4 ms·

Can we conclude that it is reasonable to not accept claims for which there is no evidence?

• melling 15y ago
  Probably not. I wouldn't simply discount something. For example, for a long time people assumed that black swans didn't exist. Hence the term "black swan event." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory The world was flat for centuries. The earth was the center of the universe. The atom was indivisible. Nothing escapes a black hole. That's true, right? Nothing existed before the Big Bang? We pretty much knew everything about physics that we needed to know until Einstein came along. I would pretty much question everything.
  • sofal 15y ago
    Sure, but there are an infinite number of propositions that you might want to consider if you're determined to not discount anything for which there is no evidence. For example, you may want to seriously consider the possibilities that danilocampos enumerated above, i.e. all-powerful rhinoceros, etc. After all, why should anyone discount those theories?
    • melling 15y ago
      No one has ever claimed to have seen an all powerful rhinoceros or spent a few thousand years writing about it, etc. If I told you that aliens dropped off some DNA here a few million years ago, came back 40,000 years ago and told us some stories, would that be believable? Can we discount it? :-)