Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

[Neo-Scholastic]

Naturalism is the most consistently long established norm of all...

Define natural without making a circular reference.

[Rhondazvous]

Naturalism is the most consistently long established norm of all. So any supernatural claims require extremely extraordinary evidence indeed.

I don't bother asking for evidence anymore though since science is where the evidence is at and supernaturalism is outside of science. Gods by definition cannot be tested, and if they can then they're not supernatural and hence not gods.

I've said it before: Naturalism pretty much has supernaturalism in a strangehold.

If god were to manifest himself in a way that scientists would find credible, the Christians of this world would deny him and say that it's not god but Satan masquerading as god to deceive us.

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, Chad, the word "natural" is an adjective.  It's intentionally referential.  That's not a problem for the word, it's the purpose of the word. If you have an issue regarding circularity, perhaps try the root word, and not a referential derivative?

Ala, "define nature".

Just a suggestion.

[Minimalist]

Can you give an example of an extraordinary claim not related to your religion that you think we should now accept with this new standard, and on what evidence?

I think you missed it in the OP, it was something about his wife shopping at the mall.

My wife shops at the fucking mall all the time.  Nothing at all extraordinary there.

[Rhondazvous]

LOL, Chad, the word "natural" is an adjective.  It's intentionally referential.  That's not a problem for the word, it's the purpose of the word.  If you have an issue regarding circularity, perhaps try the root word, and not a referential derivative?  

Ala, "define nature".  

Just a suggestion.

Define "blue" without making reference to the word.

It's the color your face will turn if you hold your breath waiting for Christians to say something sensible.

Now there.

[The Grand Nudger]

Define fruity, as in "this tastes fruity" without making a circular reference.  We could come up with these all day, ofc, lol.

[Esquilax]

Science is supposed to be objective. The minute you say that one set of data requires more or less scrutiny than another you inject more subjectivity into the results.

That's a problem with the claim though, not with the assertion that different claims require different evidence. The conclusions one draws in science need to go through a series of steps- nothing crazy, just obvious things inherent in the nature of truth- before one can verify that conclusion: if a conclusion is not possible, then that conclusion cannot be true. So for conclusions that have not previously been established as possible, there needs to be additional scrutiny just to get to that point. The more a claim stretches our previous understanding of reality, the more work needs to go into demonstrating possibility; that's just the nature of claims and how one goes about demonstrating them.

Surely it's not a controversial statement that something needs to be proven possible before it can be considered demonstrable?

Nevertheless the most recent psi studies are very robust something ever critics have acknowledged. The early posts might have been true 20 years ago. Today its a different story.

You say that, but then you're still not giving any examples.

[robvalue]

Psi is bullshitttttttt.

(Pending any actual evidence to the contrary.)

[Edwardo Piet]

Define natural without making a circular reference.

Why do you ask me to define basic words when the dictionary can do that for you?

Oh look: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define+natural

[bennyboy]

Science is supposed to be objective. The minute you say that one set of data requires more or less scrutiny than another you inject more subjectivity into the results. Nevertheless the most recent psi studies are very robust something ever critics have acknowledged. The early posts might have been true 20 years ago. Today its a different story.

Science is objective, because when you stop being objective, you are no longer doing science, but rather pretending to.

There are lots of things outside the mainstream that can have science done to them.  Certainly, picking unseen cards, guessing numbers etc. can be controlled and enumerated.

However, your thesis that it's not sensible to bias toward some data over others is wrong.  You have to look for the data which will shed the most light on a particular scientific question, and which was collected in the best possible circumstances-- i.e. you selectively choose data which is going to give you the most confidence in your results, not the data that best fits your theory.

Part of the problem with studying so-called "woo" subjects is that so much of the data is of such poor quality, and so many of the experiments are done in such poor circumstances, that finding good science in there is like finding a needle in a haystack.