Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

[RoadRunner79]

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I understand where you're coming from but I've come to a different conclusion based on your examples and thoughts.


I'd say all claims require the same evidence and that extraordinary claims are extraordinary because they have less evidence backing them up to begin with.

Seeing a high school friend in the mall vs seeing a dead president in the mall. 

Everyone here I expect will already have evidence, lot's of it, that you can see your high school friend in the mall, it's possible, logical, plausible, practical and happens all the time.  That evidence is there already.
 but if you wanted evidence to present to a court of law about it you would need more evidence to supply beyond that it could happen and you would need to prove that it did happen.

On the other hand a dead president coming back to life and hanging out at the mall, that has no evidence backing it up that it actually is plausible, possible, logical or practical.  In fact an entire history of medical records is evidence that it would be illogical for it to happen.

So if you were going to prove that it happened you would first have to prove it could happen, which involves going against all medical records as proof that it's unlikely to happen.  Then even if you proved it could happen you would have to prove it did happen.

Both claims require the same amount of evidence but it's just one already has a lot of evidence to begin with. 

So I can see your point in a way, but most mundane things already have extraordinary evidence backing them up as to why they could happen, that is what makes them mundane in the first place.

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I agree; we do need to consider all of the evidence.  As I stated in the example, I don't believe that there is any more reason to believe one claim over the other, given similar circumstances and evidence.  However there is more reason to question.  And their may be outside or secondary evidence to consider. 

I do think that doubt is a good reason to question; however, I do question that subjective knowledge and experience is an argument against something not being possible.  For this, I think you need supported reason contrary to the claim in question.  And then it may come down to what is better supported.