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"Extraordinary claims, he said, demand extraordinary evidence." The single worst statement to happen to epistemology. Extraordinary claims require the same typ

"Extraordinary claims, he said, demand extraordinary evidence." The single worst statement to happen to epistemology. Extraordinary claims require the same type of evidence as ordinary claims. Ignoring for now the category problem of delineating extraordinary claims from ordinary ones, we find a deeper issue: It seems to be the case that asserting a certain category of truth-value statements require a different level of verification than another category is itself an extraordinary claim. Yet there is no extraordinary evidence that this claim is true. Hence the argument is self-referrentially absurd.

gnaritas 18y ago
I disagree, the whole point of the statement is that ordinary claims don't require verifiable evidence because they're ordinary and we expect them to happen. If I say it rained yesterday, my word is evidence enough to satisfy most inquires about the weather. If I say it rained and God reached down and protected me with his hand, well, I better have some serious evidence if I expect anyone with a rational mind to believe a word I'm saying. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence is a well known and well accepted self evident fact.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  I disagree, the whole point of the statement is that ordinary claims don't require verifiable evidence because they're ordinary and we expect them to happen Therefore, popular opinion belays fact? I get what you are saying but your counter argument is not the best. The parent seems to have a good point about the nature of evidence, to suggest that ordinary claims though should be accepted at face value because they are ordinary is the reason heavier than air vehicles could never fly, for instance.
  - gnaritas 18y ago
    No, popular and ordinary are entirely different things. Ordinary claims are ordinary because they are well proven and well known and don't need re-evaluated every time. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence precisely because because they haven't been proven. Claiming the Earth was round was at one time extraordinary, it no longer is. Claiming you met God however, is still an extraordinary claim and as such still requires extraordinary evidence. Stating that the same level of proof is required for each one ignores the reality of the history of the claim.
- boredguy8 18y ago
  Uhh, no. But thank you for proving my point. You're making two mistakes: a mistake between proof and belief and a mistake between types of claims. I might believe you when you say it rained yesterday, but that certainly doesn't mean that you've done the work necessary to prove that it in fact did rain yesterday. To prove it, I'd need to see a video, examine the video for tampering, &c. Similarly, if you said "someone protected me from the rain by keeping a big umbrella floating over my head the whole day", I'd need to see a video, examine the video for tampering, &c. What do you know: the same evidentiary proof for two similar claims. Notice how my second example uses a "smaller" thing than "god reached down" - the way you phrase it is entailing a whole bunch of metaphysical claims not entailed by the first claim. But two metaphysical claims can be examined using the tools available to us, and competing metaphysical claims would use similar evidentiary tools.

gnaritas 18y ago

I disagree, the whole point of the statement is that ordinary claims don't require verifiable evidence because they're ordinary and we expect them to happen. If I say it rained yesterday, my word is evidence enough to satisfy most inquires about the weather. If I say it rained and God reached down and protected me with his hand, well, I better have some serious evidence if I expect anyone with a rational mind to believe a word I'm saying. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence is a well known and well accepted self evident fact.

run4yourlives 18y ago
I disagree, the whole point of the statement is that ordinary claims don't require verifiable evidence because they're ordinary and we expect them to happen Therefore, popular opinion belays fact? I get what you are saying but your counter argument is not the best. The parent seems to have a good point about the nature of evidence, to suggest that ordinary claims though should be accepted at face value because they are ordinary is the reason heavier than air vehicles could never fly, for instance.
- gnaritas 18y ago
  No, popular and ordinary are entirely different things. Ordinary claims are ordinary because they are well proven and well known and don't need re-evaluated every time. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence precisely because because they haven't been proven. Claiming the Earth was round was at one time extraordinary, it no longer is. Claiming you met God however, is still an extraordinary claim and as such still requires extraordinary evidence. Stating that the same level of proof is required for each one ignores the reality of the history of the claim.
boredguy8 18y ago
Uhh, no. But thank you for proving my point. You're making two mistakes: a mistake between proof and belief and a mistake between types of claims. I might believe you when you say it rained yesterday, but that certainly doesn't mean that you've done the work necessary to prove that it in fact did rain yesterday. To prove it, I'd need to see a video, examine the video for tampering, &c. Similarly, if you said "someone protected me from the rain by keeping a big umbrella floating over my head the whole day", I'd need to see a video, examine the video for tampering, &c. What do you know: the same evidentiary proof for two similar claims. Notice how my second example uses a "smaller" thing than "god reached down" - the way you phrase it is entailing a whole bunch of metaphysical claims not entailed by the first claim. But two metaphysical claims can be examined using the tools available to us, and competing metaphysical claims would use similar evidentiary tools.