In a world where tigers didn’t exist, I wouldn’t expect to see one in my trashcan. In a world where tigers did exist, I also wouldn’t expect to see a tiger in my trashcan, but I wouldn’t be quite as surprised if I did see one. My prior probability that tigers exist is very high, since I have lots of independent reasons to believe that they do exist. The conditional probability of observing no tiger in my trashcan is skewed very slightly towards the world where tigers do not exist, but not enough to affect a prior probability that is very close to 100% already. You could say the same for the goblin example, etc–my prior probability is close to zero, and although I’m more likely not to observe a goblin in my trashcan in the world where goblins don’t exist, I’m also not likely to see one in the world where goblins do exist. The prior probability is far more skewed than the conditional probability, so the evidence of not observing a goblin doesn’t affect my belief much.
In a world where tigers didn’t exist, I wouldn’t expect to see one in my trashcan. In a world where tigers did exist, I also wouldn’t expect to see a tiger in my trashcan, but I wouldn’t be quite as surprised if I did see one. My prior probability that tigers exist is very high, since I have lots of independent reasons to believe that they do exist. The conditional probability of observing no tiger in my trashcan is skewed very slightly towards the world where tigers do not exist, but not enough to affect a prior probability that is very close to 100% already. You could say the same for the goblin example, etc–my prior probability is close to zero, and although I’m more likely not to observe a goblin in my trashcan in the world where goblins don’t exist, I’m also not likely to see one in the world where goblins do exist. The prior probability is far more skewed than the conditional probability, so the evidence of not observing a goblin doesn’t affect my belief much.