Are you familiar the legal phrases “in evidence” and “not in evidence”, as in “Objection! Question assume facts not in evidence!” or “Your honor, I move Exhibit A be admitted in evidence” or “You, the jury, may only consider the the testimony that has been admitted in evidence”? When you object to say something is “not in evidence”, you’re not saying evidence for it doesn’t exist—you’re saying “You just started relying on a premise we haven’t agreed to yet”. That term of art might be confusing and a reason to avoid saying “not in evidence”, but I didn’t get the sense the article understood that sense of the phrase.
I’m not a lawyer so I won’t claim deep understanding of legal procedure but I have heard of the phrase. I don’t understand the relevance, I’m not trying to speak to a courtroom context here, although I can understand if you feel that my post is a bit too glib and paints with too broad a brush, ignoring special cases. My intention was more to address (in a humorous manner) a pattern I see in random conversations or inforemal debates as opposed to contexts where there are actual “rules of evidence” that are established to apply. In fact, I think part of the pattern that I am trying to speak to is that people sometimes import concepts from places like courtrooms and try to apply them where they aren’t appropriate. “Beyond a reasonable doubt” being a common example. In normal conversation you shouldn’t have to follow rules of “admitting” evidence to the conversation in my view, and invoking legal concepts often just masks the underlying disagreement.
Are you familiar the legal phrases “in evidence” and “not in evidence”, as in “Objection! Question assume facts not in evidence!” or “Your honor, I move Exhibit A be admitted in evidence” or “You, the jury, may only consider the the testimony that has been admitted in evidence”? When you object to say something is “not in evidence”, you’re not saying evidence for it doesn’t exist—you’re saying “You just started relying on a premise we haven’t agreed to yet”. That term of art might be confusing and a reason to avoid saying “not in evidence”, but I didn’t get the sense the article understood that sense of the phrase.
I’m not a lawyer so I won’t claim deep understanding of legal procedure but I have heard of the phrase. I don’t understand the relevance, I’m not trying to speak to a courtroom context here, although I can understand if you feel that my post is a bit too glib and paints with too broad a brush, ignoring special cases. My intention was more to address (in a humorous manner) a pattern I see in random conversations or inforemal debates as opposed to contexts where there are actual “rules of evidence” that are established to apply. In fact, I think part of the pattern that I am trying to speak to is that people sometimes import concepts from places like courtrooms and try to apply them where they aren’t appropriate. “Beyond a reasonable doubt” being a common example. In normal conversation you shouldn’t have to follow rules of “admitting” evidence to the conversation in my view, and invoking legal concepts often just masks the underlying disagreement.