Sagan's point is that if you hear hooves on the street behind you, leaping to the conclusion that you're hearing a centaur is going to require a lot more support than a claim that you're hearing a horse to be believable.
When you consider religion is ignorant idiots going around making up stuff in order to convince even lessor individuals of an imagined explanation to things they willingly admit to not knowing, yeah the bar is low.
Apologetics is not really a high artform. Except to those dabbling in it. Making up excuses why an irrational belief isn't that irrational is not impressive to anybody but those that WANT the belief to be rational.
There's a simple thought experiment I use concerning this issue: -What if i told you there was cat in my back yard last night? You wouldn't generally need much evidence to believe this because we know cats exist, are common and can sometimes be found in people's yards. You might even simply take my word for it...and that would not be unreasonable. -What if i told you there was a tiger in my back yard last night? This would require more substantial evidence to believe because tigers are far less common and are (almost) never found in anyone's yard. However, we do know tigers exist and a circumstance resulting in a tiger in someone's yard is possible. -What if I told you there was a dragon in my back yard last night? This claim would require extremely substantial evidence to believe because dragons have not been established to exist anywhere, let alone in anyone's yard.
@@stiimuli it is a you tube video of Two dragons fighting in Indonesia. If someone told you there was a tiger in there backyard in India it would be quite believable. If someone told you there was a dragon in their backyard in Indonesia it would be quite believable. It is contingent. If someone told you that an intelligence had terra formed earth and seeded life here it is quite believable because it is here, you can observe and experience it. And the other possibility, that it either made itself or just popped up from nowhere, for no reason, is every bit as extraordinary.
@@jt2097 1) That's obviously not the kind of 'dragon' i was referring to. That said, even in India and Indonesia a komodo or tiger in someone's back yard is far less likely than a cat and therefor would require more substantial evidence. My point remains. 2) I'm sorry, where exactly have you or anyone else observed/experienced an "intelligence" (including humans) forming the earth or seeding life in the same context theists claim a god has? 3) The usual straw men of "made itself" and "popped up from nowhere" aside (its actually theists that believe things pop up from nowhere via magic), the "other possibility" you seem to be referring to is far more likely. Physical atomic, chemical and biological processes are *THE ONLY* mechanisms we have example of forming and causing anything. We see these processes every day while having *NOT EVEN A SINGLE* example of any god doing anything at all (even existing). This alone makes physical processes a far more likely explanation for life and the earth (and even the universe itself). Add to that the fact that we have already filled in a significant portion of the puzzle of how life and planets can form and the case for natural processes over an *ENTIRELY UNKNOWN AND UNOBSERVED* supernatural process is staggeringly one-sided. 4) Why does there have to be a reason for these things to form beyond the natural way things work? Does a raindrop form for any 'reason' beyond specific physical conditions? Does a river need a reason? Does a mountain or a star or a galaxy? They form because they can.
Literally the first time I watched WLC say “extraordinary claims don’t require extraordinary evidence”, my soul left my body from the amount of idiocy behind that statement. I used to be a Christian and when I learned about how “there has to be good and demonstrable evidence for, say, the existence for God”, it broke my faith because I knew that my faith was just that, faith.
Meerkat SK5 You can’t do it without relying on fallacious arguments... That’s why it’s called faith... You accept it on faith... Take it on faith... you gullible moron
Christians react to this claim as if we said "The ugliest person has to carry the heaviest box." They're thinking, "You just insulted me and are forcing me to do more work?
@Papa Smurf I'm not saying that the moon is far away "because someone smart said so", it's because that smart person gave me verifiable information and data independent of them.
I see it more like : claims of a blue seas demand evidence of Blue dolphins. Can't I just evidence it a different way? No! It must fit my standard that I JUST GAVE YOU, NOTHING LESS. Geez.... ok whatever, keeping thinking the sea is whatever color you think it is then, I'm out.
@Papa Smurf right on bro, not even things Atheists claim are empirically proven are not immune to skepticism. I think it's why no A single person has yet given me a real world example of an atheist version of "extraordinary evidence." Even Sagan, their messiah, in his quote was actually calling videographic evidence of UFOS "EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE" WHICH NO ATHEIST EVEN AGREES WITH.
@@JoshHerbel wow, that didn't even make sense. What part of a blue ocean requires blue dolphins? How would that be sufficient evidence? Even if there were blue dolphins, that wouldn't prove the ocean is blue. That's not the kind of evidence we're asking for and no, you don't get to just explain it the way you want to and have that be good enough. Did you even watch the video you are commenting on? Paul broke the quote down to its constituent parts, fleshed them out and then recombined them into a statement that is more precise but still conveys the same sentiment. You simply cannot expect to make a claim that is so far outside the norm and the expect people will believe you when you provide either no evidence or poor evidence. The evidence must fit the claim and in the question of any god's existence, the evidence is nowhere near sufficient.
I once silenced WLC in an argument by uttering only two words. He was so mortified he had to flee the scene. You know this must have happened because it's such an extraordinary claim that it requires no evidence.
That means, by definition, extraordinary. In the case of making a claim that goes against an entire scientific discipline for example the evidence would have to be equal to of greater than the evidence for the original position. That doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of evidence - just so,etching that would have been considered extraordinary in the first paradigm. Einstein overcoming Newton for example only required the observation of a star behind a single solar eclipse. But the evidence itself would have been something bot even conceivable to Newton and those that used his mechanics between the 17th century and Einstein. It was a single point of evidence - but one that shook their entire scientific rationale.
William Lame Graig's claim to fame is the resurrection of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (to which he then adds... So it (the cause) must be *my* god) So even his fame is the result of plagiarism.
All Sagan was saying that the more unusual a claim, the stronger the evidence should be so we can be confident it is an exception to the expected. - You have a pet dog? Who doesn't? - You have a pet tiger? Wow -- that's really unusual. Tigers are real animals, so this is plausible, but very rarely kept as pets. Can I hear more about how this came about? - You have a pet dragon? Um... those are generally not considered real. I think I'm gonna need to see this creature for myself. - You have a pet poltergeist that is not only invisible but intangible? I'm curious how you even begin to demonstrate this is true.
@Never-ending party Let me upgrade my previous statement. You are a fucking idiot. Both were intellectual giants. You on the other hand are an intellectual midget. But I'm sure you god thinks you're doing a wonderful job.
@Never-ending party no its not dude. Claiming that real life Pokemon do not exist is not an extraordinary claim. There is absolutely no evidence that your God exists! None whatever. What is your evidence that God exists???? You don't even understand physics in the first place!!! If you actually understood physics you would understand how matter exists, but you don't. And again it's not even a conversation because you do not know what you are talking about. You keep using that same damn line and it makes you look incredibly stupid.
Is there somewhere I can see what the difference is between Regular Tee, Triblend Tee, Comfort Tee and Premium Tee? I can't find that anywhere on the webpage
I watched this video several months ago and then recently watched it again. I will likely watch it several more times. It is one of your best. Your presentation and discussion is so very clear, intelligent, and informative. Also, your kind, generous, and polite nature are always in evidence. The claim that extraordinary evidence requires extraordinary evidence is really a cornerstone of practical reason. No one has done a better job than you in dissecting and explaining this aphorism. I send people to this video as being a basic part of their education in how to think. I am always a bit amazed that you could ever have been a devout Christian who defended the nonsense that you now do such a good job of refuting. I wonder how it came to be that your mind finally clicked into a position where you could actually allow yourself to think with some of the clarity that you now exhibit. Anyway, thank you for your work.
I really do love the way in which you pick through these arguments in order to show how their self evident certainty is based on clever rhetorical tricks, sloppy thinking, and glib assumptions
Me too, if the translation is on the back (i.e. the reverse side when normally worn, not the other side of the same piece of fabric) of said T-shirt: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
@5:30 "...prevented to believe the many, ordinary but highly improbable events, that happens every day." However improbable, the ordinary can not be called extraordinary. However probable, what happens only once, can be called extraordinary.
Jerry Covington the Bible has a bunch of extraordinary evidence called PROPHECY to support its supernatural claims watch this video where I show you ruclips.net/video/oYLf9wGSUzA/видео.html And this video ruclips.net/video/fyIs5u4sb18/видео.html
If we want something accurate on a T-shirt slogan level, and since the kind of argument this is usually thrown at isn't even trying, how about: _I need better evidence than what you've got._
How about: “If you can’t give me enough money to buy a jet, that’s fine. But don’t tell me that buying a wagon is enough to get to Australia.” (Hope that’s clear what I mean)
I’ve seen multiple apologists claim that this mantra has been “debunked many times”, and I’ve wondered every time what the hell they were talking about. It took a video from Cold Case Christianity for me to realize that they were debunking a strawman. This video is a fantastic explanation of what the mantra really means and I love the part where you show that it equally applies to apologists as well, nice job Paulogia.
@@retravoh oopsI noted that they have disabled comments. I am demotivated by watching such christian channels; feeling that I will waste my time. I simply can't haaa. I feel like they are hiding something. Thanks so much for sharing link. Cheers
It is difficult, if not impossible, to make a man understand a thing when his livelihood depends on him not understanding that thing. Billy Craig in a nut-shell.
Paul's lottery discussion is exactly what I would have argued. Highly improbable that a given individual will win the big prize, but not that some individual could win the prize given the number of participants.
Always blow my mind when apologist argue probability. Its impossible to determine probability without first demonstrating possibility. What are the chances I roll a 6 twice? The right answer is "what kind of die?"
Even a deluded parent is more likely to believe the claim that their child misbehaved than the claim that their child sprouted wings and started flying around the classroom. Apologetics should really be called grasping at straws. How can people take WLC’s arguments seriously?
@Never-ending party I'll agree atheism has no answers because it is the state of not being convinced of the claim that God exists. If I claim I'm a pink elephant who flies and you are unconvinced of that claim, does your being unconvinced answer any questions? I wonder, what should I consider convincing justification to support the claim that God exists? What justification has you convinced above all others?
@Never-ending party You believe, "Christianity has ALL the facts." OK. Produce one that proves the existence of God. At the very least, one fact that strongly supports the existence of God.
I this of this as follows: If someone claims that there is a horse in a pasture, and they show me a hoof-print, I have a reasonable basis to assume there is in fact a hoarse in the area; however, say someone claims there is a unicorn in the area and then provides a hoof-print as evidence, unsurprisingly, I would remain unconvinced of a unicorn's existence. In the latter example, the extrodiarny claim (of there being a unicorn) requires significantly more convincing evidence than the claim that there is a horse. The extraordinary claim requires evidence beyond a normal standard.
A caller to The Atheist Experience once told Matt Dillahunty that there was nothing "extraordinary" about claiming there is a god because such a large majority of people on Earth believe it. No kidding, that was the extent of the caller's grasp on "logic."
I think the guy was just slow. If you use "ordinary" just as "what is commonplace or standard", that is kind of true. It is commonplace that people make claims of the existence of a god. The extraordinary thing is the existence itself, so I can understand why a slow caller could get it wrong
@@intellectualiconoclasm3264 I've noticed that pretty much everyone who resorts to "common sense" does so because they lack evidence for their position and want to hide behind its popularity. It's amazing at how many things are "common sense" which have no actual basis in reality.
@@johnjamele I disagree with your assessment of motive. I used to think like that, I litterally couldn't fathom how one could live without my God or see Their necessity for creation. I had intelligent friends write me off is stupid or dishonest because I was litterally unable to comprehend their points. Secondary to that was their use of "If you don't understand this argument that works/ed for me than you're lying or just simply dumb." Or my perception that was their conclusion. Sometimes it was their conclusion, sometimes it was my perception, and othertimes it was my projection. It took a lot of intent to broaden my ability understand the motives behind the arguments of others. A whole lot to get to a place where I chose those handle to express my motives and methods. I had to become the iconoclast of my own understanding and tear it back to logical bedrock. It was only when I was able to see the flaws and just bad assumptions I'd based understanding around to see how I came to such incorrect conclusions. Seeing them showed me other false conclusions on and on until I saw what a caricature and dishonest interlocutor I must have seemed. I was genuine in my dealings and discussions but I wasn't capable before. I know it sounds like I'm bragging about my humility but I swear I'm not. It's just to show that any other person can go there and leave others with a similar perception. Them of me, you of others, ME OF OTHERS. To tie this to logic and common sense, common sense for the common heard. No blast, it's just that we normalize our views and understanding to the rest of our in-group. It's a survival adaptation. What's common sense in Central India isn't in Central Pakistan and isn't Westerner Afghanistan. Further, what's common sense in the Pacific NW, Southern California, Mid-West, South, Northeast, and for Florida Man are ALL different in one nation. So it really is only common in your particular heard. And many of them have been indoctrinated from birth to have heuristic dead-ends to "So therefore God, and if you can't see that you're an agent of The Devil." They have such strongly touted neural pathways they are incapable of comprehending an argument of diamond hard logic. The hammer of faith smashes it and that's proof: "It wasn't ever a real diamond. Everyone knows diamonds are super hard and hard things don't break easily." Common sense vs. basic knowledge about the distinctions of hard, strong, tough, and resilient. Once they get the correct understanding of meanings and they can see the entire basement was invalid.
That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Carl Sagan popularized this as "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", which later came to be known as the Sagan standard. It is derived from Pierre-Simon de Laplace's "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."
😖 Whenever I hear WLC attempting to defend the indefensible I reach for my metaphysical gun. He is a master of creating linguistic confusion through his love of word salads. As for his explanation of probability, it was so mangled as to be incomprehensible. Then there is the example of the lottery. In what context would anyone need faith or belief to understand what a lottery is and how it works? There is no such context. There is nothing extraordinary about a lottery, whatever innumerate people might claim. It would be extraordinary if I listed the winning numbers on the day BEFORE the lottery draw, given the very long odds against my achieving such a result. Any explanation of that would have to be extraordinary of itself, and highly unusual. Likewise any suggestion that SETI has received a message from a distant galaxy needs to be corroborated by a high degree of scientific evidence and not merely the opinion of an astronomer. Carl Sagan was a highly literate man with a facility in language that made understanding him become so much easier. The likes of WLC and other religionists cannot abide being held to account in such a pithy manner, so they flounder around in a slush of verbiage. We have no need to explain what Carl Sagan meant. It is quite clear.
Sir Meow The Library Cat Craig’s words seek only to obfuscate, while Sagan’s words were to elucidate. Craig is so frustrating. I know it’s wrong to assume intent, but WLC has exhausted all goodwill I had towards him.
@Never-ending party I don't really care about all that, 'The Great Green Alien' might have caused that fine tuning just as well, and you can't prove that was the case any more than you can prove the biblical god did. I'm much more interested in how you get from your fine tuning claim to a personal god that revealed itself thousands of years ago to primitive men. Why do you believe what they wrote?
Only if you can calculate or measure the probabilities on the right-hand side of the equation. With questions such as those likely to be discussed here, however, you have to guess at those probabilities, so Bayes' Theorem is worse than useless.
@Brandon Dickens You are probably right that that was his point, but I tend to act reflexively when someone tries to use Bayes to prove something such as the existence or non-existence of Jesus, or anything else of that nature.
The probably of the existence of one magical being from another realm for which there is no evidence is the same for any other magical being from another realm for which there is no evidence. That does not mean that there are no other realms containing magical beings, it is just that you can't apply a probability, and you most certainly can't say "Therefore the Bible is true" is a more likely probability than for any other story that is indistinguishable from just making shit up.
@Brandon Dickens I sort of agree with your point, but I think you also fail to understand the power of cognitive dissonance and the apologetics mind. Take Yahweh and Bigfoot. They are clearly completely different classes of beings. Heck we even know that new species of life are discovered all the time. What both entities have though is the power of divine hiddenness. They both have believers that fervently insist that they have evidence, good evidence for their beliefs, but both are completely unable to actually present it in a manner that is able to convince those who don’t already believe. As for your “square circle” contradiction, again, I don’t think you have spent much time listening to Christian apologetics. Contradictions in the Bible that are clear and obvious to you and me are just swept away as being, "Well both are true so they aren’t a contradiction". I also don’t agree that just because a claim doesn’t have a logical contradiction doesn’t mean that its probability suddenly becomes non-zero. I will agree with your redhead alien on the moon point though. The more specific properties you make for you claim, the less likely that claim is to be true. Which gets us back to evidence. I don’t normally quote others but “Claims of evidence are not the same thing as evidence. Until the evidence is actually in evidence, the position that there is no evidence is the one supported by the evidence.” JREF PixyMisa So for your final conclusion 1) The "prior probability of magical being claims being true as being extraordinarily low" is the fact we have zero examples. What is odds of winning the Nevada state lottery? We know lotteries exists, but since there is zero evidence that there is a lottery in Nevada, does that make the possibility that someone has won it non-zero? 2) Of course the probability of claims of evidence for magical beings is NOT only not extraordinarily higher it is in fact indistinguishable from people just making shit up. The error is in trying to assign probabilities to each side, true or false, to a claim for which there is no warrant for making a probability assessment in the first place.
I felt like I was back in middle school with that linguistics lesson and I loved it! I had a teacher that would explain seemingly obvious things like this that we just take for granted and don't really think about that much and it is so important to understand to to have just that little deeper understanding if we are to avoid making even more obvious mistakes or to correct them lest we be stomped by what just happened and only feel like something is wrong without being able to articulate what that something is And eh, I had the most amazing teacher I can imagine. He is funny, smart, interested in, as far as I know, everything and super patient and kind. He looked like Aron Ra and was often as rude (and funny - not very insulting; more confronting)) as Aron when his patience was tested. When I went to high school I had the easiest time because I was ahead in everything and it was like I was still in middle school, listening to teachers explain something for the millionth time to students who still didn't understand, except, for the other students in high school it was all new and for me only little of it was and that exhilarated me every time. That middle school teacher didn't just teach me arithmetics and grammar, but the joy of learning and having knowledge. I do wish he had taught us some critical thinking as well instead of just saying not to believe everything we read in the newspapers.
@@JosephKano This is not something you can get into a sound bite or 200 characters. Alas I'll try, If you can get over "orange-man-bad" and the extremely bias news outlets it may be possible for you to see the good that he has done while in office. There is quite a long list. In 2012, he was not hillary. In 2020, the only people the democrats can put in front are a communist and a senile old man. This is on top of politics that take freedom away from much of the population. I'm on the rural side of the whole rural vs. urban debate. I am a liberal in civil rights and a conservative in most other areas, NOT a progressive. Trump is not perfect but he has been doing a great job in the White House relieving burdensome legislation which opens up our economy to prosper. If you want to know what the "green deal" would do for our economy, well look out the window. To sum up why I support Trump, he stands on the same side of the issues as I do. He is not my first pick but the absolute best of the choices out there. Just notice the outlets like MSNBC and CNN are opposed to what Trump does no matter what he does. Recognize that and dig deeper into the issues and you may come out in the middle.
"It's not true that extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence to believe" (paraphrased badly) he is right in his specificity, no evidence is required to believe. He doesn't care about it being evidenced and/or demonstrable, he just cares about belief in the claim.
It is very simple. If someone claims that he/she has a girl/boyfriend, then I tend to believe such a normal, common claim without thinking twice about it. If someone claims that he/she has an invisible magical, all mighty, all knowing daddy-friend, then I do want to see very hard proof for such a weird and abnormal claim.
That lottery analogy was spot on. Long, but excellent way to explain good great and corroborating evidece vis a vis the extraordinariness of a claim. In the future, you might also wanna mention different levels of payout... 5$ winner vs 500$ vs 10k vs multi million bucks...
I always thought of this idea as being about evidential precedent. The more instances of quality evidence you have for a class of things, the more ordinary a new claim within that class of things becomes, and the less evidence is needed to warrant belief in such a claim. Correspondingly, when a new claim is made regarding a thing that belongs to a class of things with few to no instances of quality evidence, substantial quanities of higher quality evidence are needed to warrant belief.
If i told WLG my brother was trumping on a trampoline in the backyard, he'd probably believe me and not care. If i told him my brother was flying around the backyard unassisted, just super manning around in the air. He wouldn't just believe my claim and require more proof. To me, this is what Carl Sagan meant.
I might have a good one: Claims with high ontological cost require high epistemic justification. I think this version should clear up what we mean, at least when talking in philosophy.
wow. craig saying extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence is "demonstrably false" made me cringe. is he sincerely that dumb, or is this disgusting calculated sophistry to score points for his apologist/kalam camp
Well, in a sense he's right. You _can_ believe highly improbable things without highly surprising evidence. It's irrational, and you're likely to wind up believing things that are false, but you _can_ do it.
How the hell does WLC even have a career when all of his arguments are completely debunked by RUclipsrs and philosophy enthusiasts. What would full time philosophers/scientists do to his arguments.
Craig knows what the phrase means; there's no way he doesn't. This is how everyone navigates their daily lives. He's being intentionally obtuse in order to assure his audience that their beliefs are safe.
The lottery ticket example is very deceptive. Craig says that the selection of a winning number N is unlikely because he's talking about the specific number, but then when he says the announcement is mundane, he tries to switch to just talking about an announcement of *any* winning number. The announcement of that specific number N *is* extremely unlikely and counts as good evidence.
I team this up with two other equally important sayings, so... Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you can't show it, you don't know it. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Extraordinary claims don't require extraordinary evidence? Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy. Ooohh Billy Billy Billy, this is a biggie. Don't let me down, Billy,
Perhaps the most serious problem with "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is that it's too ambiguous and different people mean different things when using the phrase.
The typical adult conservative Xian has believed in the magical sky day all his life, has created a family based on this belief, his friends all believe this way, he might even have a business dependent on this belief. To him the thought of no god definitely WOULD be an extraordinary claim. I can see that. Not that I agree.
All claims require sufficient evidence. What qualifies as sufficient will change from one circumstance to the next. Not exactly a slogan, or all that helpful, but it seems accurate
I'm so glad this video exists. I cant believe how many Christians just cannot wrap their head around this concept. If they still can't after watching this video, then there's no hope.
I think Craig was saying that *those specific numbers* coming up is the improbable event that you're willing to believe with little evidence, not that someone had won the lottery. My answer to this interpretation of Craig is that we accept the claim that those numbers came up because the numbers dont affect us. If we were holding a lottery ticket that matched the numbers, we would probably want to confirm them from multiple sources.
@08:00 love that slippery slope Craig has put himself on, is he contending that lots of people were liable to be resurrected in the first century and so the claims about a particular one was merely probabilistically par for the course ...
Yes. I would wear a Tee that had that much text on it. I had, more or less, reached the same point you make about Sagan's slogan. However, you put the fine point on it that I hadn't committed to as yet. Thank you.
For Dr. Craig's convenience: Exraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence = Claims of things that I do not perceive as usual require evidence that has sufficient claim-affirming properties to overcome my pre-evidential assessment in order for me to personally become convinced of said claim.
Dr. Lake's greatest talent is to come up with an alternative interpretation of the phrase, that nobody would have considered, but that would make his argument look better.
I would like to quibble a detail. At the beginning the Sagen quote is "extraordinary claims are not supported by extraordinary evidence" A quote that I see as anathema to "extrodinary claims require extraordinary evidence" So... Craig agrees with Sagen?
@Never-ending party so, forgetting your ignorant strawman of naturalistic processes for a second, what makes you think morality stems from a Biblical God who condoned slavery and sexism, and ordered people to kill babies - when we have a more parsimonious explanation of how morality evolved through natural environmental pressures? God is the extraordinary claim, because we have a simpler natural explanation that tallies with the data, and the bible is just an incoherent mess.
I do not know how is that hard to expect a God should have godly evidence. At least I expect any existent God, willing to be known, can understand that.
CheapPhilosophy: Why does an all-knowing and all-powerful god need his honour defended by such sloppy apologetics? A simple question to which I have yet to recieve a sufficient answer. 🤔
Your statement doesn't make sense. I don't understand the term "evidence stacking". If you mean a large stack of evidence then what does that have to do with consilience (agreement between the approaches to a topic of different academic subjects)? If you mean stacking the deck (cherry picking) then that seems to have even less to do with consilience. Care to explain?
@@AndyAlegria At about 11:20 or so, Paulogia mentions briefly that independent sources of evidence can 'stack' to create better support. I was just expressing admiration for a word that encompasses that idea. In my experience, and in the context of debating young earth creationists, consilience is an important concept to have to hand. Evolution via natural selection was, for many in the 19th century, an extraordinary claim. As different sources of evidence all brought support for the idea (especially after Mendel's work was revisited in the early 20th century) virtually all scientists were convinced by the consilience of evidence. Similarly, for many modern people, the idea that humans have the power to change the climate on a planetary scale is an extraordinary claim. Consilience of evidence from many independent sources is why virtually all scientists are convinced that anthropogenic climate change is occurring. I hope this clarifies my intent. Have a great day!
If one makes an equivocal assertion based on personal belief rather than substantiating evidence, one insults the intelligence of his fellows , and loses their respect and esteem.
As I already saw one video on this claim I considered not watching this one, but I'm glad I did. Good job analyzing and explaining the nuance and meaning of what the phrase says and how it's usage might be considered controversial. It also highlights that a saying, not matter how pithy or witty, is not likely to turn the tide in a rational argument. It gets to the heart of an issue when that saying is ineffective in arguing over say, the plausibility of the resurrection claim. For a Christian the resurrection is more plausible because they believe in a God that could and would perform it. I might argue that they don't even consider the resurrection as extraordinary, but that's another argument, and it highlights that there are subjective elements in the phrase. All that said, it would be interesting to question Dr. Craig about the "extraordinary claim" of the big bang theory.
If you tell me you've got an aquarium at home, i don;t need too much evidence to believe that. If you tell me your car out in the parking lot is hovering 3 feet off the ground, seemingly in thin air, then I'm gonna need a LOT of evidence to believe that; the claim is just too improbable without extensive ("extraordinary") evidence.
Craig is considered an expert and knowledgeable because he is eloquent and uses big/fancy words. Lots of mumbo jumbo. It's like reading "Dune". Reads awesome, but if you analyze what's said too closely it is mumbo jumbo.
Excellent video. My personal problem with Craig's lottery example is that the lottery is something that occurs regularly. So, even though it is probabilistically unlikely that any single person will win, you can actually calculate the probability. There is also more than one instance of people "winning" and it ordinarily happens on a regular basis. Thus, there is an actual 'n' greater than one that can be inserted into the probability calculation. On the other hand, there is no actual forensically documented evidence of resurrection from the dead. Christians rely on a Bible that presents second and third-hand evidence as well as hearsay evidence to justify the claim that Christ's resurrection actually happened. Thus, the single most out-of-the-ordinary event is backed up by the least credible evidence.
I would amend it to "Claims of extraordinarily unlikely events require extraordinarily good evidence". Extraordinarily unlikely events happen all the time, but if your explanation of something you believe relies on the claim that a specific, but extraordinarily unlikely event happened, you need some extraordinarily good evidence for that event.
Sagan's point is that if you hear hooves on the street behind you, leaping to the conclusion that you're hearing a centaur is going to require a lot more support than a claim that you're hearing a horse to be believable.
Amazingly Craig is seen as a leading apologist.
Boy is that a low bar.
When you consider religion is ignorant idiots going around making up stuff in order to convince even lessor individuals of an imagined explanation to things they willingly admit to not knowing, yeah the bar is low.
In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king.
Apologetics is not really a high artform. Except to those dabbling in it. Making up excuses why an irrational belief isn't that irrational is not impressive to anybody but those that WANT the belief to be rational.
@@derekallen4568 no.
In the land of the blind the man with one eye is an outcast.
He talks real fancy like. That's good enough for most folks I guess.
There's a simple thought experiment I use concerning this issue:
-What if i told you there was cat in my back yard last night? You wouldn't generally need much evidence to believe this because we know cats exist, are common and can sometimes be found in people's yards. You might even simply take my word for it...and that would not be unreasonable.
-What if i told you there was a tiger in my back yard last night? This would require more substantial evidence to believe because tigers are far less common and are (almost) never found in anyone's yard. However, we do know tigers exist and a circumstance resulting in a tiger in someone's yard is possible.
-What if I told you there was a dragon in my back yard last night? This claim would require extremely substantial evidence to believe because dragons have not been established to exist anywhere, let alone in anyone's yard.
Depends where you live buddy.
ruclips.net/video/gA_m4reQjnQ/видео.html
@@jt2097 I refuse to click your mysterious link!
@@stiimuli it is a you tube video of Two dragons fighting in Indonesia.
If someone told you there was a tiger in there backyard in India it would be quite believable. If someone told you there was a dragon in their backyard in Indonesia it would be quite believable. It is contingent. If someone told you that an intelligence had terra formed earth and seeded life here it is quite believable because it is here, you can observe and experience it. And the other possibility, that it either made itself or just popped up from nowhere, for no reason, is every bit as extraordinary.
@@jt2097 strawman much?
@@jt2097
1) That's obviously not the kind of 'dragon' i was referring to. That said, even in India and Indonesia a komodo or tiger in someone's back yard is far less likely than a cat and therefor would require more substantial evidence. My point remains.
2) I'm sorry, where exactly have you or anyone else observed/experienced an "intelligence" (including humans) forming the earth or seeding life in the same context theists claim a god has?
3) The usual straw men of "made itself" and "popped up from nowhere" aside (its actually theists that believe things pop up from nowhere via magic), the "other possibility" you seem to be referring to is far more likely. Physical atomic, chemical and biological processes are *THE ONLY* mechanisms we have example of forming and causing anything. We see these processes every day while having *NOT EVEN A SINGLE* example of any god doing anything at all (even existing). This alone makes physical processes a far more likely explanation for life and the earth (and even the universe itself). Add to that the fact that we have already filled in a significant portion of the puzzle of how life and planets can form and the case for natural processes over an *ENTIRELY UNKNOWN AND UNOBSERVED* supernatural process is staggeringly one-sided.
4) Why does there have to be a reason for these things to form beyond the natural way things work? Does a raindrop form for any 'reason' beyond specific physical conditions? Does a river need a reason? Does a mountain or a star or a galaxy? They form because they can.
Literally the first time I watched WLC say “extraordinary claims don’t require extraordinary evidence”, my soul left my body from the amount of idiocy behind that statement.
I used to be a Christian and when I learned about how “there has to be good and demonstrable evidence for, say, the existence for God”, it broke my faith because I knew that my faith was just that, faith.
In that case, If I showed Christianity to be true, would you become a Christian by repenting your sins to obtain salvation?"
Meerkat SK5
Nice idea...
But you can’t do it
@@bazstrutt8247 Yes, for you I can't because I found out that your answer would be NO.
Meerkat SK5
You can’t do it without relying on fallacious arguments...
That’s why it’s called faith...
You accept it on faith...
Take it on faith...
you gullible moron
Never-ending party
God has never been observed...
Numb nuts
Christians react to this claim as if we said "The ugliest person has to carry the heaviest box." They're thinking, "You just insulted me and are forcing me to do more work?
Ha! Love it
@Papa Smurf I'm not saying that the moon is far away "because someone smart said so", it's because that smart person gave me verifiable information and data independent of them.
I see it more like :
claims of a blue seas demand evidence of Blue dolphins.
Can't I just evidence it a different way?
No! It must fit my standard that I JUST GAVE YOU, NOTHING LESS.
Geez.... ok whatever, keeping thinking the sea is whatever color you think it is then, I'm out.
@Papa Smurf right on bro, not even things Atheists claim are empirically proven are not immune to skepticism. I think it's why no A single person has yet given me a real world example of an atheist version of "extraordinary evidence." Even Sagan, their messiah, in his quote was actually calling videographic evidence of UFOS "EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE" WHICH NO ATHEIST EVEN AGREES WITH.
@@JoshHerbel wow, that didn't even make sense. What part of a blue ocean requires blue dolphins? How would that be sufficient evidence? Even if there were blue dolphins, that wouldn't prove the ocean is blue. That's not the kind of evidence we're asking for and no, you don't get to just explain it the way you want to and have that be good enough. Did you even watch the video you are commenting on? Paul broke the quote down to its constituent parts, fleshed them out and then recombined them into a statement that is more precise but still conveys the same sentiment. You simply cannot expect to make a claim that is so far outside the norm and the expect people will believe you when you provide either no evidence or poor evidence. The evidence must fit the claim and in the question of any god's existence, the evidence is nowhere near sufficient.
I once silenced WLC in an argument by uttering only two words. He was so mortified he had to flee the scene. You know this must have happened because it's such an extraordinary claim that it requires no evidence.
Not so unbelievable - you just have to use the two words ‘I’m qualified’ (ignoring the contraction :) )
"Dick butt"
He couldnt argue against dick butt
Extraordinary claims require sufficient evidence, just like everything else.
@AT87 Logic doesn't require evidence.
AT87 Could you explain what classical logic is, its assumptions, and what contradictions you think it implies?
The weight of evidence.
Adam and eve was real. Where is the sufficient evidence?.
That means, by definition, extraordinary. In the case of making a claim that goes against an entire scientific discipline for example the evidence would have to be equal to of greater than the evidence for the original position. That doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of evidence - just so,etching that would have been considered extraordinary in the first paradigm. Einstein overcoming Newton for example only required the observation of a star behind a single solar eclipse. But the evidence itself would have been something bot even conceivable to Newton and those that used his mechanics between the 17th century and Einstein. It was a single point of evidence - but one that shook their entire scientific rationale.
William lane Craig is the definition of saying a lot about NOTHING
@David Parry HE would be destroyed by real Philosophers and Epistomology without having to claim "faith"
And acting incredulous...which Sean Carroll dealt with appropriately
Agreed. He says an awful lot about nothing, with zero evidence to support his meaningless nothingness!
Theists think he is providing evidence. Simpletons.
William Lame Graig's claim to fame is the resurrection of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (to which he then adds... So it (the cause) must be *my* god)
So even his fame is the result of plagiarism.
All Sagan was saying that the more unusual a claim, the stronger the evidence should be so we can be confident it is an exception to the expected.
- You have a pet dog? Who doesn't?
- You have a pet tiger? Wow -- that's really unusual. Tigers are real animals, so this is plausible, but very rarely kept as pets. Can I hear more about how this came about?
- You have a pet dragon? Um... those are generally not considered real. I think I'm gonna need to see this creature for myself.
- You have a pet poltergeist that is not only invisible but intangible? I'm curious how you even begin to demonstrate this is true.
Flawless description. I’d give this two likes if I could.
I miss Christopher Hitchens and Carl Sagan.
@Never-ending party I know you meant liars.
@Never-ending party You need to provide some extraordinary evidence for that debunked claim.
I don't miss Hitchens much. He was kind of an ass.
Sagan, however, was a remarkable human being.
@Never-ending party Let me upgrade my previous statement. You are a fucking idiot. Both were intellectual giants. You on the other hand are an intellectual midget. But I'm sure you god thinks you're doing a wonderful job.
Me too, your remainders are embarrassimg.
It seems that making extraordinary claims on RUclips requires disabled comments.
I have noted this as well😊. Ine extreme cases, the comments are censored; it's fishy.
@G Will Given how the RUclips algorithm works, I'd say that's a good thing.
It might work to put Sagan's claim on the front of a t-shirt (fully attributed) with an asterisk. Then, put Paul's expanded version on the back!!!
I was thinking the same xD
I like that
Ohhh I like that. Although it might require a Shirt (for the front) with a Cape (for the backside) to fit :D
@Never-ending party no its not dude. Claiming that real life Pokemon do not exist is not an extraordinary claim. There is absolutely no evidence that your God exists! None whatever.
What is your evidence that God exists????
You don't even understand physics in the first place!!! If you actually understood physics you would understand how matter exists, but you don't.
And again it's not even a conversation because you do not know what you are talking about. You keep using that same damn line and it makes you look incredibly stupid.
@Never-ending party It's rather more extraordinary to claim there is a timeless omnipotent being who needs worship from finite creatures.
Why does WLC remind me of Vizzini? “Inconceivable!”
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means, Billy.
That is actually a great comparison. WLC also often says things where i believe they do not mean what he thinks they mean. Like Atheism.
For those who said they indeed wanted a shirt. (Sagan on the front, and expended Paulogia version on the back.) teespring.com/extraordinary-claims-exp
Just ordered one for me and one for my wife! Cheers.
Is there somewhere I can see what the difference is between Regular Tee, Triblend Tee, Comfort Tee and Premium Tee?
I can't find that anywhere on the webpage
@Logical Musicman That text is on the back of the T-shirt, took me a little to notice that too :)
@Logical Musicman that's on the back of the shirt! :)
I watched this video several months ago and then recently watched it again. I will likely watch it several more times. It is one of your best. Your presentation and discussion is so very clear, intelligent, and informative. Also, your kind, generous, and polite nature are always in evidence. The claim that extraordinary evidence requires extraordinary evidence is really a cornerstone of practical reason. No one has done a better job than you in dissecting and explaining this aphorism. I send people to this video as being a basic part of their education in how to think.
I am always a bit amazed that you could ever have been a devout Christian who defended the nonsense that you now do such a good job of refuting. I wonder how it came to be that your mind finally clicked into a position where you could actually allow yourself to think with some of the clarity that you now exhibit. Anyway, thank you for your work.
I really do love the way in which you pick through these arguments in order to show how their self evident certainty is based on clever rhetorical tricks, sloppy thinking, and glib assumptions
I'd buy that T-Shirt
Me too, if the translation is on the back (i.e. the reverse side when normally worn, not the other side of the same piece of fabric) of said T-shirt: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
teespring.com/extraordinary-claims-exp
@@Paulogia YES!!!!;;
YES! T-shirt is on its way. I’ll wear it backwards 😀
@5:30 "...prevented to believe the many, ordinary but highly improbable events, that happens every day."
However improbable, the ordinary can not be called extraordinary.
However probable, what happens only once, can be called extraordinary.
O yea! tee-shirt definitely required.
I would definitely buy that T-shirt, in all its glory.
teespring.com/extraordinary-claims-exp
@@Paulogia Just placed the order, proud to support your efforts.
Jerry Covington the Bible has a bunch of extraordinary evidence called PROPHECY to support its supernatural claims watch this video where I show you
ruclips.net/video/oYLf9wGSUzA/видео.html
And this video
ruclips.net/video/fyIs5u4sb18/видео.html
@@gospelhand291 Oh how ignorant you really are. Sad really, people like you revival in their ignorance.
If we want something accurate on a T-shirt slogan level, and since the kind of argument this is usually thrown at isn't even trying, how about:
_I need better evidence than what you've got._
How about:
“If you can’t give me enough money to buy a jet, that’s fine. But don’t tell me that buying a wagon is enough to get to Australia.”
(Hope that’s clear what I mean)
I’ve seen multiple apologists claim that this mantra has been “debunked many times”, and I’ve wondered every time what the hell they were talking about. It took a video from Cold Case Christianity for me to realize that they were debunking a strawman. This video is a fantastic explanation of what the mantra really means and I love the part where you show that it equally applies to apologists as well, nice job Paulogia.
do you please have a link for Cold Case vedio?
Here’s the video I watched.
ruclips.net/video/UcqeQG5l3Yk/видео.html
He starts talking about the Extraordinary Claims mantra around 4:10.
@@retravoh thanks so much for this . I will watch it now. Cheers!
@@retravoh oopsI noted that they have disabled comments. I am demotivated by watching such christian channels; feeling that I will waste my time. I simply can't haaa. I feel like they are hiding something. Thanks so much for sharing link. Cheers
Carl Sagan was a great man he will be forever missed
Any misunderstanding of this phraseology is wilful.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to make a man understand a thing when his livelihood depends on him not understanding that thing. Billy Craig in a nut-shell.
@@walterbrooks2329 When religion relies on and encourages the use of fallacies, we can only expect its apologists to become skillful manipulators.
Paul's lottery discussion is exactly what I would have argued. Highly improbable that a given individual will win the big prize, but not that some individual could win the prize given the number of participants.
Always blow my mind when apologist argue probability. Its impossible to determine probability without first demonstrating possibility. What are the chances I roll a 6 twice? The right answer is "what kind of die?"
The d4. (Dungeons & Dragons reference) 😂
Even a deluded parent is more likely to believe the claim that their child misbehaved than the claim that their child sprouted wings and started flying around the classroom. Apologetics should really be called grasping at straws. How can people take WLC’s arguments seriously?
WLC is proof you can come back from the dead being Sean Carroll destroyed him a few years ago.
Never-ending party christianity is fact-free mumbo jumbo and your reply shows that!
@Never-ending party lol ok Boomer
@Never-ending party I already clearly illustrated while you're an idiot that's why you're ignoring me
@Never-ending party I'll agree atheism has no answers because it is the state of not being convinced of the claim that God exists. If I claim I'm a pink elephant who flies and you are unconvinced of that claim, does your being unconvinced answer any questions?
I wonder, what should I consider convincing justification to support the claim that God exists? What justification has you convinced above all others?
@Never-ending party You believe, "Christianity has ALL the facts." OK. Produce one that proves the existence of God. At the very least, one fact that strongly supports the existence of God.
Great video, Paul! Your explanation of Dr. Sagan's quote helped me to look at other ways to use that statement. Thanks!
I'm someone who is condescendingly underwhelmed by everything and remark on any new experience with sarcasm - I am person G
I this of this as follows: If someone claims that there is a horse in a pasture, and they show me a hoof-print, I have a reasonable basis to assume there is in fact a hoarse in the area; however, say someone claims there is a unicorn in the area and then provides a hoof-print as evidence, unsurprisingly, I would remain unconvinced of a unicorn's existence. In the latter example, the extrodiarny claim (of there being a unicorn) requires significantly more convincing evidence than the claim that there is a horse. The extraordinary claim requires evidence beyond a normal standard.
A caller to The Atheist Experience once told Matt Dillahunty that there was nothing "extraordinary" about claiming there is a god because such a large majority of people on Earth believe it. No kidding, that was the extent of the caller's grasp on "logic."
That's the danger in teaching "common sense," as opposed to "discerning logic."
I think the guy was just slow. If you use "ordinary" just as "what is commonplace or standard", that is kind of true. It is commonplace that people make claims of the existence of a god. The extraordinary thing is the existence itself, so I can understand why a slow caller could get it wrong
unfortunately, that anecdote is far from extraordinary....
@@intellectualiconoclasm3264 I've noticed that pretty much everyone who resorts to "common sense" does so because they lack evidence for their position and want to hide behind its popularity. It's amazing at how many things are "common sense" which have no actual basis in reality.
@@johnjamele I disagree with your assessment of motive. I used to think like that, I litterally couldn't fathom how one could live without my God or see Their necessity for creation. I had intelligent friends write me off is stupid or dishonest because I was litterally unable to comprehend their points. Secondary to that was their use of "If you don't understand this argument that works/ed for me than you're lying or just simply dumb." Or my perception that was their conclusion. Sometimes it was their conclusion, sometimes it was my perception, and othertimes it was my projection.
It took a lot of intent to broaden my ability understand the motives behind the arguments of others. A whole lot to get to a place where I chose those handle to express my motives and methods. I had to become the iconoclast of my own understanding and tear it back to logical bedrock. It was only when I was able to see the flaws and just bad assumptions I'd based understanding around to see how I came to such incorrect conclusions. Seeing them showed me other false conclusions on and on until I saw what a caricature and dishonest interlocutor I must have seemed. I was genuine in my dealings and discussions but I wasn't capable before.
I know it sounds like I'm bragging about my humility but I swear I'm not. It's just to show that any other person can go there and leave others with a similar perception. Them of me, you of others, ME OF OTHERS.
To tie this to logic and common sense, common sense for the common heard. No blast, it's just that we normalize our views and understanding to the rest of our in-group. It's a survival adaptation. What's common sense in Central India isn't in Central Pakistan and isn't Westerner Afghanistan. Further, what's common sense in the Pacific NW, Southern California, Mid-West, South, Northeast, and for Florida Man are ALL different in one nation. So it really is only common in your particular heard. And many of them have been indoctrinated from birth to have heuristic dead-ends to "So therefore God, and if you can't see that you're an agent of The Devil." They have such strongly touted neural pathways they are incapable of comprehending an argument of diamond hard logic. The hammer of faith smashes it and that's proof: "It wasn't ever a real diamond. Everyone knows diamonds are super hard and hard things don't break easily." Common sense vs. basic knowledge about the distinctions of hard, strong, tough, and resilient. Once they get the correct understanding of meanings and they can see the entire basement was invalid.
That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Carl Sagan popularized this as "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", which later came to be known as the Sagan standard. It is derived from Pierre-Simon de Laplace's "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."
😖 Whenever I hear WLC attempting to defend the indefensible I reach for my metaphysical gun. He is a master of creating linguistic confusion through his love of word salads. As for his explanation of probability, it was so mangled as to be incomprehensible. Then there is the example of the lottery. In what context would anyone need faith or belief to understand what a lottery is and how it works? There is no such context. There is nothing extraordinary about a lottery, whatever innumerate people might claim. It would be extraordinary if I listed the winning numbers on the day BEFORE the lottery draw, given the very long odds against my achieving such a result. Any explanation of that would have to be extraordinary of itself, and highly unusual. Likewise any suggestion that SETI has received a message from a distant galaxy needs to be corroborated by a high degree of scientific evidence and not merely the opinion of an astronomer. Carl Sagan was a highly literate man with a facility in language that made understanding him become so much easier. The likes of WLC and other religionists cannot abide being held to account in such a pithy manner, so they flounder around in a slush of verbiage. We have no need to explain what Carl Sagan meant. It is quite clear.
Sir Meow The Library Cat Craig’s words seek only to obfuscate, while Sagan’s words were to elucidate. Craig is so frustrating. I know it’s wrong to assume intent, but WLC has exhausted all goodwill I had towards him.
Well said sir. One upvote from me
@Never-ending party I don't really care about all that, 'The Great Green Alien' might have caused that fine tuning just as well, and you can't prove that was the case any more than you can prove the biblical god did. I'm much more interested in how you get from your fine tuning claim to a personal god that revealed itself thousands of years ago to primitive men. Why do you believe what they wrote?
Carl Sagan paraphrased from David Hume, who wrote, "A wise man proportions his beliefs to the evidence at hand."
Great video! Sagan was a kind and intelligent communicator.
I would not trust WLC to teach me statistics.
Sadly, I wouldn’t trust WLC to clean my cat’s litter box. The world needs more people like Sagan.
One of your most thorough and compelling explanations yet. Keep up the good work
thank you, jon
Your videos are the best!
I appreciate that, Steven.
Bayes’ Theorem captures these relations perfectly.
Only if you can calculate or measure the probabilities on the right-hand side of the equation. With questions such as those likely to be discussed here, however, you have to guess at those probabilities, so Bayes' Theorem is worse than useless.
@@michaelsommers2356 Graig seems to loosely refer to Bayes, but he never actually finishes that point. Because, as you point out, he can't.
@Brandon Dickens You are probably right that that was his point, but I tend to act reflexively when someone tries to use Bayes to prove something such as the existence or non-existence of Jesus, or anything else of that nature.
The probably of the existence of one magical being from another realm for which there is no evidence is the same for any other magical being from another realm for which there is no evidence. That does not mean that there are no other realms containing magical beings, it is just that you can't apply a probability, and you most certainly can't say "Therefore the Bible is true" is a more likely probability than for any other story that is indistinguishable from just making shit up.
@Brandon Dickens I sort of agree with your point, but I think you also fail to understand the power of cognitive dissonance and the apologetics mind. Take Yahweh and Bigfoot. They are clearly completely different classes of beings. Heck we even know that new species of life are discovered all the time. What both entities have though is the power of divine hiddenness. They both have believers that fervently insist that they have evidence, good evidence for their beliefs, but both are completely unable to actually present it in a manner that is able to convince those who don’t already believe.
As for your “square circle” contradiction, again, I don’t think you have spent much time listening to Christian apologetics. Contradictions in the Bible that are clear and obvious to you and me are just swept away as being, "Well both are true so they aren’t a contradiction". I also don’t agree that just because a claim doesn’t have a logical contradiction doesn’t mean that its probability suddenly becomes non-zero.
I will agree with your redhead alien on the moon point though. The more specific properties you make for you claim, the less likely that claim is to be true.
Which gets us back to evidence. I don’t normally quote others but
“Claims of evidence are not the same thing as evidence. Until the evidence is actually in evidence, the position that there is no evidence is the one supported by the evidence.”
JREF PixyMisa
So for your final conclusion
1) The "prior probability of magical being claims being true as being extraordinarily low" is the fact we have zero examples. What is odds of winning the Nevada state lottery? We know lotteries exists, but since there is zero evidence that there is a lottery in Nevada, does that make the possibility that someone has won it non-zero?
2) Of course the probability of claims of evidence for magical beings is NOT only not extraordinarily higher it is in fact indistinguishable from people just making shit up. The error is in trying to assign probabilities to each side, true or false, to a claim for which there is no warrant for making a probability assessment in the first place.
I felt like I was back in middle school with that linguistics lesson and I loved it! I had a teacher that would explain seemingly obvious things like this that we just take for granted and don't really think about that much and it is so important to understand to to have just that little deeper understanding if we are to avoid making even more obvious mistakes or to correct them lest we be stomped by what just happened and only feel like something is wrong without being able to articulate what that something is
And eh, I had the most amazing teacher I can imagine. He is funny, smart, interested in, as far as I know, everything and super patient and kind. He looked like Aron Ra and was often as rude (and funny - not very insulting; more confronting)) as Aron when his patience was tested. When I went to high school I had the easiest time because I was ahead in everything and it was like I was still in middle school, listening to teachers explain something for the millionth time to students who still didn't understand, except, for the other students in high school it was all new and for me only little of it was and that exhilarated me every time. That middle school teacher didn't just teach me arithmetics and grammar, but the joy of learning and having knowledge. I do wish he had taught us some critical thinking as well instead of just saying not to believe everything we read in the newspapers.
More and more I see any religious person on the same level as flatearthers.
When you start believing things with out evidence, you can believe any nonsense. (See Trump supporters.)
@@SundayMatinee Sorry, you diverged there. I'm a highly educated atheist, and Trump supporter. It happens, more often than you want to admit.
@@lhurst9550 serious question. Why?
@@JosephKano This is not something you can get into a sound bite or 200 characters. Alas I'll try, If you can get over "orange-man-bad" and the extremely bias news outlets it may be possible for you to see the good that he has done while in office. There is quite a long list. In 2012, he was not hillary. In 2020, the only people the democrats can put in front are a communist and a senile old man. This is on top of politics that take freedom away from much of the population. I'm on the rural side of the whole rural vs. urban debate.
I am a liberal in civil rights and a conservative in most other areas, NOT a progressive. Trump is not perfect but he has been doing a great job in the White House relieving burdensome legislation which opens up our economy to prosper. If you want to know what the "green deal" would do for our economy, well look out the window. To sum up why I support Trump, he stands on the same side of the issues as I do. He is not my first pick but the absolute best of the choices out there.
Just notice the outlets like MSNBC and CNN are opposed to what Trump does no matter what he does. Recognize that and dig deeper into the issues and you may come out in the middle.
Paul....these videos just keep getting better. You have a great way of simplifying arguments down to their core fallacies/errors
WLC is so smooth talking he could make sound good to eat shiiit
JUST like mom used to make! lol
With or without Corn is what we want to know.
No matter how smooth talking he is, he's still full of crap. No amount of smooth talking makes his beliefs true.
@@jesuswasahermetic5871 With! (of course) ;)
@@robsaxepga But it can make it sound believable, which is pretty dangerous.
I don't know what that little tune at the start is, but I find it incredibly wholesome, especially combined with the image of the fjord.
WLC reminds me of Ned Flanders..
Check out Tim McGrew!
Unfair to Flanders. He’s at least funny
"It's not true that extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence to believe" (paraphrased badly) he is right in his specificity, no evidence is required to believe. He doesn't care about it being evidenced and/or demonstrable, he just cares about belief in the claim.
@Never-ending party a supernatural being made everything. Sure. Ok. Evidence please.
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence... *FACT*
Except where religion is concerned.
@@55Quirll lol
I freakin' love the intro music.
The odds of the universe and life is 1 because it happened.
Not how math works
It is very simple. If someone claims that he/she has a girl/boyfriend, then I tend to believe such a normal, common claim without thinking twice about it.
If someone claims that he/she has an invisible magical, all mighty, all knowing daddy-friend, then I do want to see very hard proof for such a weird and abnormal claim.
Second :(
Rip
Boring
You are fn amazing Paul. Stay safe...n be well.
Yes Paul - front side long version, Sagan quote on the back!
I really, really like it when Paulogia takes on WLC. WLC's flawed thinking needs to be pointed out over and over again.
That lottery analogy was spot on. Long, but excellent way to explain good great and corroborating evidece vis a vis the extraordinariness of a claim.
In the future, you might also wanna mention different levels of payout... 5$ winner vs 500$ vs 10k vs multi million bucks...
If I understood it right, Sagan"s slogan is not a methodological principle but just an obvious remark about the psicology of human beliefs!
I always thought of this idea as being about evidential precedent. The more instances of quality evidence you have for a class of things, the more ordinary a new claim within that class of things becomes, and the less evidence is needed to warrant belief in such a claim. Correspondingly, when a new claim is made regarding a thing that belongs to a class of things with few to no instances of quality evidence, substantial quanities of higher quality evidence are needed to warrant belief.
If i told WLG my brother was trumping on a trampoline in the backyard, he'd probably believe me and not care. If i told him my brother was flying around the backyard unassisted, just super manning around in the air. He wouldn't just believe my claim and require more proof. To me, this is what Carl Sagan meant.
I might have a good one:
Claims with high ontological cost require high epistemic justification.
I think this version should clear up what we mean, at least when talking in philosophy.
I love that the green "evidence required" line is literally off the charts for convincing Mr. Craig.. hits close to home.
I would TOTALLY wear that on a shirt, Paul. 🤣🤣🥰🥰
wow. craig saying extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence is "demonstrably false" made me cringe. is he sincerely that dumb, or is this disgusting calculated sophistry to score points for his apologist/kalam camp
Well, in a sense he's right. You _can_ believe highly improbable things without highly surprising evidence. It's irrational, and you're likely to wind up believing things that are false, but you _can_ do it.
I love the new slogan suggestion!
bro i got an ad at 0:04 and then another ad at 0:11... i mean I'm glad you're getting ads again paul but damn! lol
There's a similar saying which I feel is applicable to our current situation: If you fail to prepare you prepare to fail.
Another excellent video Paul. I very much enjoy and appreciate your content.
How the hell does WLC even have a career when all of his arguments are completely debunked by RUclipsrs and philosophy enthusiasts. What would full time philosophers/scientists do to his arguments.
Craig knows what the phrase means; there's no way he doesn't. This is how everyone navigates their daily lives. He's being intentionally obtuse in order to assure his audience that their beliefs are safe.
The lottery ticket example is very deceptive. Craig says that the selection of a winning number N is unlikely because he's talking about the specific number, but then when he says the announcement is mundane, he tries to switch to just talking about an announcement of *any* winning number. The announcement of that specific number N *is* extremely unlikely and counts as good evidence.
I team this up with two other equally important sayings, so...
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
If you can't show it, you don't know it.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
I find myself coming back to this video every few months thinking to myself this time I'm gonna really understand this one
Wait a minute! Paulogia are you a teacher, I mean you just explained this so easily, much better
Extraordinary claims don't require extraordinary evidence?
Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy. Ooohh Billy Billy Billy, this is a biggie. Don't let me down, Billy,
Perhaps the most serious problem with "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is that it's too ambiguous and different people mean different things when using the phrase.
The typical adult conservative Xian has believed in the magical sky day all his life, has created a family based on this belief, his friends all believe this way, he might even have a business dependent on this belief. To him the thought of no god definitely WOULD be an extraordinary claim. I can see that. Not that I agree.
All claims require sufficient evidence. What qualifies as sufficient will change from one circumstance to the next.
Not exactly a slogan, or all that helpful, but it seems accurate
I’d say the claim that the universe came from nothing is a pretty extraordinary claim yet no one even presents a shred of evidence for their position
I'm so glad this video exists. I cant believe how many Christians just cannot wrap their head around this concept. If they still can't after watching this video, then there's no hope.
I think Craig was saying that *those specific numbers* coming up is the improbable event that you're willing to believe with little evidence, not that someone had won the lottery.
My answer to this interpretation of Craig is that we accept the claim that those numbers came up because the numbers dont affect us. If we were holding a lottery ticket that matched the numbers, we would probably want to confirm them from multiple sources.
Hey Paul,
What is that piano music?
It sounds familiar, but I can't place it.
Either way, it's really nice.
Definitely should put that on a T-shirt!
teespring.com/extraordinary-claims-exp
@08:00 love that slippery slope Craig has put himself on, is he contending that lots of people were liable to be resurrected in the first century and so the claims about a particular one was merely probabilistically par for the course ...
Yes. I would wear a Tee that had that much text on it. I had, more or less, reached the same point you make about Sagan's slogan. However, you put the fine point on it that I hadn't committed to as yet. Thank you.
For Dr. Craig's convenience:
Exraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence = Claims of things that I do not perceive as usual require evidence that has sufficient claim-affirming properties to overcome my pre-evidential assessment in order for me to personally become convinced of said claim.
Dr. Lake's greatest talent is to come up with an alternative interpretation of the phrase, that nobody would have considered, but that would make his argument look better.
I would like to quibble a detail. At the beginning the Sagen quote is "extraordinary claims are not supported by extraordinary evidence"
A quote that I see as anathema to "extrodinary claims require extraordinary evidence"
So... Craig agrees with Sagen?
Brilliantly put. I really hope the apologist gang stop shooting into the air and slapping each other's thighs long enough to take note.
@Never-ending party
so, forgetting your ignorant strawman of naturalistic processes for a second, what makes you think morality stems from a Biblical God who condoned slavery and sexism, and ordered people to kill babies - when we have a more parsimonious explanation of how morality evolved through natural environmental pressures?
God is the extraordinary claim, because we have a simpler natural explanation that tallies with the data, and the bible is just an incoherent mess.
Paulogia..... i love the collaborations you have done.. how about one with Viced Rhino? Thank you for all your work here on you tube...
Like this one? ruclips.net/video/nRuYOnhdlHk/видео.html
I do not know how is that hard to expect a God should have godly evidence. At least I expect any existent God, willing to be known, can understand that.
CheapPhilosophy: Why does an all-knowing and all-powerful god need his honour defended by such sloppy apologetics? A simple question to which I have yet to recieve a sufficient answer. 🤔
Class as always. Keep up the great work!
Dr Craig talking on video: ordinary.
God talking on video: extraordinary!
My favorite twenty five cent word for 'evidence stacking' is consilience.
Your statement doesn't make sense. I don't understand the term "evidence stacking". If you mean a large stack of evidence then what does that have to do with consilience (agreement between the approaches to a topic of different academic subjects)? If you mean stacking the deck (cherry picking) then that seems to have even less to do with consilience. Care to explain?
@@AndyAlegria At about 11:20 or so, Paulogia mentions briefly that independent sources of evidence can 'stack' to create better support. I was just expressing admiration for a word that encompasses that idea.
In my experience, and in the context of debating young earth creationists, consilience is an important concept to have to hand. Evolution via natural selection was, for many in the 19th century, an extraordinary claim. As different sources of evidence all brought support for the idea (especially after Mendel's work was revisited in the early 20th century) virtually all scientists were convinced by the consilience of evidence.
Similarly, for many modern people, the idea that humans have the power to change the climate on a planetary scale is an extraordinary claim. Consilience of evidence from many independent sources is why virtually all scientists are convinced that anthropogenic climate change is occurring.
I hope this clarifies my intent. Have a great day!
I think we all need to send Paulogia yellow shirts to wear.
If one makes an equivocal assertion based on personal belief rather than substantiating evidence, one insults the intelligence of his fellows , and loses their respect and esteem.
As I already saw one video on this claim I considered not watching this one, but I'm glad I did.
Good job analyzing and explaining the nuance and meaning of what the phrase says and how it's usage might be considered controversial.
It also highlights that a saying, not matter how pithy or witty, is not likely to turn the tide in a rational argument.
It gets to the heart of an issue when that saying is ineffective in arguing over say, the plausibility of the resurrection claim. For a Christian the resurrection is more plausible because they believe in a God that could and would perform it. I might argue that they don't even consider the resurrection as extraordinary, but that's another argument, and it highlights that there are subjective elements in the phrase.
All that said, it would be interesting to question Dr. Craig about the "extraordinary claim" of the big bang theory.
If you tell me you've got an aquarium at home, i don;t need too much evidence to believe that. If you tell me your car out in the parking lot is hovering 3 feet off the ground, seemingly in thin air, then I'm gonna need a LOT of evidence to believe that; the claim is just too improbable without extensive ("extraordinary") evidence.
Thank you for all the videos.
Craig is considered an expert and knowledgeable because he is eloquent and uses big/fancy words. Lots of mumbo jumbo. It's like reading "Dune". Reads awesome, but if you analyze what's said too closely it is mumbo jumbo.
I licensed the same stock music track for a piece in my show... now I'm going to feel icky every time I use it.
Excellent video. My personal problem with Craig's lottery example is that the lottery is something that occurs regularly. So, even though it is probabilistically unlikely that any single person will win, you can actually calculate the probability. There is also more than one instance of people "winning" and it ordinarily happens on a regular basis. Thus, there is an actual 'n' greater than one that can be inserted into the probability calculation.
On the other hand, there is no actual forensically documented evidence of resurrection from the dead. Christians rely on a Bible that presents second and third-hand evidence as well as hearsay evidence to justify the claim that Christ's resurrection actually happened. Thus, the single most out-of-the-ordinary event is backed up by the least credible evidence.
Extraordinarily well done.
I would amend it to "Claims of extraordinarily unlikely events require extraordinarily good evidence". Extraordinarily unlikely events happen all the time, but if your explanation of something you believe relies on the claim that a specific, but extraordinarily unlikely event happened, you need some extraordinarily good evidence for that event.
@G Will Childish rant aside, the answer is in the difference between a specific unlikely event and any unlikely event.
@G Will No.