Is it true that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?

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MPat said:
After all, “PRmerger” is just refusing to accept your claim without additional evidence. You made a claim with real implications (you already pointed them out - dropping a line of discussion). Thus, by your own reasoning, he should not accept it without “extraordinary evidence” (and, as you noted, your “say so” is not such evidence
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Just a FYI: I’m a “she”. Not a “he”. 🙂
 
MPat said:
So, how do you define “implications” and “important to you”?
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You are asking questions and then answering them yourself in the same post (as per the ones above). Others have been answered already (is credibility subjective). Others are nonsensical (what evidence is there for dragons). And if you can’t answer the ones that you haven’t (what is extraordinary evidence…what evidence would I require) then you should take no further part in this discussion.
MPat said:
After all, “PRmerger” is just refusing to accept your claim without additional evidence. You made a claim with real implications (you already pointed them out - dropping a line of discussion). Thus, by your own reasoning, he should not accept it without “extraordinary evidence” (and, as you noted, your “say so” is not such evidence).
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If my wife said she’d seen a dragon in the local pub or something equally bizarre, then I wouldn’t believe her. That is not an extraordinary claim. SHE would be the one making such a claim. I am not making a claim. I am stating a fact. It’s not a position where I could be wrong. It’s not a position where further evidence would make me change my mind. Even if there was a dragon in the pub, I would not believe her if she told me that. Short of me making a statutory declaration, then you will accept that and move on. Otherwise you can say that I am lying. One or the other, thanks.

Because, and heaven knows this seems monstrously difficult for you to accept, the dragon in the pub is an exceptionally extraordinary claim. And I am at a loss to understand how anyone could accept it at face value, just on the say so of even someone you trusted implicitly. Because what, in your honest opinion be the more likely: That a supernatural fire breathing dragon was having a beer at the local or that the person who insisted that they’d seen it was having a psychotic episode.

And you might think on the implications of your position if you disagree with the above. I can see your kids calling you in a panic saying that mum had told them that she was seeing dragons everywhere. ‘Hey, don’t worry’, sez you. ‘She’s been seeing them for months. Why do you think it’s a problem? Don’t you believe her…?’
 
The answer to the question is an obvious: yes. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Any Christian who denies that is so distracted by dogma that she hasn’t realized there is extraordinary evidence for Christianity.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
The answer to the question is an obvious: yes. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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Nope.

All claims require sufficient evidence. Nothing more and nothing less.

In fact, the only evidence that you may have is that your wife said it, and that should be enough for you.

(Note to all those who can’t think in the abstract, of which I’ve encountered quite a bit of this lately–not sure what’s up with that–there is no need to give details about your nuptial relationship. It’s a hypothetical. Just be generous to the context, please.)
 
PRmerger said:
Nope.

All claims require sufficient evidence. Nothing more and nothing less.

In fact, the only evidence that you may have is that your wife said it, and that should be enough for you.

(Note to all those who can’t think in the abstract, of which I’ve encountered quite a bit of this lately–not sure what’s up with that–there is no need to give details about your nuptial relationship. It’s a hypothetical. Just be generous to the context, please.)
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When you make a claim that is extraordinary, the bar for “sufficient” evidence is higher. Hence the use of the word “extraordinary” evidence. Perhaps our disagreement is just semantic.

If your son told you he had heard a person screaming in the house next door, you could believe him without any hint of doubt. If your son told you that aliens had abducted him in the night, you most likely would not believe him even if the story were confirmed by a friend of his. Such skepticism is reasonable because you haven’t been provided with sufficient evidence. You would need a remarkable amount of evidence for it to be reasonable to believe your son, in this instance.

(Note: years of evidence that your son is reliable and trustworthy would go a long way, however. I don’t think “extraordinary” evidence need always be miraculous. I always take the phrase to mean “an extraordinary amount of evidence”, not “evidence of an extraordinary sort”).

Do we disagree, or is this semantics?
 
Prodigal_Son said:
When you make a claim that is extraordinary, the bar for “sufficient” evidence is higher. Hence the use of the word “extraordinary” evidence. Perhaps our disagreement is just semantic.

If your son told you he had heard a person screaming in the house next door, you could believe him without any hint of doubt. If your son told you that aliens had abducted him in the night, you most likely would not believe him even if the story were confirmed by a friend of his. Such skepticism is reasonable because you haven’t been provided with sufficient evidence. You would need a remarkable amount of evidence for it to be reasonable to believe your son, in this instance.

(Note: years of evidence that your son is reliable and trustworthy would go a long way, however. I don’t think “extraordinary” evidence need always be miraculous. I always take the phrase to mean “an extraordinary amount of evidence”, not “evidence of an extraordinary sort”).

Do we disagree, or is this semantics?
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We disagree.

The bar for “sufficient” is not higher for extraordinary claims.

“9 skydivers survive after a terrifying collision between 2 planes, in which one aircraft bursts into flame!”

Incredible!
Amazing!
Extraordinary!

And yet the proof is rather jejune. A camera.

today.com/news/skydivers-plane-collision-caught-camera-well-jump-again-8C11531939
 
PRmerger said:
We disagree.

The bar for “sufficient” is not higher for extraordinary claims.

“9 skydivers survive after a terrifying collision between 2 planes, in which one aircraft bursts into flame!”

Incredible!
Amazing!
Extraordinary!

And yet the proof is rather jejune. A camera.

today.com/news/skydivers-plane-collision-caught-camera-well-jump-again-8C11531939
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The claim is not very extraordinary. It does not involve the existence of beings that we otherwise lack evidence for the existence of. Would you think that a picture from a camera is sufficient proof for the sentence “Nine skydivers survive after their planes were destroyed by Thor’s flying hammer”? Let us suppose that we’re talking about a very good picture that does not appear to be doctored.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
The claim is not very extraordinary. It does not involve the existence of beings that we otherwise lack evidence for the existence of.
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This is circular reasoning.

“That’s extraordinary therefore I won’t believe it, because I know it doesn’t exist”.
 
PRmerger said:
The next sentence was a nonsequitur, JK.

Is something that’s unlikely also something that’s ordinary?

Do tell!

🍿
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Because it is ordinary in the sense that it does not require the rejection of well-established rules to explain. As I said previously
JapaneseKappa said:
“Extraordinary claims” in this sense means that a claim requires us to reject common and everyday rules
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JapaneseKappa said:
Because it is ordinary in the sense that it does not require the rejection of well-established rules to explain. As I said previously
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You do realize that you’ve just undermined the entirety of the scientific method, yeah?

And I’m confused now: do you endorse the rejection of “well established rules” to explain phenomena?

Or do you understand that sometimes, in order to explain a phenomenon, the rejection of “well established rules” is required?
 
PRmerger said:
You do realize that you’ve just undermined the entirety of the scientific method, yeah?

And I’m confused now: do you endorse the rejection of “well established rules” to explain phenomena?

Or do you understand that sometimes, in order to explain a phenomenon, the rejection of “well established rules” is required?
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As I explained previously:
JapaneseKappa said:
That is the whole point of science, yes. To be very careful about how evidence is collected, how strong the evidence is, and exactly what that evidence is telling us. Now of course not all discoveries are going to overrule the “ordinary rules.” There are “actually extraordinary” results that would demand extraordinary amounts of evidence to believe because of how many rules they break. But there are also “unexpected” results that simply arose from misunderstandings or inaccurate initial estimates that don’t take as much evidence to believe.
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And
JapaneseKappa said:
People at the time suspected that the speed of light might not be constant, so because they did not know, they made an experiment specifically designed to test that theory. The result of that experiment was extraordinary evidence in the sense that because the experiment was specifically designed to test the theory, it had controls in place to avoid possible confounding effects that would lead to the wrong conclusion. Of course, even after the initial experiment, it was repeated many times, by many different people before it was fully accepted.
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