(January 18, 2018 at 11:18 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote:(January 18, 2018 at 9:03 pm)polymath257 Wrote: One of the clear differences in the two scenarios is that people are known to have pet cats, and commonly do so. But nobody is known to have a pet invisible dragon.
If I live in a location where cats are never seen and someone local claimed to have a pet cat, I might well ask for more evidence to substantiate their claim.
This works for more ordinary examples. When I was growing up, having pet lizards was quite rare (I knew nobody who did), so someone claiming to have one would be asked for more proof.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
Thanks, we had talked about this a while ago; so I’m going to recap. I find this maxim, to be vague, subjective, inconsistent, and unjustified. Your reply is very similar to what was said before, and I really never get anything when I ask why this should held, and people get upset when I use it. Perhaps you could answer the questions I asked.
On the contrary, it is based on statistical evidence, and uses maximum likelihood to establish when more evidence is required. It may be used inconsistently by people, but that doesn't mean the basic principle is inconsistent. And it is justified by the overall justification used for induction as a key to knowledge in the physical sciences.
I could go deeper and provide a Bayesian analysis if you would like.
The claim is that similar circumstances demand similar conclusions, but I deny that it is a case of similar circumstances when the commonality of feline pets is well-established and that of invisible dragons is not. Your claim to what type of pet you have is not the only aspect of the relevant circumstances.
