Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[RoadRunner79]

My general principle is that things are as they appear to be until shown otherwise. That seems to serve me pretty well personally, so all I'm really doing is extending. I've had many uncanny experiences and bizarre improbable encounters, that defy any naturalistic explanation. Every family has some ghost story. I haven't a clue what the alien abduction/UFO phenomena is all about but something is going on that does't fit any model we have for how the world works. Yes, these are anecdotes, but ones that are so widespread, universal, and persistent down through the ages that I cannot simply rule them out as "improbable". They happen all the time. So for me the Bayesian argument doesn't really apply.

I have no clue what Bayesian statistics has to say about it. I tried reading it upthread but my eyes glazed over and I think my chin hit my chest once or twice. My point is simply that I find "I don't know" to be a perfectly acceptable provisional answer, and I don't understand why your particular god should be the default answer in the face of ignorance.

Hi Thump,

Bayesian theorem certainly has it's uses.  However, I think it is often mis-used in a historical sense.  If you do not have other information such as in a future condition, possibly a historic investigation, then Baye's is useful, in telling you what has more likely hood as being true. However with information which supports the less likely view as being true, I do not believe it is good to refute that evidence.   It is about probabilities.  There is also the issue of what assumptions are made in probabilities entered into the formula. 

But the reason, I posted, is that I agree.  We should be able to say I don't know, and that should be the default.  I don't think that arguing a god of the gaps is a good method.  Although that accusation can also be abused, ignoring the reasons why God or something like god is a better explanation.  However I don't think the theist is alone in this.  An atheist's tendency in this situation; I have observed, is to deny, and claim the observer as mistaken, crazy or something similar (or if unable to deny, then well there must be a naturalistic cause (science will figure it out someday).  Here too, I think that often, it may be better to just say I don't know.  Not that there can't be reasons for these answers, but they are a claim that needs to be supported.