Is absence of evidence of pain ever evidence of absence?

Abstract Absence of evidence arguments are indispensable to comparative neurobiology. The absence in a given species homologous neural architecture strongly correlated with type conscious experience humans should be able taken as prima facie reason for concluding that the question does not have capacity experience. reasoning is, however, widely disparaged being both logically illicit and unscientific. This paper argues these concerns unwarranted. There is no logical barrier formulating cogent arguments; indeed, accepting such part what it committed falsifiability critical aspect scientific method. can always blocked, by assuming psychological properties ‘multiply realizable’. While we take multiple realizability highly likely at some level analysis, argue question-begging assume exists every thus automatically thought undermine animal consciousness debate. Using example pain focusing on homologies information processing tasks, show how, science consciousness, an might well serve absence.