Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

[Az]

People if you are going to go off and make wild and extraordinary claims about things you need to have equally extraordinary evidence. Suggestions and hints will not do it.

If you are going to claim the sky is blue you do not need a great deal of evidence to convince people. It is not extraordinary. But if you are going to suggest that for some unknown reason using some unknown technique some unknown group triggered an enormous quake and killed 1000s of people you are going to have to come up with some very extraordinary evidence. Hints and suggestions that it may be possible in some manner won't cut it.

It is natural for people to react to tradgedies. They are a collasal emotional impact. The mind naturally looks for a reason it happened. Its what we have learned since birth. But not all things have a guiding force behind it. Not all things happen for a purpose. Hearing this will not change your mind about it while the emotions still rage. For changing your mind would be changing your emotions. But it is the truth.

When you feel as though there has to be someone behind the scenes pulling the levers stop and consider where this notion is coming from. Is it from the evidence before you or from your gut? Your gut is not always wrong but it is also not always right. Deal with what we can deal with. Evidence. If you believe we do not have all the evidence then keep digging for more evidence. It is in this way that we uncover the truth.

[KlatooBNikto]

1. I agree with you on the whole but want to say that this has been

brought about by the stonewalling of the 9/11 investigation by the Bush administration,especially the Evil Viceroy,Cheney.

[Az]

3. Sure be upset and get active

Demand they drop their shields. That is reasonable digging for evidence.

I fully understand where these notions come from. I am not denying that they occur to people. I also am aware of how compelling they can be to those that come to these ideas. And that is where we have to rise above the right. They give into such histaria. How do you think Rush Limbaugh operates? The religious right lives in such thinking. We have no universal health care because the right can so easily whip up a frenzy with no real evidence backing it up. This is not who we are.

If we are going to embrace the idea that a Government can be a productive and progressive part of building our society then we have to embrace techniques of discerning the best path for it to operate. Giving in to our emotional fears leads to destruction. Fear is what people like Bush control people with. That is not our way. It cannot be our way.

[Ian David]

5. Once once conspiracy is revealed, people are more open to others

The problem is, making sure the conspiracies people believe in are the TRUE ones.

Not all conspiracy theories are wrong, and not all conspiracy theories are correct.

Just because Bush sent us to war on a lie, stole two elections, and ordered the torture of political prisoners does NOT mean you have to believe someone if they say Bush eats little black Christian babies and causes solar flares.

Because they have lied to us and done horrible things does not mean every accusation is true.

[KlatooBNikto]

7. The biggest conspiracy theory of our time, as someone has said,

is the official story of the 9/11 disaster.

[Az]

16. You have to be careful around conspiracy theories

They do happen. But once you start down that path you can become embroiled in a completely imaginary world.

Two rules of thumb concerning conspiracy theories:

The larger the conspiracy the more likely it is to fall apart. It becomes a security nightmare keeping everything in line in a large group.

The longer a conspiracy lasts the more likely it is to fall apart. Again this is a matter of security. People change. They may no longer see things the way they did when they entered the conspiracy.

Time and size are against them.

[KlatooBNikto]

24. Good points.

[Ian David]

2. Thank you!

If you don't mind, I am going to re-post some of my previous messages here.

Partly because I tend to fall in love with my own words.

But mostly because I think it is important.

1) The public education system has thoroughly failed to provide most
Americans with a solid grounding in science.

2) The media feeds us a constant diet of "crap science." Every day the TV is
full of shows about psychic detectives, alien abduction, the lost city of
Atlantis, and other such nonsense. All too often, this is presented as a
"documentary."

3) Go to a book store and look at the "science" section. It is often limited
to one shelf OR LESS. Mixed in with the science books, you'll often find such
subjects as crystal power, psychic ability, the lost city of Atlantis, and
other non-science nonsense that belong in the New Age section, and not in the
Science section. I have made a habit of re-locating these books within the
stores myself.

Is it any wonder that so many people are confused about what is science and
what is New Age Crystal Clutching Nonsense?

Read the introduction to "The Demon Haunted World," by Carl Sagan. He
recounts a conversation he had with a New York taxi driver.

These people spend a great deal of time studying and reading what they HAVE
BEEN FOOLED INTO THINKING IS SCIENCE!

They are not necessarily STUPID. They have been TRICKED.

They have invested a great deal of time and energy in this garbage that they
have been fed. It is very difficult to make someone come to grips with the fact
that they have invested a great deal of time and energy in something that is
wrong.

On the other hand, they could actually be freepers come here to make us look
bad so The New York Times can say, "The other message boards are making fun of
DemocraticUnderground.com for saying the oil companies caused the tsunami and
that HAARP will turn the oceans into chocolate milk."

------------

File this under: Why do I bother?
----

There are people who love Alternative Medicine with all their hearts, because it
isn't regulated by the "oppressive" FDA that wants to "suppress" all the
wonderful stuff that people who usually died by the age of 35 came up with
2,000 years ago.

Those same people decry the Republicans for wanting to de-regulate everything
ELSE about our safety.

And many of those same people will scream from the highest hill that Nutrasweet
is poison, because Orin Hatch snuck it past the FDA.

And this is the SAME Orin Hatch that was the architect of the 1994 act that
exempted alternative medicine as a "nutritional supplement" from being
scrutinized by the FDA.

So, the thinking goes:

When the FDA is not allowed to scrutinize alternative medicine, this is GOOD --
even though it was Orin Hatch's idea.

When the FDA is not allowed to scrutinize Nutrasweet, this is BAD-- especially
since it was Orin Hatch's idea.

We scream from the highest hill that the mainstream media is lying to us, they
are deceiving us, and they are un-trustworthy. We say the media has failed to
educate the public about Bush, the war in Iraq, and election fraud.

Yet some of us trust that same mainstream media to "educate" us about "science."

Well, this may be news to some, but The Discovery Channel, A&E, The History
Channel, The Sci-fi Channel, Geraldo Rivera, Johnathan Frakes, Bryant Gumbel,
and the broadcast networks-- They are all to science what FOX News is to
politics.

Evaluating scientific claims on the basis of what you have seen on TV is like
going to a voting booth based on what Bill O'Reilly tells you.

If you have been fed bad information from TV, you are more likely to seek
confirmatory evidence from books and internet sources. Once you're put on the
wrong path, you tend to stay on that wrong path.

When Geraldo Rivera tells you about UFOs at Area 51, you run out and buy books
about "UFO Conspiracies" and become "educated" about it, and begin to believe
you are "learning science." You start thinking about what you have read in
books, heard on Art Bell, and seen on the internet, and eventually forget it
was Geraldo where you first learned that this was "science" in the first place.

Why is it so hard for people who know they have been lied to about something
important to realize they have been lied to about something ELSE that is
important?

Why do you think we need to push so hard to keep Evolution in schools, and
Creationism out of them? It's because when people are lied to, they will reach
the wrong conclusions.

The media lies about politics. The media lies about science, and call it
"infotainment."

It is not that these people here are stupid.

Incredibly stubborn, yes. But not necessarily stupid.

The problem is THEY HAVE BEEN LIED TO.

I will say again:

The mainstream media lies about politics.

The mainstream media lies about science.

Those two statements are easy to reconcile.

You have been lied to.

------

More info:

Covering Science: Why the Media So Seldom Get It Right (Skeptical Briefs June
1995) (750)
http://www.csicop.org/sb/9506/media.html

When the Media Tell Half the Story; Media Watch (Skeptical Inquirer May 1997)
(1000)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9705/media-watch.html

Science and Reason in Film and Television (Skeptical Inquirer January 1996)
(125)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9601/media.html

Science and the Media (CSICOP Web Column) (375)
http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/index.html

Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia: Notes from a Mind-Control Conference
(Skeptical Inquirer September 1996) (125)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9609/conspiracy.html

Art Bell, Heaven's Gate, and Journalistic Integrity (Skeptical Inquirer July
1997) (125)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9707/art-bell.html

Battle Between Political Agendas and Science (Skeptical Inquirer November 1997)
(125)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9711/conference.html

2002: The Year of the Conspiracy Crank (Skeptical Briefs December 2002) (83)
http://www.csicop.org/sb/2002-12/conspiracy.html

CSICOP / News / The Phantom Menace of Superstition in Film and Television (8)
http://www.csicop.org/articles/19990527-starwars/index.html


`Independent UFO Investigation' and Media Gullibility (Skeptical Inquirer
September 1998) (750)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9809/sheaffer.html


Why Is Pseudoscience Dangerous? (Skeptical Inquirer July 2002) (125)
http://www.csicop.org/si/2002-07/dangerous.html

Development of Beliefs in Paranormal and Supernatural Phenomena (Skeptical
Inquirer Mar 2004) (125)
http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-03/belief.html

[BiggJawn]

8. Excelent piece!

Not sure if it qualifys as a "rant", but it'll do till one comes along...

My own girlfriend was starting to get interested in John Edward until I pointed her to James Randi's writings about the guy and his methods. Talk to the Dead, indeed!

Oh, and I haven't even seen any ORDINARY evidence to support the claims about HAARP and the rest of that stuff.

Especially UFO's.

[Birthmark]

4. No, they don't.

I'll except ordinary evidence since I don't know what extraordinary evidence is. :)

That said, I pretty much agree with you.

[Ian David]

15. Ordinary vs Extraordinary Claims and Evidence: The Dragon in my Garrage

Ordinary claim: You can peddle your bicycle faster than 35 MPH on level ground.

Ordinary evidence (and I would accept any one of these):
1) Time you with a stopwatch
2) Follow you with your car, and watch the speedometer
3) Watch a home movie you made of you riding a bicycle
4) Look at the bicycle racing trophy on my wall
5) Speak to 1-2 non-biased witnesses who can give credible testimony
6) I could be happy just to look you in the eye and see if you look like you're lying.

Those are ordinary kinds of evidence, for a very ordinary claim.


Now, if I was some kind of cynic (as opposed to a skeptic) I could go way overboard. I could demand extraordinary evidence that you can ride your bike at 35 MPH. I could demand to inspect your bike for hidden motors, get out surveyors tools to verify the ground is 100% level, insist on testing you for steroids, hire independent professional judges to watch you, use laser sensors, radar guns, and GPS to be sure you don't take shortcuts, and finally glue you to your bicycle seat to make sure you're not somehow switching riders when I'm not watching.

The fact is, that many, many people can peddle their bike over 35 MPH. It does not violate any known laws of physics to peddle a bike over 35 MPH. And assuming you have at least one leg and one arm, I would have no reason to think that your claim was anything but ordinary.

If you told me you could peddle your bike faster than the speed of light, that would be an extraordinary claim, and would merit extraordinary evidence, requiring you to meet a high burden of proof.

Extraordinary claim: There is an invisible dragon that lives in my garrage.

See this article by Carl Sagan:

The Dragon In My Garage
by
Carl Sagan
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle--but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floates in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility.

Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative-- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons--to say nothing about invisible ones--you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages--but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence"--no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it--is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

http://www.users.qwest.net/~jcosta3/article_dragon.htm

[Birthmark]

17. That's not an extraordinary claim problem.

That is shifting the goalposts and has nothing to do with the kind of evidence necessary to support the original assertion. You'll note that every test proposed for revealing the dragon was pretty run of the mill and would have produced *ordinary* evidence in the presence of dragons.

Extraordinary claims need reliable ordinary evidence and nothing more, imo. Otherwise, we encounter a double-standard which is neither fair nor useful.

(I have to admit that I feel a little weird arguing against Sagan, who was my boyhood hero.)

[Az]

18. The idea is

That in the case where a new claim conflicts with the vast majority of current theories a singular or small amount of evidence may not be enough to topple the existing theories. It has to do with our owh inherant flaws in collecting information. We can get things wrong.

Therefore a single peace of evidence on its own will not overturn an existing theory or collection of theories. But it can form the starting line for a new way of looking at the problem. If this new way of looking at it gathers further evidence it can elevate the claim enough to overturn the existing theory.

[Birthmark]

23. I think that we basically agree.

I just think that the "extra claim" statement is inaccurate. Let's take a non-extraordinary hypothetical and say that Scientist "A" publishes a paper on a new discovery that she has made in a scientific journal. Let us assume that it is non-controversial (doesn't conflict with what's already known) and is not extraordinary in any real way. The institutions of science will still (ideally) use the same process to verify this claim as they would to verify a claim of extra-terrestrials visiting the Earth. Of course, scientists and skeptics are no more perfect than the rest of us, so the real practice may be somewhat different.

I think that a better saying would be, "Any claim requires sufficient evidence." :)

[Uroboros]

6. I always that statement was nonsense myself

Why should extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Why isn't evidence alone enough? What the heck is "extraordinary evidence" anyway? Suggestions and hints aren't evidence. They can't be used to back-up so called "normal" claims. But the same kind of level of evidence used to back up normal claims; should work just as well on extraordinary claims.

Otherwise it's like saying that the justice system will convict an African American on the evidence; but you better bring it "extraordinary evidence" if you want to convict that white defendant. Evidence has to be verifiable, beyond a shadow of a doubt; not extraordinary.

Anyway that statement always seemed to me an excuse for scientists to ignore stuff they don't want to believe in.

[Az]

10. Why do we need extraordinary evidence

The reason for extraordinary evidence being needed is that an extraordinary claim typically goes against what we currently understand to be true. We arrive at this notion of current understanding by way of a prodigious amount of evidence and research. An extraordinary seeks to overturn the conclusions drawn from this evidence. To do so it must overcome the significance of all that preceded it.

Simple evidence may be suggestive and even indicate where to look. But if it is overshadowed by the bulk of evidence collected so far it will require additional evidence to back it up. Thus extraordinary can be built out of a multitude of small peaces of evidence collected together that can overturn the existing stance.

[Forkboy]

9. I agree,but making people afraid to bring things up is even scarier to me

than being picked on by Fox News :shrug:

[Az]

11. Bring them up

But do not become obsessed. If it doesn't fly and you are still convinced it is true then you need to find evidence to back the claim up. Not that it could happen. But that it did happen.

[Forkboy]

13. Yep,I agree with you totally

[Forkboy]

14. Yep,I agree with you totally

[superconnected]

12. God help us if the other half of America can't keep an open mind

Any God you choose.

I'll continue to question events - Political, news etc. And I won't be attacking the religious for their visions or beliefs.

Guess I can just handle it. The people that can't scare me - wether they are called democrats or republicans.

[Ian David]

19. An open mind is good, but...

I do not suggest that you should not have an open mind, particularly as you
approach college. But don't keep your mind so open that your brains fall out.
~ William John Bennett, Gonzaga College High School, Washington DC (1987).

It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
Josh Billings

You cannot build an informed democracy out of people who will believe in little
green men from Venus. Credulity — willingness to accept unsupported statements
without demanding proof — is the greatest ally of the dictator and the
demagogue.
Arthur C. Clarke, Voices from the Sky:
A Preview of the Coming Space Age (1974)
"The Lunatic Fringe"

An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open
that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of
shutting its doors sometimes, or may be found a little draughty. -- Samuel
Butler

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of
opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. -- G.K. Chesterton

An open mind, like and open window, should be screened to keep the bugs out.
-- Virginia Hutchinson

An open mind may be compared to a parachute, where it works best when open,
but recognize that it that is certainly not the case if one is in a
thunderstorm being thrown about by the updrafts. If you keep your mind
sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it. -- William A.
Orton, Everyman Amid the Stereotype

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist
on coming along and trying to put things in it.- Terry Pratchett

If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I
will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only
persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.
Marcus Aurelius

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.
Francis Bacon, Novum Organon (1620)

Broun said of one fence-straddling radio commentator, "His mind is so open that
the wind whistles through it."
Heywood Broun, quoted in Robert E. Drennan (ed.),
The Algonquin Wits (1985)

Cursed is he that does not know when to shut his mind. An open mind is all very
well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping
anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes,
or may be found a little draughty.
Samuel Butler

A credulous mind . . . finds most delight in believing strange things, and the
stranger they are the easier they pass with him; but never regards those that
are plain and feasible, for every man can believe such.
Samuel Butler, Characters (1667-1669)

A person can function "normally" in a million and one ways and hold the most
irrational beliefs imaginable, as long as the irrational beliefs are culturally
accepted delusions.
Robert Todd Carroll, The Skeptic's Dictionary (http://skepdic.com/),
"Alien Abductions"

. . . if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no
great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never
have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great
wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not
merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but
that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and
inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.
William Kingdon Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief"

It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon
insufficient evidence.
William Kingdon Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief"

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop
out.
Richard Dawkins, "Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder"
(Richard Dimbleby Lecture, BBC1, November 12th, 1996)

Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.
Euripides, Helen (412 B.C.)

So, in short, you can't prove anything by one occurrence, or two occurrences,
and so on. Everything has to be checked out very carefully. Otherwise you
become one of these people who believe all kinds of crazy stuff and doesn't
understand the world they're in. Nobody understand the world they're in, but
some people are better off at it than others.
Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts
of a Citizen Scientist (1963; published 1998)

wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
David Hume

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing than to
believe what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson

The invisible and nonexistent look much alike.
Delos B. McKown

It's hard to strike a balance between keeping an open mind and being a sucker.
Spider Robinson, Lady Slings the Booze (1992)


It is the things for which there is no evidence that are believed with passion.
Bertrand Russell

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good
grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950)
"An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"


... skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep
insights can he winnowed from deep nonsense. ... The well-meaning contention
that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the
disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.
Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1979)
"Introduction"

Keeping an open mind is a virtue — but, as the space engineer James Oberg once
said, not so open that your brains fall out. Of course we must be willing to
change our minds when warranted by new evidence. But the evidence must be
strong. Not all claims to knowledge have equal merit.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World:
Science As A Candle in the Dark (1995)


People not only jump to conclusions, they frequently rationalize or defend
whatever conclusion they jump to. ... It is not surprising that rats, pigeons,
and small children are often better at solving these sorts of problems than are
human adults. Pigeons and small children don't care so much whether they are
always right, and they do not have such a developed capacity for convincing
themselves they are right, no matter what the evidence is.
Theodore Schick, Jr. & Lewis Vaughn, How to Think About
Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age (1995)



We can't make something true simply by believing it to be true If we could, the
world would contain a lot fewer unfulfilled desires, unrealized ambitions, and
unsuccessful projects than it does.
Theodore Schick, Jr. & Lewis Vaughn, How to Think About
Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age (1995)



We have good reasons to doubt a proposition when it conflicts with other
propositions we have good reasons to believe, when it conflicts with
well-established background information, or when it conflicts with expert
opinion regarding the evidence. If we have good reason to doubt a proposition,
we can't know it. The best we can do is proportion our belief to the evidence.
Theodore Schick, Jr. & Lewis Vaughn, How to Think About
Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age (1995)

There is nothing more impressive than a miracle, except the credulity that can
take it at par.
Mark Twain, Notebook, 1904

Any belief worth having must survive doubt.
Unknown

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit
atrocities.
Voltaire

The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man
who expresses it.
Oscar Wilde

... completely open minds may turn out to be completely empty.
Lewis Wolpert, The Unnatural Nature of Science (1993)

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as
video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal
value.
Carl Sagan

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are
laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they
laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Carl Sagan

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist
in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Carl Sagan

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there
is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.
Carl Sagan

I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the
stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.
Carl Sagan

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and
superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason
more sonorous and attractive.
Carl Sagan

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason
there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
Carl Sagan

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic
understanding of how the world works.
Carl Sagan

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all
right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a
self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most
rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.
Carl Sagan

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which
hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
Carl Sagan

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be
lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
Isaac Asimov

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas
atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see
less or more?
Richard P. Feynman

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Richard P. Feynman

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest
person to fool.
Richard P. Feynman

[superconnected]

22. so did you collect all of this from a humanist site

It looks like too many quotes saying the same thing - Overcompensating.

Something tells me you have a problem with people not thinking like you and will go way out to force your will on them. In this case I'll guess the religious. Just noticing.

[ooglymoogly]

20. democrats do republicans don't

if you remember the clinton presidency

[Az]

21. Politics and the social arena operate on a different basis

Never forget that. In those arenas you appeal to emotional sense rather than rational sense. Its all about belief. What you can get people to believe and what beliefs they have that you can leverage.

[Ian David]

25. Democrats live in the reality-based community

Unlike the Republicans, we can't choose to create our own reality.

Austin, Texas — "The aide (a senior adviser to President Bush) said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

— Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004.

http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinions/today/1221-Administra-255881.html

[Az]

26. Ideally

But on a numbers basis ... emotions can sway the pack.

[Pepperbelly]

27. what constitutes evidence?

Just curious, particularly since this is the predicate of your post.

And what is 'extraordinary' evidence?

[Ian David]

28. Asked and answered

Please go back and check prior posts.

Meanwhile, I'll mention something that may have been left out.

Remember the Mars rock that some scientists-- including Carl Sagan-- very CAUTIOUSLY said MIGHT have signs of fossilized life in it?

That would be an extraordinary (but not implausible) claim-- life on Mars.

The cited "multiple lines of evidence" in building a case for the hypothesis.

"There are little squiggly things that look like they might be fossilized bacteria."

Is that evidence? Yes, it is.

Is it evidence good enough to shout, "Eureka! There was life on Mars?"

No it is not.

And then there were certain magnetic minerals that (as far as we know) can only be assembled by living bacteria.

Would finding those minerals be enough (by itself) to declare there was once life on Mars? No.

But taken together-- the bacteria-shaped things and the magnetic minerals-- are they taken TOGETHER good enough to clinch the extraordinary claim that there was life on Mars?

It's getting closer, but it's still not enough.

If you're going to claim something earth-shaking, you need extraordinary evidence. By that, I mean something you can look at and say "there is no other explanation for it." To fulfill the extraordinary requirement, for example, you can have multiple lines of evidence. A whole bunch of things that all point to the same conclusions.

You also need to make "falsifiable statements."

That sounds counter-intuitive, but I'll explain.

They have to be "testable."

For example, suppose you say, "I believe that reindeer can fly."

Well, how would we go about proving reindeer can NOT fly?

We could start by throwing one off a tall building.

And eventually, once enough reindeer lie dead on the ground, we could pretty REASONABLY conclude reindeer can not fly.

That is a falsifiable claim.

But you can not prove a negative.

Of course, you make a statement like, "Reindeer can fly, but if people are looking at them, they crash into the ground, appear to die a horrible death, but in reality their soul is transported to the North Pole where it grows a new body and flies away."

Then that would be a non-falsifiable claim.

Evidence requires falsifiable claims.

Non-falsifiable claims are called "faith."

The more extraordinary the claim, the more lines of evidence you need to prove it, and the burden is on the one making the claim.

I don't have to prove reindeer CAN'T fly.

You would have to prove reindeer CAN fly.

Burden of proof.

Another example:

"The presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a slam-dunk."
That is a falsifiable claim that was in fact eventually falsified.

Then it becomes, "He had the INTENT of re-starting a weapons program." How the heck do you prove Sadam's "intent"?

I've borrowed the reindeer concept from James Randi:

The Santa Claus example may seem trivial and a little inappropriate, but it is actually a good metaphor for so many paranormal and pseudo-scientific claims. Another is flying reindeer. This one we can actually test. (Please don't tell the SPCA about this.) I don't really want to do the experiment, but let's walk through it as if I were doing it. It's a thought experiment. Let's select, by some randomizing process, a thousand reindeer. We'll number them and get them all together in a reindeer truck (I don't know what you put reindeer in) and take them to the top of the World Trade Center in New York. We are going to test whether or not reindeer can fly. You have your reindeer all lined up, a video-camera operator standing by, lots of pads of paper and pens at work. The time is now ten past ten in the morning. OK, first experiment. Number one reindeer, please, up to the edge. Camera going? Good. Push. Uhh, write down "no". Really NO! Number two. Push. I don't know what the result of the experiment will be; I suspect strongly what it will be, based upon my meagre knowledge of the aerodynamics of the average reindeer, though I'm not an expert on it. But based upon previous accounts of what reindeer can and cannot do, I think we are going to end up with a pile of very unhappy and broken reindeer at the foot of the World Trade Center. And probably a couple of policemen will be standing by a squad car saying, "I don't know, but here comes another one."

What have we proven with this experiment? Have we proven that reindeer cannot fly? No, of course not. We have only shown that on this occasion, under these conditions of atmospheric pressure, temperature, radiation, at this position geographically, at this season, that these 1000 reindeer either could not or chose not to fly. (If the second is the case, then we certainly know something of the intelligence of the average reindeer.) However, we have not, and can not, prove the negative that reindeer cannot fly, technically, rationally, and philosophically speaking. People will often look at this example and say, "Well, how many reindeer would you have to test?" I'm not going to get into the statistics of the argument; I will only tell you that you cannot prove a negative. The other folks who claim that something is so are required to prove it. It is what we call the burden of proof. In this case, if it's so it's very easy to prove. Just show me one flying reindeer. Then they rationalize, saying, "Oh, no. It's only the eight tiny reindeer that live at the North Pole who can, and will, on the evening of December 24, fly to do that specific job." In that case you have to throw up your hands and say, "Well, I don't think your hypothesis is very testable." Don't spin your wheels!

http://www.skeptic.com/01.1.randi-paranormal.html

[bpilgrim]

29. thats what makes DU great

we got a PAPER TRIAL and we provide evidence :wow:

thank GORE he 'INVENTED' the INTERNETs :bounce:

psst... pass the word ;->

peace

http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/wtc7.swf

[Ian David]

30. Actually, the voting theft makes a good metaphor

The truth always requires a verifiable paper trail.

Extraordinary votes require extraordinary exit polls.