In my last post, I wrote how some critics of Christianity use demands for “evidence” as a way of dodging tough questions rather than dealing with them. In that post, I described a hypothetical example of two strangers: one tells me he has a pet dog and the other tells me he has a pet sloth. In these cases, I would be apt to believe the claim to own a dog but be skeptical of the claim to own a sloth.
I've used the example of pet dog v. pet sloth in the past and people have tried to point out to me that my heightened suspicion of the claim to own a sloth actually contradicts a point I made in that post. Carl Sagan has been quoted as saying that, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” By me being more skeptical of the claim to own a sloth than a dog, they say I'm engaging in exactly the kind of skepticism Sagan said was necessary before believing an extraordinary claim. I don't think so, but since a few people have accused me of the same thing, I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to expound on this point.
First off, Sagan's claim is self-contradicting. If it were true, then where is the evidence for the claim itself? I'm not even asking for extraordinary evidence, mind you. I mean any scientific evidence whatsoever to justify the claim that claims require evidence? If Sagan were here and I asked him to present the evidence for his claim, I'm sure he would resort to logic and reason which proves my point. Through logic and reason, we can make judgments about the truthfulness of a claim – even a claim for which there may be no scientific evidence! In my example about the sloth, you will notice that not once did I demand to see the sloth. My point in asking more questions was so that I might judge the truthfulness of the claim using only my skills of logic and reason.
This is my frustration with many unbelievers. I try to give reasoned arguments and ask they consider them objectively yet they respond only with a demand for more evidence. For some people, I could say that it would take God appearing to them personally to make them believe but I know even that wouldn't be enough because they could still dismiss God's appearance as a hallucination. For someone who truly doesn't want to believe, no amount of evidence – not even extraordinary evidence – is sufficient.
Now back up a minute. Remember about the person claiming to own a dog? If I were just as skeptical of his claim, what evidence might he produce that is different than the evidence that I demanded from the owner of a sloth? In other words, how is the evidence that proves someone owns a dog substantially different than the evidence that proves someone owns a sloth? If I am truly a “blank slate” and will never believe something unless I have evidence for it, then the evidence necessary to prove someone owns a dog need not be any different than the evidence necessary to prove someone owns a sloth.
To prove conclusively a person owns a dog or a sloth or even a stegosaurus, it would take roughly the same evidence: 1) look at his address on his ID, 2) drive to that address, and 3) see if the animal is there. One claim may seem more extraordinary than another, but the evidence to prove any of the claims is rather ordinary. The critic might ask, “what if he doesn't really own the animal? Maybe he's caring for a friend's or relative's pet.” Regardless, whatever could be said of a pet sloth could also be said of a pet dog. The evidence to prove either is still the same.
What if I claimed to own a Big Foot? Simple – drive to my house and see it for yourself. What if I claimed to own a unicorn? Drive to my house and see it for yourself. What if I claimed to have a flying saucer in my backyard? Drive to my house and see if for yourself. What if I claimed to have created a to-scale model of the Grand Canyon in my backyard? Drive to my house and see it for yourself. What is so “extraordinary” about the evidence that could prove any of these extraordinary claims?
Besides the famous quote we've discussed here, Carl Sagan also left us the analogy, The Dragon in my Garage. In that story, he pretended to have dragon in his garage and invited his skeptical friend to see it. Of course, the garage appeared to be empty. Sagan explained the dragon was invisible. The friend thought of ways to see if the dragon was there: spray paint the dragon to make it visible, sprinkle powder on the floor to see its footprints, or use a sensor to detect its flames. One by one, Sagan explained why none of these would work. A subtle irony here is that the skeptic only seems to be looking for ordinary evidence: he wants to see the dragon! Owning a dragon is an extraordinary claim. According to Sagan, it should require extraordinary evidence to substantiate that claim but in this analogy, merely seeing the dragon seems to be enough. So even Sagan, who made this famous quote, seems to understand that the proof for owning a dragon really isn't any different than the proof for owning a dog.
In Isaiah 1:18, the Lord says, “Come now, and let us reason together.” To have the clearest picture of reality requires that we employ our God given gifts of reason and deduction. For someone to set a ridiculously high standard of evidence before believing something is a guarantee to have a distorted view of reality.
The word “extraordinary” is enormously subjective. It says more about the person hearing the claim than the nature of the claim itself. When a claim is labeled, “extraordinary,” it means the person hearing the claim has a hard time believing it. Maybe he just doesn't want to believe it. But even extraordinary claims require only ordinary evidence. To say one claim requires “extraordinary” evidence simply means the skeptic is likely to reject most of the evidence you present because of his own incredulity.
First off, Sagan's claim is self-contradicting. If it were true, then where is the evidence for the claim itself?
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, claims about epistemology aren't, themselves, subject to the sort of empirical testing that ontological claims (claims about what actually exists) are. On the other, what is remarkable or extraordinary about Sagan's claim? Look at your own "sloth/dog" example: some claims are more consistent with your background knowledge of the universe (e.g. lots of people have pet dogs; few if any have pet sloths) than others. Some outright contradict that background knowledge (there's nothing self-evidently impossible about having a sloth as a pet, but if your friend had claimed to have a hippogriff as a pet, well...). It looks as though you agree with Sagan's dictum because, in fact, you do -- except where you have precommitments that are incompatible with your normal rules of epistemology, in which case you plead for a special exemption for those claims.
Maybe he could take me to his home and show the sloth in person. It's still not enough because, if I were especially bullheaded, I could ask for proof that this was his home.
Remember: the extraordinariness of your friend's claim is not that he has a home, or that sloths exist -- those are generally accepted truths. It is that he has a sloth as a pet. If it has been established that anyone has a sloth for a pet, his claim automatically becomes less extraordinary.
To prove conclusively a person owns a dog or a sloth or even a stegosaurus, it would take roughly the same evidence: 1) look at his address on his ID, 2) drive to that address, and 3) see if the animal is there.
No, because the difficulty in owning a Stegosaurus does not lie primarily government regulations on exotic pets, or the expense of buying one, or its unsuitability for cuddling and playing fetch, but on the total lack of evidence that any have lived in the last million centuries or so. You would be merely perverse to demand evidence that a sloth can exist; their existence is part of your background knowledge. To look at an apparently living Stegosaurus and suspect it of being some sort of high-end animatronic is not perverse; it is far more consistent with our background knowledge than belief that it's an actual non-avian dinosaur.
There are observations so inconsistent with our well-established pictures of how the world works that it makes sense to conclude that the observation, not the rest of the universe, is mistaken.
The word “extraordinary” is enormously subjective.
It's not enormously so. The meaning is simple: how much of our background knowledge of how the world works, our collective experience, all the evidence we have on all other questions, needs to be discarded or rewritten for this to be true? The more background knowledge that needs to be flushed down the drain, the more extraordinary the claim.
Steven J,
DeleteThanks for your comments and for visiting. I apologize it's taken me so long to reply.
You said, “On the one hand, claims about epistemology aren't, themselves, subject to the sort of empirical testing that ontological claims (claims about what actually exists) are.”
Hmmm. You're making another claim. How can I judge the truthfulness of this claim?
If I claim that something cannot create itself, is that an epistemological claim or an ontological claim? Nature could not have been made by natural laws because that is like saying nature created nature. Therefore, nature had to be created by something outside of nature – something supernatural by definition. But when I make this argument, many skeptics respond by saying something like, “Well, do you have any evidence for a supernatural Creator?” This is why I say demands for “evidence” are often a dodge that allow critics to avoid answering what I would say is a reasonable argument.
You said, “On the other, what is remarkable or extraordinary about Sagan's claim?”
I didn't say his claim was extraordinary. I asked for any SCIENTIFIC evidence for the claim – not necessarily extraordinary evidence. Again, just as I said in the post, it is through logic and reason that we can judge the truthfulness of claims for which there my be no scientific evidence.
You said, “Remember: the extraordinariness of your friend's claim is not that he has a home, or that sloths exist -- those are generally accepted truths. It is that he has a sloth as a pet. If it has been established that anyone has a sloth for a pet, his claim automatically becomes less extraordinary.”
But I also said the same evidence could be used to prove I owned a stegosaurus.
You said, “No, because the difficulty in owning a Stegosaurus does not lie primarily government regulations on exotic pets, or the expense of buying one, or its unsuitability for cuddling and playing fetch, but on the total lack of evidence that any have lived in the last million centuries or so. You would be merely perverse to demand evidence that a sloth can exist; their existence is part of your background knowledge. To look at an apparently living Stegosaurus and suspect it of being some sort of high-end animatronic is not perverse.”
But in Sagan's Dragon analogy, he seemed to suggest just seeing the dragon would be enough to satisfy his curiosity. What if he could see it? Would he then have next demanded I cut it to see if it bleeds? Then x-ray it? Then kill it and dissect it?
If such high-end animatronics existed, a dog, dragon, sloth, or Big Foot could all be faked. The evidence to prove one isn't necessarily any different than proving the others. The difference is how much does it take to convince the confirmed skeptic?
Thanks again for visiting. God bless!!
RKBentley