Loving your child's mind: What is evidence? 8 and 7 year old convo.

In which— I'm going to get started. Let's see if the chat works. We talked before about science, um, and I was going to focus on evidence because I think when we talk about science, evidence comes up as part of that. And, uh, so I'm going to see if I can get a good definition of evidence. Can one of you say what you think of as evidence? We talked about it before, but what is evidence? What does the word evidence mean?

Um, to me, mostly evidence is something that you find or something that, like, a clue, kind of.

Okay, something that you find, something that's a clue. Anybody else? Go ahead, Sankara.

I think evidence is something that, um, actually I don't really know.

Okay, well, I have a dictionary definition, so I just put in the chat the definition from something called Lexico, um, that's by Oxford University. And what they say is their first definition for evidence is the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. Can any of you explain that definition in your own language? Go, Sankara.

Um, um, to explain, there was something you can believe in it, something.

I don't know, say that again. I think you had something, but you were, you were not clear. So say again your core thought there.

I don't, I don't understand what that means.

Okay, um, so again, look, breaking things apart. Whenever it's hard to understand something, I recommend breaking it apart. So let's just start with the first clause, the available body of facts or information. What do you think they mean by the available body of facts or information? Go, Lana.

I think like when you're available like to evidence, which is in this case just facts or just like something like a body, like footprints or like crumbs or something like that.

Okay, so you're thinking in a sort of detective story sense that crumbs or footprints or something might be available facts or information. Does Alana's example make sense to the two of you, Marwa and Sankara?

Yeah.

Okay, you're getting a thumbs up from Sankara. Um, and then let's go to indicating whether a belief or proposition— first, I assume you know what belief is. Do you guys know what a belief is? How about a proposition? Does anybody know what that is? Proposition is a fancier word, and I expected that word would confuse you. It's used among other places in mathematics, but it's as if you propose something to be true. Go ahead, Marwa. What were you going to say, Marwa?

I was going to say that it's like improper and proper.

Can you speak more loudly, Marwa? I'm having a hard time hearing you.

Like in proper and proper.

Proper? Yeah. Well, it's like in propose. Like I propose that, you know, so-and-so is innocent or so-and-so is guilty. Or I propose that rain is caused by clouds or something like that. So a proposition is kind of a proposed, uh, thing that one is stating might be true. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. I expect you guys know what true is, but let's talk a little bit about what is— what is— what do they mean by true?

It's— I think it's like something that's actually real instead of fake or just a lie. Yeah.

Anything else on what is true? Who's Sankara?

Um, I can't— I can't explain any of my answers today.

That's okay. One of the reasons we do this actually is it is really hard to explain oneself. I think it's a good mental exercise to get good at explaining things. Um, but before going on to the— back to the whole sentence, how about valid? Do any of you know what the word valid means?

Well, I think it means either fake or just not available.

No, I would say valid is more like a different word for true. Um, I think when they use it here, I think they're being very technical. So in mathematics, for instance, um, there they talk about valid and validity more. And so what I would say is, just to simplify understanding, let's just, for our purposes, let's say valid is the same as true. And so if we do that, well, let's see if we can get the whole definition. The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true. Um, does that make sense or is it still confusing?

It makes sense.

It makes sense.

Can you explain it?

I could try again. So I think the available body of facts, so like the, the available piece of evidence, it's— it indicates whether either, like, like it says, a belief or just proposition is either true or false.

Okay, well, true or, or again, valid is another word for true, you know. I think part of what makes this definition so confusing, and I literally just grabbed this from a dictionary, um, actually let's pause. Do any of you ever look up words in the dictionary?

Online dictionaries.

Alana and Sankara spoke at the same time, so I heard neither of you, so one at a time. So Alana, do you look up words in the dictionary?

Um, not really, because I don't really— I don't think we have a dictionary at home, but there was a few dictionaries at school, so we sometimes used it.

Okay, I tell you what, Google can take you to countless dictionaries. So if you're ever online and you want to know what a word means, you can just Google the word or Google definition of the word. Definition of evidence is how I got this, and then there are online dictionaries. Sankara, do you use dictionaries?

Yeah, except only online, and even at schools normally they give us little I have one, except I don't use it. Except even at school, they sometimes give us— if you're doing maths that's really hard, they give us tablets that we can just search stuff on.

Got it. So why would you use— I actually use dictionaries a lot. Why would you use dictionaries? Why would a person use a dictionary?

Maybe to understand more if they're reading or writing and they come across something They could, so, and if they didn't know what that meant, they could just use the dictionary to understand more, especially if you were reading on the computer.

Fair enough. And do you ever come across a word you don't understand when you're reading?

If it's a complicated book, sometimes, yes.

And then you just skip the word? Do you guess its meaning? Do you ask your parents? What do you do?

Sometimes I ask my parents, and sometimes I just try and guess what it means and go on the story and see if it and see if it matches.

So that, that can work. I, I do that a lot myself, but actually I also like to look up words to get the exact meaning. And the reason I was asking about dictionaries is sometimes dictionaries explain things in ways that are helpful and sometimes not so helpful. So I was going to say, this seems like a complicated definition. And so I was going to propose we simplify it. I'm going to simplify it and get rid of all the ors, because part of what makes it hard to read is all of the this or that. So I'm going to say the available body of facts indicating whether a belief is true. So see, I simplified it. Instead of saying facts or information, which are kind of similar, rather than saying belief or proposition, which is both kind of similar, and rather than saying true or valid, I just say true because they're kind of similar. So is this easier to understand? The available body of facts indicating whether a belief is true. So can one of you explain this in your own words? I think you're on mute, Alana. I think you're speaking on mute.

Um, I think maybe the available evidence or clue indicates sometimes half or whether a leaf is— a proposition is true. I'm not sure.

So you're going with the mystery, I think. And in a mystery story, um, suppose I'm going to just make up a name randomly. Suppose Well, what kind of things do people do, or in the mysteries you read, what are we discovering that they do?

Well, in the books, or mystery books that I used to, or that I still kind of used to read, they're like, I remember there was one about the secret stairway and there was some old hidden clock or something like that, had mysteries and stuff like that.

So did they discover the clock? Was that what they did?

Yes, and then they had to figure some things out, and then they found either the criminal or just the bad thing that happened.

I see. So they are discovering evidence saying who is the criminal. Is that one thing that happens?

Yeah.

Okay, so the available body of facts indicating whether a belief is true, and the belief is true would be that so-and-so is the criminal. Marwa, go ahead.

Was it a two-sided book?

What's that?

Was the book Alana was saying about, was it a two-sided book?

Yes, it was a two-sided book.

We have the same one too.

Nice.

And I don't know what a two-sided book is, so you guys have to explain what that is.

It's like It's like one book, but it has two books in it. Like, one cover is right side up, one cover's upside down, and the book and the words are upside down. So when you finish the first book on one side, you can flip it over and then start the other one on the other side.

Very cool. I have seen those. I just didn't know they were called two-sided books. That's cool. Um, so the available body of facts indicating whether a belief is true So Alana's been giving us examples of how the word evidence is used, and this is a definition of evidence, and I'm going to put evidence in quotation marks so that that's what we know what it is. How about scientific evidence? How would, how would this apply? Does this help you understand what scientific evidence is? Sankara's nodding his head, and that means, Sankara, you get to explain it to us. How does this help us understand what scientific evidence is?

The same kind of evidence?

So the same kind of evidence. Alana was telling us about a mystery story where there are things like, I don't know, crumbs. So do crumbs help scientists discover things?

Yeah, so if they leave it out for loads of days and then mold appears, and then it could make another medicine like penicillin.

I see. Crumbs could help us discover penicillin.

Um, no, another form of penicillin or something.

I see, a form of penicillin. Is, is that the same as crumbs in a detective story?

No.

So how is it an available body of facts indicating whether a belief is true?

Maybe it's because they're trying to find something with the evidence. Like if someone said, maybe before we knew that everything rotated around the sun, maybe everyone said, I don't think that everything rotates around the Earth. I think everyone— I think everything rotates around Neptune or something like that. They would gather evidence to see if that's true.

So what I'm hearing, Alana, is that you're thinking that if scientists have, say, two different beliefs to figure out which is right, kind of like in a detective story, you might have two different people who might be the criminal, that the evidence helps you decide which belief, sun around the Earth around the sun or Earth around Neptune or whatever, and that's kind of like deciding which person is the criminal? Did I understand you correctly?

Yeah.

Okay, what do you think, Marwa?

I don't really know.

Okay, that's totally fine. Sankara, how about you? Do you think that Ilana's on to something or is she not on the right track?

I think she's on to something.

Okay, so I was going to ask, um, does it make sense to use the word evidence both in detective stories and in science, or should we have two different words?

I think that sometimes evidence can be used in different scenarios, so maybe in different cases there should be two words for it.

How about the example you gave of evidence helping us to decide who's the criminal, and then evidence helping us to decide which belief about the universe is correct? Is that a time when it's good to have the same word evidence both times or not?

Um, I think maybe you could use instead of evidence, maybe just like researching instead of evidence, like finding out it for your own interest instead of just find— finding something. So maybe just researching. I don't find anything instead of evidence in that case.

Well, in which case is researching in the detective story or in the scientific discovery process?

Um, I think the scientific discovery process.

Okay, so you would say we should call that research and keep evidence strictly for detective stories?

No, I think in some cases for scientific evidence, I think maybe you should use evidence. I'm not sure just which cases right now.

Got it. Um, what do you think about all this, Sankara? Um, um, I think Alan is correct that you like the idea of using research for science and evidence for detective stories.

Yeah.

Okay.

Actually, no, actually research is kind of evidence. Because you're researching to find evidence.

Okay, can you give an example?

Like when they were finding black holes, they had to research the gravitation stuff around it so they could— then, then they found the evidence, and then they, and then they just, um, yeah, I think research is Finding evidence.

Okay, Marwan wants to hop in. After Marwan hops in, I want to hear what Alana thinks about Sankara's claim. Go ahead, Marwan.

It's about like right now, like before this session, we had researched if Lamborghinis have 6 seats or, or 2 seats, and actually has 2 seats.

So Marwa, are you agreeing with Sankara that research is a process of discovering evidence?

Yes.

Okay, and Sankara, your hands are distracting when you do that, so please— thank you. So Alana, what do you make of Sankara and Marwa's claim that research in science is a process of discovering evidence?

I actually do agree with them after thinking about it.

Okay, well, I do want to not keep these too long. So I think it's interesting that we had a number of different hypotheses, and now we're seeing— or so far you're all agreeing that scientific evidence does deserve to be called evidence. But I think this, all of this is really important. Science is immensely important, and it's worth understanding all this. Very clearly. So, um, are, are you still around next weekend, Alana, or is that already to the tournament?

Um, on Sunday I might, I might be able to make it in the car ride over to the tournament, so I hope so.

Okay, well, um, if we don't talk to you before then, uh, super, super good— not good luck, uh, be bold and strong and confident and Do your best and we'll all be cheering for you, okay? Okay. All right, thanks everybody. Yes, Sankara, one more thing.

What's jiu-jitsu?

You want to explain jiu-jitsu, Alana?

Um, sure, it's just basically a martial art where it's— where— so you usually have two uniforms. You can just wear regular clothes for no-gi or rash guard and shorts or something like that, and then the other one, it's called a gi. It's kind of like an open jacket with the belt that you tie around your waist to hold it, to keep it, to hold it, and then pants. So it's like— and the goal is to try to tap the other person out with a submission, which is basically just trying to make them hurt, but it isn't like punching or putting your elbow in their throat or something. It's trying to like choke them, or armbar, which is like the other person laying down, you grab their arm and lift your hips up. To try and make their elbow go the wrong way, and if they tap you in, or just by points.

But yes, it's analogous. It's another martial art. Karate is a famous martial art. Kung fu is another martial art. There are many different martial arts, and jiu-jitsu is one of them. And Ilana, do you know how jiu-jitsu relates to, say, karate? Do you know if it's a cousin or very different, or do you have any idea?

Um, I think jiu-jitsu, I think the only martial art that I'm aware of right now that it's kind of related to is probably wrestling.

Got it. Okay. In which case, yeah. So we wish you great triumphs in the tournament, and if nothing else, be confident and have fun. Okay?

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. You're welcome. Bye-bye, everyone. Bye.