RE: Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
October 26, 2015 at 12:30 am
(This post was last modified: October 26, 2015 at 12:31 am by bennyboy.)
(October 25, 2015 at 11:21 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence:
The assertion that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence was made popular by Carl Sagan. This seems sensical, after all, we are much more likely to believe a mundane story over a story which seems strange to us. However; I find this to be both ill-defined and inconsistent.
It is ill-defined, in that it is subjective. What is extraordinary to one person, may not be that extraordinary to another. It is dependent on the knowledge and experience of the subject. It is also subjective in that it changes over time and culture.
You've answered your OP in your OP.
Ideas that would be extraordinary to our culture are ordinary to others. Remember that the point of argumentation is to influence someone's world view, by making them take as fact something you want them to take as fact. I take QM as a fact; Medieval Englanders, almost for sure, would not. IN THEIR CULTURE, your QM claims would be extraordinary, and would require. . . wait for it. . . extraordinary evidence. Of course, that would mean presenting a series of experiments, and explanations, to get the culture up to speed.
