What do politicians, voters, the captains of industry, drug companies, priests and door-to-door salesmen all have in common? Not much. However, every one of them has an addiction to evidence. Not any evidence. The evidence they crave (and will pay a king’s ransom for) is evidence to support their cause. So what is this mysterious thing called evidence? Evidence is the magic emerging when A together with B seems to result in C. A and B are then called “premises” to the logical (?) outcome, C. That is, A and B are evidence which “prove” C. In real life, C is what the politician, the voter, the priest, or whoever … wants to hear. The general idea is that when you have a proof, C, then other people will believe you. Therefore, if you are smart you will carefully choose A and B (not K, M or Z) to prove your point. If you are cheeky, you might even call the evidence “scientific”. That is because the adjective “scientific” has special religious power in this age. Actually, scientific method (which is understood by about 2% of any population) starts with the strange idea that the truth of C is unknown before A and B are put together as an experiment. Even more strangely, scientific method requires that the A and B premises (or “variables” as they are called in an experiment) are not chosen to “prove” C. Rather, any outcome C is only as good as the original wisdom of choosing the variables, A and B, instead of K, M or Z. At any later time, K, M or Z might be shown to be better choices, and the original outcome, C, might be trashed. Well, that kind of science is for geeks. There is no danger, ever, that politicians, voters, the captains of industry, drug companies, priests and door-to-door salesmen will have their more convenient idea of “evidence” share a bookshelf with fairies, Santa Clause and UFOs.