Bill Statler
Member
So we've all heard Carl Sagan's line, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", a concise popularization of an idea that goes back to David Hume in 1748 if not earlier.
There's a big problem with this idea: How do we agree on a definition of "extraordinary"? From the standpoint of practical debunking, if I say that you are making an extraordinary claim, and you say that, no, it's my claim that is extraordinary... well, what then?
I ran into this issue trying to argue about a false-flag/crisis-actor explanation for a mass shooting incident. Of course I think of this as an extraordinary claim. The CT folks have an entirely different worldview: since they already "know" that all the recent mass shootings and terrorist attacks were staged by the government, it was extraordinary for me to claim that this one wasn't.
Yeah, I'm naive. Some of you long-time debunkers have been running into this for years, I expect. How do you deal with it?
There's a big problem with this idea: How do we agree on a definition of "extraordinary"? From the standpoint of practical debunking, if I say that you are making an extraordinary claim, and you say that, no, it's my claim that is extraordinary... well, what then?
I ran into this issue trying to argue about a false-flag/crisis-actor explanation for a mass shooting incident. Of course I think of this as an extraordinary claim. The CT folks have an entirely different worldview: since they already "know" that all the recent mass shootings and terrorist attacks were staged by the government, it was extraordinary for me to claim that this one wasn't.
Yeah, I'm naive. Some of you long-time debunkers have been running into this for years, I expect. How do you deal with it?