Home/Discussion Groups/Session 2: Evidence and Perception

Session 2: Evidence and Perception

This session separates evidence in the world from what people notice, interpret, remember, and feel.

Concept Focus

Credencing separates Objective Evidence (E0) from Perceived Evidence (EP). Objective Evidence is the evidential situation. Perceived Evidence is what an agent takes the evidence to show after attention, framing, memory, and interpretation.

The session helps participants understand honest error. A person can be wrong because they had poor evidence, missed important context, or interpreted real evidence badly.

Historical Example

In the early history of medicine, some treatments were trusted because they fit familiar theories or because respected authorities recommended them. Later evidence showed that some practices were ineffective or harmful.

The lesson is not that earlier people were stupid. Often they lacked better measurement tools, controlled experiments, or reliable comparison groups.

Contemporary Issue

Social media feeds shape perceived evidence by repeating some examples and hiding others. A person may feel that an event is common because their feed shows it often, even if the wider base rate is low.

Adjacent References

These are starting points rather than exhaustive citations. They connect this page to nearby work in probability, calibration, cognitive bias, and social epistemology.

|Thomas Bayes, "An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances" (1763).
|E. T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science (2003).

Discussion Questions

Questions with expandable guidance

Open each question for facilitator notes, examples, scenarios, and feedback. The aim is careful discussion at a senior high school reading level.

Question 1How can two honest people look at the same event and perceive different evidence?+

GuidanceAsk about attention, background knowledge, memory, trust, framing, and missing context. The point is to explain divergence before accusing anyone.

Historical ExampleEyewitness testimony has often been treated as strong evidence, but later DNA exonerations showed that sincere perception can be mistaken.

FeedbackA strong answer names mechanisms of error, not just “people are biased.”

Question 2What is an example of Objective Evidence (E0) being different from Perceived Evidence (EP)?+

GuidanceUse simple examples: a misleading graph, a viral video missing context, a medical symptom that feels serious but has a common harmless cause.

Hypothetical ScenarioA short video shows a public figure saying something awful. Later, the full clip changes the meaning. What changed: E0, EP, or CA?

FeedbackThe best answer: the original evidence in the world may include the full context, but the viewer’s perceived evidence was narrowed by the clip.

Question 3When is poor perception avoidable, and when is it understandable?+

GuidanceUse the repair filter: access, skill, time, pressure, and willingness to correct the gap.

Contemporary IssueAlgorithmic feeds can repeatedly show one kind of story until it feels typical. The viewer may be misled, but the platform also shaped the evidence environment.

FeedbackGood answers avoid both extremes: “no one is responsible” and “every mistake is bad faith.”