Plump-DJ

Hello,

I was recently reading the "Submit A Paper" section of TheSecWeb when I came across a request for a response to the claim made by skeptics that "Extrodinary Events Require Extrordinary Evidence?" Now while I have not written any papers of my own to submit I did come across a response to this request, which on the face of it looks to be a very reasonable request when dealing with miracles and so forth.

To my suprise however I recently came across a response to this oft made request and it seemed to be quite a 'powerful' and 'pertinent' response. Since a miraculous event is at the heart of the Christian worldview in the resurrection of JC it would seem that a response of some kind would be required from Christians and it seems the article provides one.

-----------------------------------
Do Extraordinary Events Require Extraordinary Evidence?
by G. Brady Lenardos
-----------------------------------
http://home.earthlink.net/~gbl111/extraord.htm

Some of the points of interest the author raises in his analysis of the claim that extrordinary events require extrordinary evidence are..

"Regardless of which of the above is being asked for, we must ask what objective method is being used to determine what qualifies as extraordinary evidence? How does one objectively determine how much of a higher grade of evidence is required before affirming a miraculous event happened? Where is the objective scale that shows what amount of evidence is needed for regular events and how much more is required for miraculous events? The reason that these questions are so important is that the Atheist has no objective method by which to make these decisions. You will find that what is meant by extraordinary evidence is really evidence that suits the Atheist's subjective interests."

and..

".... I say the "fallacy" of special pleading, because in considering this question, from the Atheist's view, he assumes that not all special pleading is fallacious. I say that because the very act of asking for extraordinary evidence is indeed special pleading. He is asking that one set of means and methods be used for ordinary events -- events his philosophy readily accepts -- and another set of means and methods be used to determine if events actually happened --events that don't fit his philosophy. For the purpose of this paper we allow for it, but the Atheist needs to address the point and provide a sound reason for it. But let's proceed, as if there was a sound reason."

So while I cannot 'submit' someone elses work perhaps, if you feel the article makes a worthwhile contribution and response then a link could be made in the appropriate section?

Regards

-DM-

Thank you for your feedback in response to the Call for Papers page, and specifically the call for a paper regarding the question, "Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?"

Note that the author of the Call for Papers page is Jeff Lowder, and he is aware of online material such as that which you mention, above. However, the Secular Web itself would like to publish in its own Library a rather thorough, theistic response to the oft-heard claim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

In any case, this subject might make a worthwhile discussion for the Philosophy forum, so I have moved this thread there.

Regards,
-Don-

Plump-DJ

DM,

Well that's interesting? I wonder does Mr Lowder support the criticisms which are thrown at the 'oft made claim'?


Regards

NHGH

It seems to me that the dictum that "extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence" is just another way of saying that "we ought to evaluate claims about the world in light of what we already know about the world."

I don't think that, in the present case, "ordinary events" is equivalent to "events that [the atheist] philosophy [sic] readily accepts." Lots of putative events that are perfectly compatible with the so-called "atheist philosophy" would qualify as extraordinary. For example, visitation by extraterrestrials; various Fortean phenomena such as live fish, frogs, etc. raining out of the sky; even the resurrection of a human body, divorced from its usual religious context. All these things are compatible with atheism, if not with known physical laws of the universe.

Just to take extraterrestrial visitation as an example: if someone reports being abducted by a UFO, we might ask, "How did the UFO get here? Where did it come from? According to our current understanding of physics, it's impossible to travel at speeds faster than light, so the UFO would have had to travel for years to get to Earth, just in order to perform seemingly senseless 'experiments' on abducted human subjects..." etc. In order to make this claim believable, we'd expect to see some concrete evidence that our understanding of physics is flawed, that it's possible to travel from some alien planet to Earth in a time- and cost-efficient manner, and so on and so forth.

In the case of the resurrection of a corpse, the relevant questions would be something like: "Don't the body's cells (especially those in the brain) start to die due to lack of oxygen within minutes of the cessation of heartbeat and respiration? How is it possible to reverse this cellular damage, if the body has been dead for (say) a period of days?" etc. Here, a demonstration of the reversal of such damage in a laboratory setting, with some plausible biological theory explaining why and how such a thing is possible, would go a long way toward establishing the credibility of the claim.

None of this strikes me as anything remotely like special pleading. It's just common sense.

Plump-DJ

NHGH,

You make some interesting points, however If I may say the points you do make miss the point somehwat. Let me explain why I think that.

The resurrection is believed to be a *supernatural* event, and therefore you're request for a 'biological' or 'naturalistic' explanation wouldn't make sense. What it does show of course is that if the rez did take place, then a supernatural expalantion (aka Miracle) seems like the only viable explanation. Granting that, the supernatural alternative would seem to be very much incompatable with the atheists philosophy.

If you can demonstrate the effect (ie The Rez took place) using your said "inductive method and basslines" then you have neccesarily demonstrated a cause, and therefore we must search for the cause. It's possible the rez was natural, but as you indicate, highly unlikely.

bd-from-kg

Plump-DJ.:

Sorry to be so blunt, but this is ridiculous. Everyone knows that extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence. You know it. You apply this principle hundreds of times a day. Some things are just more probable a priori than others, and the evidence you require to believe the less probable things is stronger than the evidence you require to believe the more probable ones. Except that you want a special exception in the case of a claim that a man walked out of his tomb after being well and truly dead for over a day a couple of thousand years ago.

Look. If I tell you that a friend of yours has decided to give you five dollars for your birthday, you’ll probably accept this claim without asking for further evidence. But if I tell you that a bitter enemy - someone who hates your guts – has decided to give you five dollars for your birthday, you’ll probably want something more than my say-so. Why? Because people giving gifts to friends is a common occurrence, but giving gifts to bitter enemies is extremely uncommon. Now what if I tell you that this bitter enemy has mortgaged his house and borrowed to the hilt in order to give you a gift of $100,000 ? Wouldn’t you demand even more evidence before accepting such a claim? Of course. But why? Because this violates some known natural law? Not at all. You’re going to be extremely skeptical because such a thing is far outside normal human experience. And if I tell you that a man who hates your guts and, so far as anyone knows, hasn’t a penny to his name and no prospect of getting any money, has deposited a money order for a million dollars in your bank account, you’ll be more skeptical still. Why? Because you know very well that extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence.

Or again, if I told you that candidate X, who was favored to win, has in fact won the presidential election held yesterday, you’d probably believe me. If I told you that his main rival won even though he was behind in the last polls by 15 points, you’d be more skeptical, but would probably be convinced if I showed you a newspaper headline to that effect. But if I told you that a third-party candidate whom no one had been taking seriously had won, you’d probably suspect that even the newspaper headline was a hoax and demand even more convincing evidence. And if I told you that Harold Stassen (who’s been dead for two years) had won, it would probably take a great deal of evidence indeed to convince you even though this would not violate any natural laws. (It’s perfectly legal to vote for a dead man, and dead men have in fact been known to win elections). Why would you be so skeptical? Because you know very well that extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence.

Or again, suppose that I told you that I had won a thousand dollars in the state lottery. Chances are you’d believe me; this sort of thing happens all the time. But if I told you that I’d won the lottery outright, you’d be more skeptical, because although this also happens all the time, it happens to very few people as a percentage of the population, and it’s very unlikely ever to happen to anyone you know. Still, a report in the paper or on television would most likely convince you. But what if I told you that I’d won the lottery even though I’d never bought a ticket – that some stranger had unexpectedly given me the winning ticket just before the drawing? I suspect that you’d need a whole lot of evidence before you’d buy that one. And if I told you that the stranger was really an alien from Arcturus, one can only imagine how much evidence you’d need before you’d believe that. Why? Because you know very well that extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence.

Finally, suppose that it’s reported that Mustaph (who is a complete unknown from Uzbekistan) has been clocked running the mile in four minutes flat. Again we’d be somewhat skeptical, but what the heck, this has been done a good many times by now. But now consider the following series of possible claims:

(1) Mustaph ran the mile in 4:00.
(2) Mustaph ran the mile in 3:59.
(3) Mustaph ran the mile in 3:58.
...

(61) Mustaph ran the mile in 3:00.
...

(181) Mustaph ran the mile in 1:00.
...

(240) Mustaph ran the mile in one second.
(241) Mustaph ran the mile in one second and in the process ran through a solid wall without damaging it.
(242) Mustaph ran the mile in one second and in the process ran through a solid wall without damaging it, and afterwards ascended bodily into Heaven.
(243) Mustaph ran the mile in one second and in the process ran through a solid wall without damaging it, and afterwards ascended bodily into Heaven, and at the time had been dead and buried for several days.

At some point in this series, I trust that your skeptical instincts would be aroused. In fact, I suspect that this would happen well before you reached claim 243; in fact, well before the feat in question would plainly require miraculous intervention.

Now what Christians want to do is to agree that claim 61, for example, is highly implausible, but that claim 243 is less implausible because it plainly requires miraculous intervention. I submit that any rational person will regard each claim in this list (after the first) as less plausible than the preceding one. There is not some point at which the claims suddenly become more plausible because they would plainly violate some known natural law.

In other words: extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence. The more extraordinary they are, the more evidence is required to justify rational belief. And by the time one reaches an event like a dead man walking out of his tomb, walking through walls, and ascending into the heavens unaided, one has long since passed the point where no reasonable person would believe that the event in question occurred without evidence of a quantity and quality that has never been produced for any event whatsoever.

Your author makes much of the fact that skeptics aren’t able to specify objective, non-arbitrary standards for just what, or how much, evidence would be sufficient justify rational belief in a given case. This is true. No one has ever been able to specify any such objective, non-arbitrary standards. Yet we all make these kinds of judgments hundreds of times a day. That’s just the way the world is. Does it follow that it is impossible to distinguish between irrational beliefs – i.e., beliefs based on insufficient evidence – and rational ones? Well, yes, it does, at the margin. Clearly there are many cases where rational men can differ as to whether there is sufficient evidence to justify belief. But there are also lots of quite unambiguous cases where the evidence is clearly sufficient and many others where it clearly isn’t. The evidence that George W. Bush is currently the President of the U.S., for example, is in the former category, whereas the evidence that the angel Moroni dictated the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith is clearly in the latter.

It’s a matter of judgment. The pious nun who believes that Sister Margaret’s discovery of her lost thimble under the bed is a case of divine intervention is clearly setting the bar far too low; the person who is familiar with the evidence but still refuses to believe in evolution is clearly setting the bar far too high. But neither you nor I, nor anyone else can say precisely where the bar should be set in each particular case. None of this changes the fact that the bar must be set much higher for extraordinary events than or ordinary, everyday ones.

Hawkingfan

The "objective method used to determine what qualifies as extraordinary evidence" depends completely on the claim that is made. The methods for determining whether something is miraculous or not will differ from claim to claim. Again, the "objective scale that shows what amount of evidence is needed for regular events and how much more is required for miraculous events" varies from claim to claim. A "miraculous" event should be self-evident anyway. And it is self-evident that it should be just as extraordinary as the claim that was made. To come up with some kind of "objective" scale would be very confusing, because there is so much variation in miraculous claims. Consider James Randi's discussion on the large number of variations (people even vary on their accuracy percentage!) there are for the simple act of dowsing:

From www.randi.org
"Dowsers seldom agree on the basics of their claims. Some will insist that rubber footwear or footwear made of other insulating materials must be used by the operator, while an equal number insist that such materials inhibit the effect , and must never be used. Those who use stiff wires bent at right angles and held in each hand parallel to the ground, may say that the wires will cross one another when the sought-after object or substance is encountered; just as many say that the wires will diverge. Every dowser has his or her own personal theory, rules and preferred techniques.
Some claim that their power is divine in nature. Some say that dowsing is a learned art. Most claim that anyone can dowse successfully, while others say that it is an inherited gift. Some deny that it is in any way "paranormal," while some embrace that definition. Dowsers will often scoff at the claims of other dowsers, and will have a very limited set of parameters that they will accept as viable. Some say that they can only perform successfully if there is a real "human need" present; others are not so inhibited. Many say that they can find any object or substance, while others say they can find, for example, only flowing water moving underground, but not in pipes. Some are specifically pipe-locators, they say, and some only look for metal pipes, not plastic.
Most dowsers claim 100% accuracy. Very few claim anything less than 90%.

A Wide Spectrum of Claims
Water dowsers are by far the most common variety we have encountered, and they, too, exhibit a wide spectrum of claims. Some only look for fresh/potable water. With some, it must be moving water. Some cannot detect water in pipes, only "natural" water. Most say they can tell how far down the water is, and at what rate it will be delivered, once tapped. Water dowsers as well as some less specialized say they can be thrown off by magnetic fields, nearby electricity, machinery, buried meteorites, masses of metal, or other underground rivers that intersect their path. The list of elements and situations that they say can inhibit their performances is endless.
The bottom line is that they all fail, when properly and fairly tested. There are no exceptions. Even after they have clearly and definitely failed, they always continue to believe in their powers. Why should this be so?"

Let's look at how Randi would handle another type of claim--the psychic who claims to have the "gift" of cold reading (the psychic has never met the person they are "reading" and has no prior knowledge of any specific facts about that person, yet will be able to tell specific detalis about that person's future and past as well as communicate with their dead relatives (and supply information about their deaths)). This is from a phone conversation between Randi and Sylvia Brown on the Larry King Show. Note the use of a scientific control group (of which Larry agreed to be apart of):

Randi--Well, I have a proposed test, approved by people at Harvard and at MIT, that would clearly test whether you're simply doing a guessing game, or that you have the powers you claim to have. May I suggest that process to you?
[Sylvia agreed.]

R--I suggest that we advertise — via the Internet — perhaps even on Larry's web page, if that would be possible, Larry — for ten persons who would be willing to be subjects for this test, done via telephone. Each one would have to attest in writing that (a) they believe in your powers, Sylvia, (b) that they believe you can do a genuine spiritual reading, and (c) that they've had a personal loss of a loved one within the last year. At a date and time convenient to you — and I know how very busy you are — we would randomly select one of those ten persons — by choosing a number from a hat. Then, either you would call us or we would call you — your choice — you'd be given the gender, name, and age of the chosen subject, and you would do a reading over the telephone without getting feedback, that is, without doing questions-and-answers or asking for guesses to be accepted or refused. That reading could take a minute or two, or as much as half an hour — again, Sylvia, your choice, so that you could be sure that you've made "connection" with the subject.
When the reading is finished, you would so indicate, and the subject would then be asked to give a score to the reading, from zero to ten points. Following that, we would contact, again in random order, each of the other nine persons for whom the reading was not done, and present them with either a transcript of the reading, or an audio tape of it, for them to also score from zero to ten.
Now, we should expect that the person for whom the reading was done would obtain a score, say, from six through ten, and — unless my "guessing game" scenario is correct — the other nine for whom the reading was not done, would have scores of zero to five. But, to simplify all this, in order to beat 50-to-1 odds — which is much better than the thousand-to-one odds we usually require for such a test! — eight of those scores would have to be less than the score given by the person for whom the reading was actually done.
I point out to you, that the person chosen to have the reading would be a believer in Sylvia's powers, and would therefore be expected to be sympathetic to her success. Please note, Sylvia would be provided with complete identifications on each of these persons, so that she could fully check out their credentials. And one more thing: we would have an independent party, approved by both sides, present at all procedures, and everything would be videotaped, and the original videotape would be retained by that independent party. It could be someone from your staff, if you wished, Larry, and if Sylvia approved, of course.
Well, a bit to my surprise and delight, I admit, Sylvia Browne agreed to all this, and Larry King asked if he might be part of the control procedure, an offer that I accepted.
So, that's where it sits at the moment. After 6 months (181 days) of no-contact with Sylvia — we tried e-mail, fax, postal mail, phone calls — we have her agreement, and we have a list of possible subjects that we are now narrowing down. How do we do that? They have to have the three qualifications specified above. Stay tuned...."

I once saw a televised test conducted by Randi of 2 psychics who claimed to be able to "read" someone simply by looking at their photograph. The two women lived in Russia and made their national news as being very accurate. They were quite famous. Randi let them "read" ten photographs and the women were allowed to take the test together (to bounce ideas of each other, they claim the power only worked together). Each comment the ladies made was recorded and the statistics were terrible. They failed miserably. Interestingly, one of the photographs was of Ted Bundy. The women had no clue he killed hundreds of women (that should have been plenty of opportunity--to "connect" with at least *one* victim). The women were wrong about facts concerning his daughter and his major in college as well (among other things).

Basically, the application to the James Randi $1,000,000 challenge sums up the extraordinary evidence requirements:
Excerpts--

"Applicants must state clearly what they claim as their special ability, and test procedures must be agreed upon by both parties before any testing will take place. All tests must be designed in such a way that the results are self-evident, and no judging process is required. We do not design the protocol independently of the applicant, who must provide clear guidelines so that the test may be properly set. All applicants must clearly identify themselves properly before any discussion takes place.

I, James Randi, through the JREF, will pay US$1,000,000 to any person who can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability under satisfactory observing conditions. Such demonstration must take place under these rules and limitations.
1. Applicant must state clearly in advance, and applicant and JREF will agree upon, what powers or abilities will be demonstrated, the limits of the proposed demonstration (so far as time, location and other variables are concerned) and what will constitute both a positive and a negative result. This is the primary and most important of these rules.
2. Only an actual performance of the stated nature and scope, within the agreed-upon limits, will be accepted. Anecdotal accounts of previous events are not accepted or considered. We consult competent statisticians when an evaluation of the results, or experiment design, is required. We have no interest in theories or explanations of how the claimed powers might work; if you provide us with such material, it will be ignored and discarded.

1. EVERY APPLICANT MUST AGREE UPON WHAT WILL CONSTITUTE A CONCLUSION THAT, ON THE OCCASION OF THE FORMAL TEST, HE OR SHE DID OR DID NOT DEMONSTRATE THE CLAIMED ABILITY OR POWER. This form must be accompanied by a brief, two-paragraph description of what will constitute the demonstration. PLEASE: Do not burden us with theories, philosophical observations, previous examples, or other comments! We are only interested in an actual demonstration."

Hawkingfan

To summarize, the word "extraordinary" is subjective. And so each claim will have its own unique, objective method of determining truth to the claim and must be specifically designed for that particular claim.

NHGH

In his paper, Lenardos frames the debate thus: In debates about the resurrection of Christ, "the Atheist is not satisfied in using the normal means and methods in determining claims for supernatural events. He demands something more -- 'extraordinary evidence.'" Lenardos then goes on to ask just what "extraordinary evidence" means, discusses various possible conceptions of "extraordinary evidence" and analyzes what he sees as the flaws in each.

I reject all of his proposed definitions of "extraordinary evidence", and furthermore I reject his underlying assertion that requiring "extraordinary evidence" entails holding the Christian apologist to a higher standard than would be customary in evaluating evidence. On the contrary, I argue that "the dictum that 'extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence' is just another way of saying that 'we ought to evaluate claims about the world in light of what we already know about the world.'" Think of it this way: in the course of evaluating a claim, we "weigh the evidence", as it were. We pile the evidence in favor of the proposition on one side of the scale and the evidence against it on the other side. All I'm saying here is that the fact that a proposition, if true, would contravene known physical laws, weighs heavily on the "against" side, and thus requires a great deal of weight on the "for" side to counterbalance it. Therefore, for example, the testimony of a person who claims that he saw a man rise from the dead would be outweighed by our knowledge that people do not rise from the dead, and that there are physical reasons why they cannot do so (cell decay due to lack of oxygen, etc.); whereas the testimony of a person who claims to have eaten oatmeal and toast for breakfast this morning would not be similarly outweighed.

In his discussion of various possible definitions of the term "extraordinary evidence", Lenardos argues that "A fair hearing is all Christianity is requesting. The Christian position only asks that we use the same reasoning and rational thought that we use to derive what are considered good conclusions in historical investigation, and apply those same means and methods to the New Testament and the resurrection of Jesus." I heartily agree, and accordingly I do not think that the points I made in my previous post "miss the point" at all. This is precisely how claims should be evaluated. You seem to be arguing above that "supernatural" claims should be held to a lower standard when you say that my "request for a 'biological' or 'naturalistic' explanation wouldn't make sense." I think that the process of "demonstrat[ing] the effect (ie The Rez took place)" cannot be separated from the process of looking at known physical laws. In the absense of some compelling argument that the physical laws are wrong, I don't think we can properly conclude that the "effect" in question took place, and thus a search for the "cause" would be premature (to put it mildly).

gcameron

Extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to return to my home planet near Alpha Centauri, where I am a God-emperor over a race of twelve-armed green insectoid creatures.

You do believe me, right?