The problem may be that “we have no idea whether there is life on Mars” sounds a lot like “we have no evidence about the presence of life on Mars”, which is simply not the case. (Of course, “we have no idea whether there is life on Mars” was operationalized as a probability assessment of 0.5, which does not imply zero evidence, so I can’t be sure if my re-quotation is what you meant.)
Ah, indeed the paraphrased version would be incorrect, and wasn’t what I meant; perhaps I phrased my version badly. I’ve added a clarification to my earlier comment, does that help?
The problem may be that “we have no idea whether there is life on Mars” sounds a lot like “we have no evidence about the presence of life on Mars”, which is simply not the case. (Of course, “we have no idea whether there is life on Mars” was operationalized as a probability assessment of 0.5, which does not imply zero evidence, so I can’t be sure if my re-quotation is what you meant.)
Ah, indeed the paraphrased version would be incorrect, and wasn’t what I meant; perhaps I phrased my version badly. I’ve added a clarification to my earlier comment, does that help?
Yup.