6 Criteria of High-Confidence Evidence

Source: Dr. James Tour

  1. Repeatable
  2. Directly Measurable
  3. Prospective Study (as opposed to retrospectively)
    You can design your experiment to control for things that can confound your results
  4. Avoid bias
    We need to avoid bias to arrive at the truth. Be aware of your own biases. No one is easier to fool than yourself.
  5. Avoid assumptions
    Openly disclose the assumptions you make and provide a decent justification for them
  6. Make reasonable claims
    Don’t make claims that go beyond the evidence
    eg. FDA disclaimer: “Scientific evidence suggests, but does not prove, that eating nuts may reduce the risk of heart disease.”
Make sure to look for and refute contrary interpretations.

11 ways of misusing evidence, logic and reasoning

This applies to interpreting Scripture.

Description / Type Examples / Result
Only point to supportive, confirming evidence; simply ignore contrary evidence Results in a guided tour of scripture. Contrary evidence is never discussed because it would or could reveal:
  1. how much contrary evidence there is,
  2. that there are no or only poor counter-arguments.
Use or focus on only one verse = proof-text ignore other passages.
Dismissing contrary statements without refuting them. Dismissing is easy; refuting is harder.
Prefer old light over new light Eg. Accept Solomon’s statements but ignore or symbolize Christ’s and the Apostle’s statements
Assert that “this means that” The modern interpreter’s viewpoint is read into the text. His authority is greater than anyone else’s.
Contrary evidence is symbolized. “Oh, that’s symbolic.” Eg. “eyes see” means they understand; “presence” can be invisible, therefore I can make it mean invisible wherever I need it to be. For words with multiple meanings or ambiguous definitions, pick a definition that suits you.
Biblical person or event is seen as a type, or anti-type to justify another interpretation elsewhere
Words are added to scripture to make a text “clearer” This is done to support a preferred doctrine. Eg. “other” in Col 1:15-20; Jehovah in the NT
Misrepresent an opponent’s point of view; straw-man argument. Eg. Trinitarians say that Jesus and the Father are the same person.
Use ad-hominem arguments against opponents. Call them “apostates", “opposers", “evil”. Label them with derogatory labels such as “Babylon”, etc. That way we don’t have to deal with what they actually say.
Hold your opponents reasoning to higher standards of proof than for your own position. Their doctrines have to be stated explicitly while our teachings can be based on reasoning and “possible” interpretations.