Subject:  Evidence and proof (Lundquist)..
Date:     Fri, 04 Aug 2000 114059 -0500
From:     Roy Beavers 
To:       Roy Beavers 
--------------------------------------------------


..........From EMF-L........  Thanks, Marjorie......
It seems that they do not agree with you (us) in Canada.....guru.....

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Evidence and proof
Date: 4 Aug 00 08:59:26 PDT
From: marjlundquist@address.com
To: guru@emfguru.com

Roy, the discussion of evidence and proof and the difference between the two
has been very interesting.

I should like to express the legal distinction in non-legal language, as I
think it may help to clarify the matter for people who are neither lawyers nor
scientists.

Any information that is pertinent to the question at issue constitutes
evidence; evidence may be of variable (good or poor) quality.

Proof refers to the conclusion(s) drawn following review of all the available
evidence.  If such a review comes to a definite conclusion, the evidence is
said to be definitive; and if that conclusion (in the case of health effects
possibly caused by exposure to an environmental agent) is that the
environmental agent did indeed cause the observed health effects, then there
is considered to be proof of a causal relationship.

If the data are scientific data and the procedure of evaluation is a
scientific one, then one may say that there is scientific proof.

Some would say that there must be a consensus among scientists, in order to
claim that scientific proof exists.  Certainly the assertion that there is
scientific proof is much stronger when a consensus exists, compared to the
situation when only one or a few scientists make such a claim.  But before
consensus is established, there is always an early period when only a small
number of scientists hold a position that later will be held by the majority;
so serious attention ought to be paid to a claim of scientific proof, even if
it made by only a few scientists, because this could be the early stage of
what will later be a consensus position among scientists.

I hope this summary proves helpful. -- Marjorie
*********************************
Marjorie Lundquist, Ph.D., C.I.H.
Bioelectromagnetic Hygienist
P. O. Box 11831
Milwaukee, WI  53211-0831  USA
*********************************


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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com