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Created page with "{{Bibliographic Record |Title=Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? |Resource Type=journal article |Author=David Deming, |Year=2016 |Abstract=In 1979 astrono..."
{{Bibliographic Record
|Title=Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?
|Resource Type=journal article
|Author=David Deming,
|Year=2016
|Abstract=In 1979 astronomer Carl Sagan popularized the aphorism "extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence" (ECREE). But Sagan never defined the term
"extraordinary". Ambiguity in what constitutes "extraordinary" has led to misuse of the
aphorism. ECREE is commonly invoked to discredit research dealing with scientific
anomalies, and has even been rhetorically employed in attempts to raise doubts
concerning mainstream scientific hypotheses that have substantive empirical support.
The origin of ECREE lies in eighteenth-century Enlightenment criticisms of miracles.
The most important of these was Hume’s essay On Miracles. Hume precisely defined
an extraordinary claim as one that is directly contradicted by a massive amount of
existing evidence. For a claim to qualify as extraordinary there must exist overwhelming
empirical data of the exact antithesis. Extraordinary evidence is not a separate
category or type of evidence–it is an extraordinarily large number of observations.
Claims that are merely novel or those which violate human consensus are not properly
characterized as extraordinary. Science does not contemplate two types of evidence.
The misuse of ECREE to suppress innovation and maintain orthodoxy should be
avoided as it must inevitably retard the scientific goal of establishing reliable
knowledge.
|Page Status=Stub
|Journal=Philosophia
|Volume=44
|Pages=1319-1331
}}
|Title=Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?
|Resource Type=journal article
|Author=David Deming,
|Year=2016
|Abstract=In 1979 astronomer Carl Sagan popularized the aphorism "extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence" (ECREE). But Sagan never defined the term
"extraordinary". Ambiguity in what constitutes "extraordinary" has led to misuse of the
aphorism. ECREE is commonly invoked to discredit research dealing with scientific
anomalies, and has even been rhetorically employed in attempts to raise doubts
concerning mainstream scientific hypotheses that have substantive empirical support.
The origin of ECREE lies in eighteenth-century Enlightenment criticisms of miracles.
The most important of these was Hume’s essay On Miracles. Hume precisely defined
an extraordinary claim as one that is directly contradicted by a massive amount of
existing evidence. For a claim to qualify as extraordinary there must exist overwhelming
empirical data of the exact antithesis. Extraordinary evidence is not a separate
category or type of evidence–it is an extraordinarily large number of observations.
Claims that are merely novel or those which violate human consensus are not properly
characterized as extraordinary. Science does not contemplate two types of evidence.
The misuse of ECREE to suppress innovation and maintain orthodoxy should be
avoided as it must inevitably retard the scientific goal of establishing reliable
knowledge.
|Page Status=Stub
|Journal=Philosophia
|Volume=44
|Pages=1319-1331
}}
