OK. I fully take your point and do not disagree - except... what do you say when it's a situation where we know that (for instance) the Russians are lying about Ukraine having chemical weapons facilities, but (a) you can't prove it, (b) well, you could feasibly be seen to be embarrassingly wrong in the future, and (c) you are talking to the general public with their limited patience for nuance? What's a better phrase for "no evidence" that conveys the truth honestly, efficiently, and with the right amount of epistemic humility? I get that the Russian claim is itself extremely weak Bayesian evidence... but "extremely weak Bayesian evidence" is not really included in the common usage of the term "evidence" in the context of a public discussion is it?
It is a weird case in which the Russian claims are partly evidence against it (e.g. they are putting in details like Hunter Biden in ways that make no sense, whereas if they had a real claim they would say that instead), also the prior on it being super low (I mean why would you put that in Ukraine? Makes no sense, even if we did want to do it.) I dropped my probability by a factor of 10+ when I saw that.
I think you could say "Russia's assertions are not meaningful evidence" perhaps.
I don't think they're actively malicious. I think they're too incompetent to be actively malicious.
OK. I fully take your point and do not disagree - except... what do you say when it's a situation where we know that (for instance) the Russians are lying about Ukraine having chemical weapons facilities, but (a) you can't prove it, (b) well, you could feasibly be seen to be embarrassingly wrong in the future, and (c) you are talking to the general public with their limited patience for nuance? What's a better phrase for "no evidence" that conveys the truth honestly, efficiently, and with the right amount of epistemic humility? I get that the Russian claim is itself extremely weak Bayesian evidence... but "extremely weak Bayesian evidence" is not really included in the common usage of the term "evidence" in the context of a public discussion is it?
It is a weird case in which the Russian claims are partly evidence against it (e.g. they are putting in details like Hunter Biden in ways that make no sense, whereas if they had a real claim they would say that instead), also the prior on it being super low (I mean why would you put that in Ukraine? Makes no sense, even if we did want to do it.) I dropped my probability by a factor of 10+ when I saw that.
I think you could say "Russia's assertions are not meaningful evidence" perhaps.