Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

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I've have heard this phrase used by skeptics many times. What does it mean?

What is the criteria and rubric for something to be considered an Extraordinary Claim?

What is the criteria and rubric for something to be considered Extraordinary Evidence?

Essentially, the greater the body of evidence against something being true, the more extraordinary it is and the more evidence is required to support it.

The non-existence of gravity would be an extremely extraordinary claim because you'd be saying that the apparent attraction between masses is a coincidence, and you'd contradict millenia of observations that things move towards the Earth, the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Moon orbits the Earth.

You want to show that your new drug slightly reduces the risk of fatal heart attacks in women aged 50 or over? Plausible, hit me with a well-designed study and I'll accept it.

Oh, it's homoeopathic? That's not plausible, we'll need lots of repeats and it must be tightly controlled before I'll discard millennia of evidence that dose-response is a thing.

Source: This Skeptical Enquirer Article

Basically, it means that if you are going to claim something that is outside known natural principles (or any reasonable extrapolation thereof), your evidence to support your claim must be equal to the task.

Thus, making the claim that you can restore lost limbs in humans with homeopathy, and then using convoluted word salads full of fallacious reasoning to support your claim just won't work. Only a series of demonstrations of the regenerative power of a homeopathic substance in humans would suffice to prove that the homeopathic substance can indeed regenerate lost limbs in humans.

Mere talk is never extraordinary. A regenerated limb is.

Claiming that one party's candidate is better fit for office than the other party's candidate (because the first guy has more experience or whatever) is an "ordinary claim" because everyday experience shows that some individuals are better fit for public office than others. So you would only need "ordinary proof" to back up your claim in your angry letter to the editor about it during the election.

But claiming that one party's candidate is unfit for office because "he is actually a shape shifting Reptoid alien from Arcturus" is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary for several rather obvious reasons having to do with how that would require several paradigm shifts in most of the world's thinking if it were true. So you would REALLY need some good proof to back up that claim ( like maybe a video of the guy catching a fly out of the air with his tongue when he thought no one was looking).

Thanks guys. This really helps out a lot.

I think what I'm going to do just for practice is when people make claims to me I will determine if the claim is ordinary or extraordinary.

Examples:

An Ordinary claim is that Adolph Hitler was the dictator of Nazi Germany which was responsible for the genocidal slaughter of millions of people. I can verify this through history texts and talking to various concentration camp survivors

An extraordinary claim is one in which a neo-nazi skinhead will claim that the holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy in which the Jews conspired together to defame Hitler.

Do I have an understanding of these concepts so far?

It means "Empiricism because f**k you." Everything else is window dressing.

Kinda.

An "ordinary claim" doesnt have to be something that is accepted as fact by most the world. Just something mundane that is not paranormal (doesnt involve aliens or supernatural phenoms), or doesnt require a vast paradigm shift in other things.

Saying "Hitler was a dictator who caused war and genocide, etc" is accepted as fact by most folks. So it's not really even a "claim".

Saying "Hitler was a gay aspie" is not accepted as fact by many historians, but I would still call it an "ordinary claim" (though I would consider it an "ordinary claim that happens to be wrong" because I doubt that he was either gay or aspie) because it doesnt require a paradigm shift for it to be true. So you only need ordinary evidence to be taken seriously if you claimed it.

But I agree with you that claiming that "there was no Holocaust" would indeed be "an extraordinary claim" because it requires a lot of what is considered history to be wrong- and for vast unlikely conspiracies to have happened- for all of the literally tons of evidence (the Nuremburg judges had 100 tons of book keeping from the concentration camps as evidence) to somehow have been fabricated, and (like you said) for still living witnesses to all be liars, and so forth. So if you're gonna claim that there was no Holocaust you better serve up some REAL strong (extraordinarily strong) evidence to counter all of that.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Let's try a different example. Look at Mickey Mantle's number of Home Runs. It says he has 536 Home Runs. An ordinary claim that could refute that is he only really has 500 and it could be proven that someone recorded him wrong. Is this an example of an ordinary claim.

Better yet, based upon this it looks like the Brontosaurus may never have ever existed if this article is accurate.
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/09/166665795 ... en-existed

This would be considered an ordinary claim, right?

Saying "Hitler was a dictator who caused war and genocide, etc" is accepted as fact by most folks. So it's not really even a "claim".

Saying "Hitler was a gay aspie" is not accepted as fact by many historians, but I would still call it an "ordinary claim" (though I would consider it an "ordinary claim that happens to be wrong" because I doubt that he was either gay or aspie) because it doesnt require a paradigm shift for it to be true. So you only need ordinary evidence to be taken seriously if you claimed it.

But I agree with you that claiming that "there was no Holocaust" would indeed be "an extraordinary claim" because it requires a lot of what is considered history to be wrong- and for vast unlikely conspiracies to have happened- for all of the literally tons of evidence (the Nuremburg judges had 100 tons of book keeping from the concentration camps as evidence) to somehow have been fabricated, and (like you said) for still living witnesses to all be liars, and so forth. So if you're gonna claim that there was no Holocaust you better serve up some REAL strong (extraordinarily strong) evidence to counter all of that.[/quote]

Yeah. I think that you have it.

Sweetness

This is credited to Carl Sagan but the actual original phrase was:

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." and was coined by Marcello Truzzi.

Sagan only "popularised" the phrase with proof being switched to evidence.

Also, they call themselves skeptics, but are not, more like they are debunkers.
Take your pick:

Establishment-Skeptics
Pseudo-Skeptics
Media-Skeptics
etc

Perhaps more specfically "objective" terms for them...

Materialists
Rationalists
etc

They are part of a rather rigid belief-system that can be called:

Materialism
Physicalism
Rationalism

They subscribe to "sources" such as the former JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation), CSI (formerly CSICOP which was an acronym for Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), the RationalWiki & SkepDic web-sites, authors like Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Joe Nickell, Daniell Dennett, Susan Blackmoore to some extent, Ray Hyman at one time, and are just about entirely Status-Quo oriented.

The belief-system of materialism is regarded as being fallacious by those who've actually done their homework.

Here is an example of the kinds of things one might say if they ever "move on" from such a belief-system...

P.S.: The very "phenomenon" of things like "PSI" is automatically "unscientific" by its very definition...

There is no valid material evidence to support any claim of 'psychic' ability or para-normal 'forces'. Wooists are concerned more with being believed than with demonstrating their alleged abilities. Materialists are more concerned with repeatable demonstrations that support stated claims, and reserve confirmation until the claims have been demonstrated repeatedly, and not just by the person making the claim.

Tell a skeptic that you can correctly guess the rank and suit of fifty-two cards before each one is displayed, and a skeptic will purchase no less than ten brand-new identical desks of playing cards, have an independent third party shuffle them all together, and then have an independent fourth person run the recording equipment as you loudly and clearly state your guess before each card is drawn and held up for the camera.

If you fail to correctly guess the rank and suit of the first fifty-two cards that are drawn, then your claim is invalid. Statistically, you might correctly guess five at random, but that would still invalidate your claim - all fifty-two would have two be guessed correctly, with the exact rank and suit of each card just before each card is drawn.

Instead, a wooist is likely to argue that the test method is invalid because too many desk were used (thus preventing Vegas-style card-counting), that independent participants blocked the flow of 'psychic' energy (or more likely were unable to use any signs or signals to inform the wooist of what the next card would be), or that the recording equipment interfered with the paranormal 'forces' (thus preventing the wooist from changing his answer once the card is drawn). Even a blindfold would be rejected on the grounds of interfering with the wooist's alleged abilities.

I've been a professional 'psychic', so I know all of the tricks and all of the arguments that those fakers use to fool the ignorant. I have friends who are professional sleight-of-hand artists, and several of my acquaintances are experimental scientists. Together, we've debunked many false claims of 'psychic' ability and paranormal 'forces'.

Unfortunately, there are far too many wooists who defend their precious beliefs with all of the fervor of religious fundamentalists screaming "Blasphemy!" in the faces of those of us who know better, and then they attack us personally. But where is their proof?

Nowhere.

Materialist claims can be demonstrated. Wooist claims can only be argued.

This thread needs more Banned TED Talk by Rupert Sheldrake...

Further Question(s)

When we're talking about proof or evidence, we're not talking about logical, mathematical or theoretical proof or evidence we're talking about empirical meaning that one can perceive with the five senses of touch, taste, hearing, sight and taste, correct?

For example, If I make the claim that a certain type of grass can grow and is growing in arctic conditions mathematical, logical proof and theory is not acceptable. What I am required to do is to physically demonstrate this happening in our real world. Am I correct?

Not entirely. Generally there simply has to be some kind of existing scientific-equipment or instrument that's able to detect that of which is accepted in a scientific-context & can be replicated consistently. Your five senses do not have the capacity to detect infra-red or ultra-violet light-spectrums, but sensitive cameras can, and the Doppler-Effect uses such light-spectrums in order to make mathematical-calculations for distance, speed, etc (the manner in which consensus-science accepts the information regarding the distance & speeds of planets/galaxies through mathematical-calculations based on measured light-spectrums as revealed though prisms [I have unanswer questions of such astronomy though such as whether these measurements were taken from within earth's atmosphere or from outer-space & how can we be so certain that perhaps maybe various other potentially existing atmospheric gases, whether from within earth, outside of earth, or between earth & distance stars may not necessarily be obfuscating true results]).

The speed-tracking devices that police use to determine your speed use Doppler-technology. What constitutes proof/evidence may also vary depending on which "branch" of "scientific-expertise" you ask. What one "scientist" or "skeptic" may accept as evidence or proof is something that another "scientist" or "skeptic" may not accept as proof or evidence. For example, talking birds or "psychic" parrots, and their "remote-viewing" experiments are going to make the "woo-meter" of some people fly right through the roof of the ultimate in woo !


P.S.: Most of the "psychic" stuff in this world you do encounter should be construed more as "entertainment" rather than anything that you take so seriously that you base your entire life on what these so-called "psychics" say. Better to make your important life-decisions based on the wisdom of personal-experience & always questioning everything rather than relinquish your autonomy to any kind of mysticism.

God being real.