Episode 40
We have all heard the adage, “Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary Evidence.” Have you asked yourself, “what does that even mean?” Chances are, when you’ve heard it, or even used it, it has been in relation to a topic that you already feel confident is all but impossible to prove anyway. But where did it come from, and why has it become the go-to gotcha phrase for calling someone’s bluff , especially in regarding to conspiracy theory and the paranormal or supernatural? Come to think of it, how do we know when it applies? What exactly makes a claim “extraordinary”?
To do this, I think we need to first understand the phrase itself. Where it comes from, and what it is actually saying. After that, we can explore other aspects of popular thinking which make this resonate so well with the general public.
Now, I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a long time. Exploring cases and beliefs often leads to the inevitable discussion board with the oft repeated phrases “prove it” and “that’s proven false”. I realized that I couldn’t simply pick a single example or event and boil it down to that. We needed to discuss the axiom itself. That “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is often taken as a conclusion to the discussion itself. As though it states a given truth about a claim, establishing it’s impossibility. At least impossibility in so far as the claimants ability to prove anything.
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Music is by adamhenrygarcia.bandcamp.com
Links:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201103/do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hot-thought/201303/what-is-evidence?amp
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/notesfromanapostate/2015/04/do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence/
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/scientists-are-searching-mirror-universe-it-could-be-sitting-right-ncna1023206
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/07/16/you-must-not-trust-experiments-that-claim-the-existence-of-parallel-universes/#2b86060f2fbe
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/22/scientific-proof-is-a-myth/#59b71ce92fb1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114207/
CT019 - The Day Belief Persevered (Flat Earth Theory Pt. 2)
CT018 - The Day The Earth Fell Flat (Flat Earth Theory Pt. 1)
CT017 - The Day We Went To War With Christmas
CT016 - The Day Fluoride Controlled Us
CT015 - The Day The Polygraph Lied
CT014 - The Day A Psychic Detective Cracked The Case
CT013 - The Day Exorcism Gave Us Control
CT012 - The Day Alien Abductions Took Us into the Unknown
CT011 - The Day Bodies Were Buried in the Hoover Dam
CT010 - The Day Q Clearance Went Top Secret
CT009 - The Day Carl Jung Analyzed a Crop Circle
CT008 - The Day Ghosts Started Photobombing Our Selfies
CT007 - The Day Bacon Wrote Shakespeare
CT006 - The Day New Coke Fizzled
CT005 - The Day Area 51 Joined the Narrative (PART 2)
CT004 - The Day Area 51 Joined the Narrative (PART 1)
CT003 - The Day Paul McCartney Died
CT002 - The Day Bigfoot Stepped Into Scene
CT001 - Welcome to Conspiracy Theoryology
PILOT EPISODE - The Moon Landing Hoax
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