6 ms·
>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. No, it doesn't require extraordinary evidence. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11406-016-9779
by beyotf45dluyt 7y ago
>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
No, it doesn't require extraordinary evidence.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11406-016-9779-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11406-016-9779-7
- Judgmentality 7y agoI appreciate you providing a link, but am hoping for a tl;dr after realizing just how long that article is.
- the_duke 7y agoYou may acquaint yourself with the concept of an abstract: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_(summary) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_(summary). The one in question has 1326 characters, which is, I dare say, quite manageable.
- Judgmentality 7y agoThanks for the snark. I read the abstract and found it uninformative, but I guess I should've mentioned that.
- mimixco 7y agoI like TL;DRs, too and sometimes post them myself, but not every subject can be reduced to that. Sometimes you just have to read or write long form documents. What's the TL;DR for WWII? What's the TL;DR for the taxonomy of animal species, or how to run a nuke plant?
- c0brac0bra 7y agoThe mere mention of the word "extraordinary" is presumptive and asserts a line of reasoning that must be defended if one requires claims to be interpreted through it.
- mrob 7y agoThe appears to be an argument about semantics, enabled by Sagan's failure to precisely define "extraordinary". For the sake of argument, I'll define it here as "breaking the laws of thermodynamics". A reactionless thruster, which is one of the "scifi" technologies alluded to by the article, breaks the first law of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is so fundamental to physics that it is "extraordinary" that anything violating it is correct, i.e. the prior probability of the supposed violation being correct is extremely low, and low enough that we have to consider unlikely alternative explanations, e.g. failures of the research process itself. For non-extraordinary claims, we can assume that the scientists are not lying or insane, but when the prior probability is low enough, these possibilities are no longer ignorable.