I think I should be more explicit: Saying that ignoring bad evidence could lead you miss things “ranging from insignificant to essential”
1) is worded in a lopsided way that emphasizes “essential” too much—almost everything you’ll miss is insignificant, with the essential things being vanishingly rare.
2) Is special pleading—many activities could get you to miss things “ranging from insignificant to essential”, including ignoring bad evidence, ignoring claims because they are fraudulent, or ignoring the scientific theories of a 6 year old, and nobody bothers mentioning them.
3) is probably being said because the speaker really wants to treat his bad evidence as good evidence, and is rationalizing it by saying “even bad evidence could have essential knowledge behind it sometimes”.
I think I should be more explicit: Saying that ignoring bad evidence could lead you miss things “ranging from insignificant to essential”
1) is worded in a lopsided way that emphasizes “essential” too much—almost everything you’ll miss is insignificant, with the essential things being vanishingly rare.
2) Is special pleading—many activities could get you to miss things “ranging from insignificant to essential”, including ignoring bad evidence, ignoring claims because they are fraudulent, or ignoring the scientific theories of a 6 year old, and nobody bothers mentioning them.
3) is probably being said because the speaker really wants to treat his bad evidence as good evidence, and is rationalizing it by saying “even bad evidence could have essential knowledge behind it sometimes”.