irrelevance

Irrelevance refers to the lack of bearing or significance that a topic, argument, or piece of information has regarding a particular matter. It is relative to context, purpose, and criteria of relevance. In various fields, irrelevance is a recognized property.

In philosophy and logic, relevance is a relation between premises and conclusions. Inference requires relevance; irrelevant premises do not logically support the conclusion; some theories of relevance consider indispensability or probative value.

In law, relevance is a gatekeeping criterion for admissibility of evidence. Irrelevant evidence is generally inadmissible; materiality and probative value are weighed against potential prejudice.

In statistics and information retrieval: Irrelevance occurs when variables do not affect outcomes or when documents do not match the query; feature selection aims to remove irrelevance; in information theory, irrelevance can correspond to information that does not reduce uncertainty.

Everyday usage and pitfalls: People may label something irrelevant due to biases or misinterpretation; irrelevance is context-dependent; conflation with falsehood or redundancy; sometimes what seems irrelevant in one context is relevant in another.