In this case, imagine a picture of a hawk in the sky accompanied by the caption ‘There are hawks here.’ Barring photo-altering software, this picture is pretty good evidence for the caption’s veracity. On the other hand, a picture of a clear sky with the caption ‘There are no hawks near where I live,’ is much more problematic. The latter photo shows only an absence of evidence. It does not show solid evidence of the absence of hawks. It could be nothing more than a coincidence that the photograph failed to capture a hawk in a sky otherwise frequently populated by hawks. What is needed in such
...more
