struggle to see personal experience as evidence if they only accept evidence that confirms their own opinion, but observations done by anyone are evidence as they appeared in a brain of the human that communicates them. To nullify them as to deny them to be evidence because one has not had the experience oneself is a declaration of ignorance.

Whilst personal, thus subjective evidence is may not be verifiable by independent means, it does not imply the evidence to be invalid or non existent, albeit it can be invalid with regards to the thinking derived from it if interpreted incorrectly or can be false with regards to be created by someone to deceive.

If a personal experience can be duplicated as in an experiment doing physical measurements or systematic observation of for example animal or human behaviour in defined conditions it can be referred to as objective evidence.

The individual in possession of a personal experience will accept this experience as proven reality and is justified in doing so for being in possession of the experience. S/he might however be be advised to treat personal evidence as reason for belief instead of proof for knowledge until s/he can gain independent verification or logical reason for said observation. This can be different in cases of observations of for example an individual being present at a particular place at a particular time which can be proof in form of an alibi as factual evidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4tytwo (talk • contribs) 20:43, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Much of what you wrote above is contestable. Are you proposing any changes to the article Empirical evidence? Wikipedia talk pages are for discussing changes to the associated article, not for expressing personal opinions on the subject unconnected to edits. Biogeographist (talk) 21:02, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

First sentence
I tried to fix it, but it got reverted. I don't really care how it ends up, but it needs a rewrite. There's got to be a clearer, less meandering way to write this, using less i.e.'s. Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is empirical, i.e. constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. – Novem Linguae (talk) 08:01, 13 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not particularly attached to the "i.e.'s", but in it's current form it's concise since it conveys a lot of information both about what evidence is and when it is empirical. To my ears the expression is clear, but we can consider alternatives if they do not remove important information. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:02, 13 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree with Novem Linguae: the present sentence is excessively convoluted and at odds with MOS:FIRST: The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English. Be wary of cluttering the first sentence with a long parenthesis containing alternative spellings, pronunciations, etc., which can make the sentence difficult to actually read; this information can be placed elsewhere. The basic structure ("Empirical evidence is evidence that is empirical") is tautologous, and therefore at odds with MOS:REDUNDANCY. To my mind, the word "evidence" is a commonly used word that does not require explanation or clarification: more technical discussion about precise nuances of meaning in different contexts can be left to the second paragraph. The word "empirical" is less common and probably does require explanation, but the "i.e." is unnecessary. I would have thought something like "Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure." would work. GrindtXX (talk) 12:34, 14 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking up the guidelines, you make some good points. I would still prefer to keep the clarification of evidence since it is central to this topic. What about "Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure."? This way we have a simplified sentence-structure while preserving all the content. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:36, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The whole idea of considering the usual meaning of "empirical" and "evidence", especially evidence, to summarize the topic is misguided. I agree that the lead should be written for a large audience. Making use of the common meaning of each word in the title is not the way to do that. Wikipedia is not a dictionary and, therefore, the words used in the title are of secondary importance—a Wikipedia article is about concepts. The entire article needs to be reconsidered anyway, especially in view of how it relates to Scientific evidence. Once we have a clear idea of the key concepts specific to this article, independently of the words used in the title, then it will be easier to determine how to explain these concepts for a large audience and perhaps even find a better title.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:00, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

The split could be based on the no justification versus justified true belief view on knowledge.
In my recent readings I noticed a tendency in encyclopedic articles on epistemology to claim that knowledge is justified true belief (JTB). However, you don't have to dig much to find books and papers from excellent sources that disagree with that. Together with the claim that knowledge is JTB there is also the claim that JTB is the "standard and well accepted" view on knowledge since Plato. Some even refer to this view as the "traditional view". Again, you don't have to dig much to see excellent sources that disagree with it. In particular, most experts on Plato not only disagree with this view, but explain that Plato (Socrate in the dialog) explicitly rejected this view and offered a different view. By curiosity, I looked at the modern history of the concept of JTB. In my search, I could not find any reference to JTB before 1963, the year where Gettier found a problem with JTB. Here is a Google Ngram that compares JTB with falsifiability. This is not the main evidence for my point: I actually searched to see if there was something before 1963 and every document that I found that was dated before 1963 by Google was a false positive: typically the date was the date of the first issue of the journal and the article itself was much more recent. Of course, it is easy to find the view that knowledge must be justified in the 20th century period, especially in the logical positivist movement. So, perhaps this understanding that knowledge is JTB is the present version of the logical positivist movement: the logical positivist movement considered different notions of justification for knowledge and a notion of justification is also required in the view that knowledge is JTB. Actually, when you read carefully, there is no fundamental disagreement between philosophers in the following sense that very few philosophers reject Hume's argument, i.e., most philosophers agree that there is no logical justification for the growth of knowledge in science, but, for most philosophers, JTB refers to a different kind of justification, which is usually dependent on a background knowledge. For example, it's not possible to use statistic to justify a law without some statistical assumptions that are themselves accepted because of some background knowledge. Nevertheless, it makes sense to view the statistical methods and the inductive patterns as method of justification. This explains why the view that knowledge can be and must be justified makes sense in practice, in which this background knowledge is a practical reality, even though if we had to justify the background knowledge, we would meet an infinite regress issue. Anyway, the main point here is that we cannot deny that there is the JTB view on knowledge and also the view that there is no justification for knowledge and this duality has always been very fundamental at the least in the 20th and 21th centuries. To respect NPOV, it is important that any article on the subject of evidence clearly presents this duality or situate itself with respect to this duality right from the start. The current article is not so bad at presenting this duality, but the first sentence is too much within the JTB perspective view. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:50, 1 August 2021 (UTC)


 * As has been pointed out before: the main topic of this article is not knowledge but empirical evidence. Your original research on the origin of the JTB-conception of knowledge in contrast to other conceptions of knowledge does not seem to be relevant in this context. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:37, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I strongly maintain that the first sentence in the lead is written in the perspective of knowledge as JTB. I will assume good faith on your side. You might have adopted the view that knowledge is JTB, without explicitly referring to JTB, and thus find the sentence completely natural. However, in Wikipedia, viewpoints that are controversial (even though they might not appear controversial to some) cannot be implicitly inserted as if they were obvious.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:25, 1 August 2021 (UTC)