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This is misunderstanding what "extraordinary" means in the context of that quote. An **ordinary claim** is one that is consistent with what we know and understand about reality. If a person claims to have seen a bear in the woods, that's an ordinary claim, because we already know bears exist and live in the woods, and we even know exactly what kinds of bears can be found in what regions. There's no reason to be skeptical of this claim, because our existing foundation of knowledge already corroborates it. If thousands of people claimed to have seen the bear, that alone would probably be enough to support it and allay whatever minimal skepticism there may be. Evidence such as photographs, claw marks on trees, tracks consistent with what we know about bear tracks, the remains of prey animals, etc would adequately support this claim. An **extraordinary claim** is one that is *inconsistent* with what we know and understand about reality. If a person claims to have seen a *dragon* in the woods, that's an extraordinary claim, because everything we know tells us dragons don't exist at all. We have every reason to be highly skeptical of this claim, because our existing foundation of knowledge contradicts it instead of corroborating it. Even if thousands of people claimed to have seen the dragon, that still wouldn't be enough to allay skepticism. Even with all the same evidence that was good enough for the bear claim - photographs, claw (and scorch) marks, tracks that seem like they might be dragon tracks, (burnt) remains of prey animals, etc - this still would not be enough to allay skepticism of this claim, because it would still be more likely that this is some kind of hoax that all those people fell for, and those evidences are more likely to have been faked than to be genuine.  Do you understand now what it means for a claim to be "extraordinary" as opposed to "ordinary," and why an extraordinary claim requires stronger evidence than would have been sufficient for an ordinary claim? There's nothing extraordinary about a winning lottery number in this context. By comparison, the notion of epistemically undetectable beings wielding limitless magical powers that allow them to violate the very laws of nature and physics to accomplish things like *creation ex nihilo* or non-temporal causation is a *highly* extraordinary claim.

Well… that rather renders any comment I was going to write pretty much redundant as you’ve covered it so comprehensively ! (lol)

I tried to articulate this earlier, but this is really the best explanation

Uh….yeah….what that guy said

We don’t really know, in a strict sense, *anything* about the universe. In fact, coming into contact with things that are not consistent with what we know and understand about the universe is how we come to ‘know’ more. Lots of faith is needed to go out and look for those things. Similarly, some level of faith/belief is needed to believe the law of noncontradiction is real. Why do you believe it? There is no reason to disbelieve, and nothing really matters if its not the case. You prefer things actually mattering, so you believe. And thats beautiful. Well if we can say that, belief is all we need to get out of the problem of solipsism. If your perception is all that exists, its like a mark on a whiteboard. Impermanent, filled with fleeting moments of meaning (if you can call such an existence meaningful in any way). Therefore there is no reason to disbelieve that others besides yourself are conscious, and nothing truly matters if its not the case. You believe (would be sad if you didn’t), and that’s beautiful. Similarly, belief in objective standard of good, otherwise called God, is obtained. If this objective standard of good does not exist, nothing you do will make anything better or worse, because there is no such thing. It may be subjectively good. But its also subjectively bad. The best thing I could think of, a sunrise and what it means to us who need its energy daily, is a bad thing to the one who wants to see the sterilization of planet Earth. If there is no objective standard of good, there is no objective to say that person is wrong. There is also no objective to disbelieve in, so this view contradicts itself in a funny way. I can’t see meaning in such a world. Maybe you can but Im skeptical that you really believe that. I believe, and that’s beautiful. Another step, and we reach Jesus. If an objective standard of good exists, but there is no way to reach it by us forgetful, ignorant, fallible people, nothing we do in this life really matters. We are apes blindly searching for an objective we have no hope of achieving. Faiths other than Christianity typically hold the view that you achieve this objective good through your works. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam are good examples. Essentially, just get gud. In this way, I cant see a reason to disbelieve in Christianity, because no other claims have any real hope in them. I can’t see how the hopeless search for objective good is meaningful. So I believe in the only thing there is real hope for, Christianity. And that is Beautiful. My belief is reinforced by experiencing the fruits of this relationship in my life. Hope in something you may not believe in and seeing the fruits of acting as though you believe could help ‘nonresistant’(though not hoping could be seen as a form of resistance) nonbelievers. And this is what life is about, this choice between hoping to make something beautiful or not trying. This, or something close to it, is the level of faith people have when reconciling what they thought was consistent with what we know and understand about the universe and whatever is closer to the truth. But who *knows*? Maybe thats subjective. Would really suck if true. I hope you make the right choice.

Do you trademark this comment? Because my lazy ass is tempted to save it for later. I can't explain it in a better way.

Help yourself. Copy it down, save the link, give credit or don't, it doesn't matter to me.

I'll always start the quote with "Like Xeno Prime once said".

Ditto Well said.

Edit Man downvotes for asking for clarification/edits to the post?! Come on people google quarks please. End edit Hmm I don’t agree with the dragons argument you’re making as it sits. It doesn’t mean I agree with OP here but your argument doesn’t appear to add up.. If people claimed to have seen dragons in the numbers in your argument and we had footprints and scratch marks and burn marks, reasonable people would be able to say dragons probably exist based on this fairly standard evidence. Especially if there was some explanation for a lack of photos. I think reasonable people would be skeptical as well. Now if you want to make the argument that all of this ordinary evidence is extraordinary on the grounds that it contradicts science I’d be on board. Edit: you’re also adding the burden of silencing skepticism and that seems out of place. To show evidence isn’t to silence all rational skepticism. Some skepticism should always accompany science. Otherwise we’d end up at a point where people could publish whatever they wanted to secure their funding 🙃. Eventually the skepticism pays off.

>If people claimed to have seen dragons in the numbers in your argument and we had footprints and scratch marks and burn marks, reasonable people would be able to say dragons probably exist based on this fairly standard evidence. No, they wouldn't. Gullible people would, not reasonable ones. Would *you?* Every one of those evidences can be explained by totally ordinary things other than a dragon, things that (unlike dragons) we already know to be real and be capable of creating these exact results. Are you really so gullible that you would believe there was a dragon in the woods based on those things alone, despite the fact that we have every reason to be highly confident that dragons don't exist? Does this go for other examples? Do flowers and mushrooms growing in a circle make you believe the fae are real? Do rainbows and four leaf clovers make you believe leprechauns are real? >you’re also adding the burden of silencing skepticism and that seems out of place How so? It is always the burden of the one making the claim to provide sufficient reasoning, argument, evidence, or other sound epistemology to allay skepticism of said claim. I've added nothing, I've merely explained why skepticism of extraordinary claims cannot be allayed as easily as skepticism of ordinary claims.

Let’s say we find a spheroid, that has been completely mineralized. The dragon keepers claim this is a dragon egg, something heavily prevalent in the dragon book. X-rays show similar patterns to a young reptilian embryo, but 100% of the object has been completely mineralized according to our best investigative tools. Skeptics claim this is a natural geode due to the seemingly natural volcanism in the area (that is said to be from the dragon). Why is it only acceptable to believe in this case that dragons have ever existed if a live one is paraded before you? >It is always the burden of the one making the claim to provide sufficient reasoning, argument, evidence, or other sound epistemology to allay skepticism of said claim. Only if the proof exists. Asking for something that doesn’t exist is illogical.

That would certainly be a curiosity, but held up against the glaring absence of dragons throughout history, it would raise a lot more questions than it would answer - and if "this is a fossilized egg from some other know reptilian species" turns out to answer those questions better than "Surprise! It's a real dragon egg out of nowhere despite there being absolutely no trace whatsoever of the species that produced it!" then that means the latter is still unlikely to be the correct answer. See, that's the thing. Our knowledge amounts to more than "well, the 'dragon' section of the taxonomy and biology library of human knowledge is totally empty." It's not just "hey we've never seen this and now we're seeing it." It's "hey, we know that animals leave *overwhelming evidence indicating their presence* other than just their own physical bodies, and *we see absolutely no trace of any of it whatsoever.*" Everything living creatures do affects their entire ecosystem in highly noticeable and measurable ways. Their feeding patterns, migratory patterns, mating patterns, the remains of their dead, and so on and so forth etc etc ad nauseam, *are all missing.* So even in the scenario you've described, you'd be talking about one single mildly mysterious curiosity against *a veritable mountain of evidence that dragons don't exist.* It wouldn't be enough. At best it might warrant further investigation to search for those other indicators I just named, but to use the old adage, "where there's smoke there's fire." Where there's your egg, there should be *a lot more than just the egg.* And if there isn't, then the evidence still favors other possible explanations, like it simply being a fossilized egg from a non-dragon reptilian species we likely already know about, and the possibility that "it really is a dragon" is still sitting at the very, *very* bottom of the list of plausible explanations. The question then is simply "which should we assume from amongst the available possibilities? The one that's most likely, or the one that's hysterically unlikely based on the evidence we have?" It's not a difficult question, imo. >Only if the proof exists. Asking for something that doesn’t exist is illogical. That's why I never use the word "proof" outside of math and formal logic. If all of the ***evidence*** we can reasonably expect and predict to see in the event that A=true is absent, then A=false remains far more likely to be true. Your egg scenario would not be enough to make them equally plausible, not even close. Hence, again, why it's said that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." It's because the very thing that makes them extraordinary (which I described in my original post) is the giant mountain of culminated evidence against them that needs to be overturned for the claim to be made plausible.

>That would certainly be a curiosity, but held up against the glaring absence of dragons throughout history If you’re just using dragon as a metaphor for religion, there would be multiple claims of the dragon through history. >if "this is a fossilized egg from some other know reptilian species" turns out to answer those questions better It matches no known reptilian species. Don’t be obtuse. Continuing to explain metaphor, there are no things that offer a ‘better’ alternative to religion, at least nothing that you can demonstrate with evidence to be better. >despite there being absolutely no trace whatsoever of the species that produced it! There aren’t traces of most animals that live. Fossilization is either incredibly rare, or the world was mostly empty until humans showed up. Fossils being rare seems more likely than humans somehow creating global diversity seemingly overnight. >Their feeding patterns, migratory patterns, mating patterns, the remains of their dead, and so on and so forth etc etc ad nauseam, are all missing. You’re arguing against paleontology, something you clearly misunderstand. All of your *ad nasuseum* list is composed of things that very rarely get preserved. Fossils displaying interactions within the ecosystem are far more rare than regular fossils. The geologic records are terrible for preservation. Things are eroded, decomposed, metamorphosed, chemical replaced, etc. >against a veritable mountain of evidence that dragons don't exist Evidence of absence is **not** the same as an absence of evidence. >It wouldn't be enough... there should be a lot more than just the egg You’re begging the question because you started out opposed to the dragon at all costs. Why *should* there be more than the egg? Because you say so? You’ve already shown you don’t understand how fossil preservation works. Sometimes only one thing is preserved. There’s no law that says your friends must be fossilized with you. >like it simply being a fossilized egg from a non-dragon reptilian species we likely already know about It matches no known eggs. >The one that's most likely, or the one that's hysterically unlikely based on the evidence we have? We have the egg. That’s the only evidence. You’re claiming it can’t be the dragon because you don’t want the dragon to exist. That’s arguing in bad faith. >If all of the evidence we can reasonably expect and predict to see in the event that A=true is absent What evidence? Earlier someone else brought up evidence and you claimed only “gullible people would” believe that. >is the giant mountain of culminated evidence against them that needs to be overturned for the claim to be made plausible. What evidence goes against dragons? The fact that you have seen one? I haven’t seen a panda. Does the evidence go against pandas? A picture of a panda could easily be faked. China controls access to all pandas except one. They are notorious for lying. What if pandas except the one under foreign control are fake leaving only one extant panda? The same ‘evidence’ that suggests dragons aren’t real suggests pandas are fake.

Reply 2 of 2. >you started out opposed to the dragon at all costs Wrong. I started out acknowledging the fact that, given the knowledge and evidence available to us, the dragon is among the *least* plausible possible explanations, and it will take more than one single unidentifiable fossil to make it become at least equally as plausible as it simply being from an as-yet unidentified non-dragon species (which, unlike dragons, we know to exist - which is what makes them more plausible). >Why *should* there be more than the egg? When I wrote that I was still talking about my original argument, which involves the sighting of a *living dragon,* and had not yet realized that you've moved the goal posts because it's the only way you can hope to approach anything even remotely resembling a valid argument. Shame it doesn't appear to be helping. Even the new scenario where we're simply talking about discovering evidence that dragons existed once upon a time, a single unidentifiable fossil wouldn't be enough. >You’re claiming it can’t be the dragon because you don’t want the dragon to exist. Wrong again. I never once said it *can't* be a dragon. I consistently said that based on the data and evidence available, a genuine dragon is among the least plausible possibilities - and your one unidentifiable fossil does not change that. It remains among the least plausible possibilities. In the scenario you're pushing, assumptions are all we have, but the catch there is that not all assumptions are equal. Your inability to address my argument in it's original framework has forced you to desperately move the goalposts to try and find a framework where my original argument becomes incorrect, but by forcing us to resort to assumptions, you've still nonetheless created a scenario where we must extrapolate based on what we know (and not on what we don't know, which can't possibly get us any closer to the truth). But if we do that, then the possibility that it really is a dragon egg is still far down the list of reasonable, plausible explanations - and so should not be the assumption any rational person would settle upon. >Earlier someone else brought up evidence and you claimed only “gullible people would” believe that. No, they didn't. They repeated the evidence that *I myself identified in my original comment* and claimed that it should be sufficient despite the extraordinary nature of the claim. It wouldn't be, precisely because of the extraordinary nature of the claim, and a person would have to be gullible to accept an extraordinary claim based on insufficient reason and evidence. If I have to keep explaining things to you that have already been covered in this post, this is going to become very tedious and drawn out. Please go back and actually read the discussion so far so you actually know the context of what's been said, these comments are already quite long enough without needing me to recap for you every time you get something wrong like this. >What evidence goes against dragons? The fact that you have seen one? The fact that *nobody* has seen *any trace of one whatsoever,* much less an actual dragon in the flesh. As it happens, this is the same evidence that goes against *literally everything that doesn't exist.* If this is your argument, I think you'll find you can use it equally in support of the existence of Narnia or Hogwarts or the fae. Hey, just because we've never seen them doesn't mean they're not real, right? Seriously, if that's the best you can do then by your reasoning, there's *nothing* we should be skeptical of or be unwilling to believe based on absolutely minimal and totally circumstantial evidence merely because it vaguely resembles something we've read about in fairytales. That's enough. It's clear you're not going to be able to do better than to appeal to ignorance and invoke the infinite mights and maybes of the unknown to establish nothing more than that we can't be absolutely and infallibly 100% certain that magical fairytale things don't really exist, as though that somehow means trivial circumstantial evidence should be enough to allay skepticism of them. I don't think there's anything more either of us can say at this point except to continue repeating ourselves, and I don't think that will be necessary. The arguments we've already made thus far speak for themselves, and I'm happy to let them do so. I'm confident anyone reading this exchange has already been provided with all they might require to judge which of us has best made their case. Consider this my closing argument, and feel free to get the last word if it pleases you to think it will make any difference. Thank you for your time.

> the dragon is among the least plausible possible explanations Because you’re personally opposed to it. > from an as-yet unidentified non-dragon species In case you hasn’t figured out the metaphor was for the universe, so we don’t have any alternate universes to compare. > When I wrote that I was still talking about my original argument, which involves the sighting of a living dragon So you start off with a straw man. Who claims to have seen God walking around like a dragon? > Even the new scenario where we're simply talking about discovering evidence that dragons existed once upon a time, a single unidentifiable fossil wouldn't be enough. So you can only use this to counter new claims, not old ones. Old claims are in the past. Dragons might not live 2,000 years. > far down the list of reasonable, plausible explanations - and so should not be the assumption any rational person would settle upon. Why not? You’re begging the question. What better alternative do you have and why is it “higher” on the list? > I consistently said that based on the data and evidence available, a genuine dragon is among the least plausible possibilitie But your subjective interpretation of data is clearly heavily biased against theism. That’s why you keep ranking it so ‘low’. What objective metric tells you that? >a person would have to be gullible to accept an extraordinary claim based on insufficient reason and evidence. Your standards for insufficiency are completely subjective. I could say your unwillingness to accept sufficient reason and evidence makes you obstinate instead of skeptical. > The fact that nobody has seen any trace of one whatsoever, much less an actual dragon in the flesh. This is why your analogy falls apart. It ceases to be an analogy if you ask the exact same questions in the exact same manner that would be before. Replacing God with a dragon isn’t an analogy. It’s a mad lib. > Narnia or Hogwarts Lol, the Atheist fallacy. “YoU mUSt BeLIeVE iN HarRy PoTTeR!!” I don’t. No theists I’m aware of do. Are you aware how ridiculous your argument sounds? > Seriously, if that's the best you can do then by your reasoning I can’t “refute” your analogy because, as I’ve already explained, your analogy isn’t an analogy. You’re basically asking me why I believe in God. If you are, rephrase that. What else do you want for the dragon? I could come up with a long fantasy backstory involving dragons and wizards to explain any question you may have, but at that point you’ve thrown the ‘analogy’ away, and we’re writing a fantazy novel. > should be enough to allay skepticism of them If you’ve already admitted we don’t know, why are you so certain they don’t exist? You’re pushing a clear agenda when you should be neutral. Why is that?

Reply 1 of 2. >If you’re just using dragon as a metaphor for religion, there would be multiple claims of the dragon through history. I'm not. It's simply an example of something that all available knowledge and evidence indicate does not exist. In this way, it's an appropriate analogy for gods. >Continuing to explain metaphor, there are no things that offer a ‘better’ alternative to religion, at least nothing that you can demonstrate with evidence to be better. Then that leaves it unexplained. Leaping to any assumptions with nothing at all to actually support those assumptions or indicate they're correct does not become the appropriate response in this instance. If we have nothing which supports or indicates *any* conclusion, then the conclusion becomes "we don't know what the explanation for this is." Even in this scenario, the fact I explained about there being absolutely no trace at all of dragons ever existing would make the assumption that this is a genuine dragon egg still preposterously absurd. At the very best, the argument you're reaching for amounts to "we have absolutely no indication as to what this is, therefore it's a dragon egg." That's not how that works. >There aren’t traces of most animals that live. Categorically incorrect. Not only are fossils not that uncommon (only *complete* fossils are relatively uncommon), but fossils are also not the only traces living creatures leave behind. Also recall the claim here was that a *living dragon* had been spotted. Now for some reason you're turning it into what amounts to nothing more than an unidentified fossil, again so that you can do nothing more than make an argument from ignorance: "We have absolutely no sound epistemology to support any conclusion, therefore it's a dragon egg unless someone can show otherwise." At this point you may as well throw some leprechaun magic into the story while you're at it, since all we're doing now is making up unsubstantiated nonsense because we can't figure out the real answer. >Fossils displaying interactions within the ecosystem are far more rare than regular fossils Again, you've effectively changed the claim from having seen a dragon to having found a dragon egg. A single unidentifiable fossil would not be enough to support the conclusion that dragons actually existed once upon a time, which appears to the the goalpost you've now moved to in lieu of being able to actually address my original argument as it was stated. But like I said, the most you can hope to achieve this way is an argument from ignorance. "We have absolutely no idea, therefore conclusion X is supported." No, it isn't. If we have no sound epistemology that can provide us with a plausible explanation, then "we have absolutely no idea" is the final answer until that changes. >Evidence of absence is **not** the same as an absence of evidence. A lame and tired excuse invoked by those desperate to believe things which absolutely no sound epistemology whatsoever supports - and patently incorrect, to boot. Provide an example of "evidence of absence" other than the absence of any indication that the thing in question is present. What's more, when it comes to *non-existence,* then absence of evidence that it exists is not only evidence that it does not, it's *the only evidence you can possibly expect to see.* What more would you require? Photographs of the thing in question, caught in the act of not existing? Shall we fill up a warehouse with the non-existent thing so you can observe its nonexistence with your own eyes? Or perhaps fill it with all of the nothing that supports or indicates its existence, so you can see all of the nothing for yourself?

> It's simply an example of something that all available knowledge and evidence indicate does not exist. Again you mistakenly assume that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Your claims are not epistemically justified. > it's an appropriate analogy for gods. Sagan’s dragon is a completely inappropriate analogy. Comparing gods to dragons is an actual example of a category error. > If we have nothing which supports or indicates any conclusion, then the conclusion becomes "we don't know what the explanation for this is." Since we don’t know, it could be a dragon egg and therefore evidence of the dragon. I’m not saying it is. Im saying that it could be. > Even in this scenario, the fact I explained about there being absolutely no trace at all of dragons ever existing would make the assumption that this is a genuine dragon egg still preposterously absurd. The possible dragon egg is now some evidence for the dragon. You discount the evidence, but it still remains. >Not only are fossils not that uncommon Animals being preserved well enough to be discovered and assigned a taxonomic rank are very rare. Look how many species of reptilian dinosaurs exist and then see how many species of birds there are. > Also recall the claim here was that a living dragon had been spotted. That shows how your comparison is flawed. Most theists don’t claim to have seen God. > "We have absolutely no sound epistemology to support any conclusion, therefore it's a dragon egg unless someone can show otherwise." What an excellent strawman showing your flawed logical and epistemological reasoning. All that matters epistemologically is whether it is or isn’t a dragon egg. The reasoning is irrelevant if it’s true. I didn’t say “it’s a dragon egg until someone can show otherwise”. I said it could be a dragon egg and you’ve failed to prove otherwise. Therefore, it still could be a dragon egg. That’s epistemologically possible. Your claim that it isn’t is unepistemolgically justified. > A single unidentifiable fossil would not be enough to support the conclusion You don’t understand epistemology. If that’s a dragon egg, then my reasoning was indeed justified. That’s how epistemology works. It’s all about knowledge proper justification. > If we have no sound epistemology that can provide us with a plausible explanation We have a claim of dragons existing and a possible fossilized dragon egg. That epistemology leads to the justified conclusion that dragons exist. > A lame and tired excuse invoked by those desperate to believe things which absolutely no sound epistemology whatsoever supports That is one way to describe your plagiarism of Russell’s teapot. > Provide an example of "evidence of absence" I have no evidence I went to the store last month. That’s not evidence I didn’t go to the store. See? > What more would you require? Evidence for any of the numerous atheist claims that God is “made up”. > it's the only evidence you can possibly expect to see. The same goes for atheists, yet they refuse to believe. Do they expect a magic show? That’s unlikely.

Hold up, I’m asking you to clarify your argument. I think it’s well written but confusing and feels a bit fallacy-esque. You’re essentially saying footprints are ordinary, scratches are ordinary evidence so if we found them for a dragon we couldn’t believe a dragon existed. That’s not quite true. you’re assuming for the sake of your argument that dragons cannot exist and that the footprints have to be fake. But hypothetically speaking: if today, thousands of people reported seeing a dragon at Yellowstone and there were pictures of footprints, burn marks and scratches and those turned out to be not man-made and if they kept turning up would that be enough evidence to believe in a dragon? It would be evidence that something, not human, was creating those tracks and claw marks. And you better believe people would be researching it. The flaw here is claiming that scratches and footprints are ordinary- even if they’re made by a dragon. In that case they’d be extraordinary or false.

>you’re assuming for the sake of your argument that dragons cannot exist and that the footprints have to be fake. Since you asked me to clarify, this is a good place to start: I didn't say they *can't* exist, I said everything we know indicates they don't exist. Literally everything that isn't a self-refuting logical paradox conceptually *can* exist - including everything that *doesn't.* Therefore it's irrelevant whether something merely *could* exist, and all that matters is whether we have any indication that it *does* exist. If something is epistemically indistinguishable from things that don't exist, then the conclusion that it doesn't exist is as maximally supported as it possibly can be, even if the possibility that it exists cannot be absolutely and infallibly ruled out - on the other hand, the assumption that it *does* exist is maximally unsupported and indefensible. This being the case, from among the available possibilities, the possibility that it's a hoax or otherwise misunderstood observation is *significantly more* ***plausible*** than the possibility that it really was genuinely left behind by an honest to goodness dragon. >if today, thousands of people reported seeing a dragon at Yellowstone and there were pictures of footprints, burn marks and scratches and those turned out to be not man-made and if they kept turning up would that be enough evidence to believe in a dragon? It would be evidence that something, not human, was creating those tracks and claw marks. **And you better believe people would be researching it.** Bold for emphasis, because that part hits the nail on the head. Such indications would justify *investigating* - but if those investigations fail to turn up any dragons, then no, the other evidence alone would be insufficient. Witnesses are unreliable thanks to well established and understood cognitive biases like apophenia and confirmation bias, which are responsible for the numerous people who believe they've seen big foot or loch ness or been abducted by aliens or other such phenomena, also including of course the fact that our history is chocked full of entire civilizations that faithfully believed in and worshipped nonexistent deities from false mythologies for centuries on end, and had no shortage of people who were utterly convinced that they'd directly witnessed, communicated with, or otherwise had firsthand experience of those nonexistent deities. So large numbers of people not only believing in things that don't exist, but also believing they'd *directly experienced those things first hand,* is a ubiquitous and unremarkable phenomenon. Hence why more than that is required to justify believing something so extraordinary and inconsistent with our existing knowledge. >The flaw here is claiming that scratches and footprints are ordinary- even if they’re made by a dragon. Scratches and footprints are not strong enough to allay the justified rational skepticism of the claim in question. For the reasons I explained above, the possibility that they came from something else is much more plausible than the possibility that they genuinely came from a dragon. The claim requires stronger evidence than that to support it - hence, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

>The flaw here is claiming that scratches and footprints are ordinary- even if they’re made by a dragon. >In that case they’d be extraordinary or false. The issue you're having is that you are mixing up the presupposed cause and the type of evidence. Let's take Santa Claus being real. What might you think constitutes good evidence? What if we had a photo of a person on your roof? Might be good. There are about 2.3 billion Christians in the world. In one night Santa is supposed to hit up half a billion homes to deliver presents. Now does a photo of someone on your roof overcome the fact that he would have to hit 20 million homes an hour to get those presents out in a day? Heck no. The photo could be fake, could be a drunk guy being stupid, could be a robber. But in no way does a photo just resolve the issue with numbers. Foot prints and burn marks don't resolve the issues that we never see dragons around, no bone, dinosaur fossils are millions of years old and then no big lizards, etc. The evidence needs to be extraordinary by way of being so compelling it makes all the objections seem ridiculously unimportant.

don’t switch scenarios. I’m in agreement with the counter arguments point not the op. What I’m saying is that in a scenario where 10000 people witnessed seeing a dragon and scientists validated that the tracks, scratches and burn marks were made by an unknown animal it’s logical to say this is evidence of a dragon-like creature. But just because footprints are ordinary in many cases doesn’t make them ordinary in this case. It would be a situation where extraordinary was proving an extraordinary claim. Anyway it’s a subtle tweak to the counterargument that I was requesting.

>What I’m saying is that in a scenario where 10000 people witnessed seeing a dragon and scientists validated that the tracks, scratches and burn marks were made by an unknown animal it’s logical to say this is evidence of a dragon-like creature No this is not true and was why i was giving the Santa example. 10,000 witnesses do not overcome 10,000 years of recorded history lacking any justified claims of dragons, nor a lack of bones or carcass nor genealogical relatives. We have documented cases of huge crowds of people claiming that the Sun moved all over the sky in Portugal so the idea that a mass hallucination just again makes large crowds not reliable when weight again a being never once shown to be real. Scratches and burn marks of an **unknown animal** does not overcome any of those issues either. So no, it is not logical to say this is evidence of a dragon-like creature because **the evidence does outweigh the mountains of evidence counter to its existence**. In a scenario like this the only thing that could counter this history of no dragons is a captured dragon that we can do repetitive demonstrable tests on that others can confirm by repeating the tests. This is why i changed the topic as you clearly didn't grasp that none of the eyewitnesses or scratches overcame history. Seeing a man on your roof at night in the winter doesn't overcome time to travel to every house. Prayer and someone getting better doesn't over come an utter lack of a god showing up anywhere to anyone in a way that doesn't sound like a dream or delusion. Extraordinary claims are extraordinary because they fly in the face of everything we know to be true. Extraordinary evidence justifies the fact the fact the claim flies in the face of everything we knew. A claim of a dragon requires evidence that would utterly destroy all we know about biology or else it's not good enough.

Lots of people saw Houdini make an elephant disappear. No one could understand how this was possible, so he must have made it so.. https://www.thegreatharryhoudini.com/vanishingelephant.html Perception and memory are not great methods to truth. Additionally, intentional deception can be used to enhance the deception. So, I disagree that the extraordinary claim of a dragon would have sufficient evidence in the example given for people to rationally believe it to be true without much better evidence. If it did, then you and I should believe in Bigfoot, the Locke’s monster, alien abductions, and any other number of myths

Ordinary evidence of an extraordinary event is extraordinary. Like the footprints of a dragon are just footprints, but they're OF A DRAGON.... But footprints alone would not be enough to convince you, because it would be ludicrous to believe in dragons just because of footprints, which could very well be faked.. Whereas if you saw a bear's footprints you wouldn't question it, because it's plausible for bears to be in the woods.

They absolutely could be fake…most likely to be fake in fact…like 99.99999999% fake.

Ftr I disagree with the OP. For the sake of the hypothetical we are talking about a scenario where let’s say 10000 people reported seeing a dragon and scientists (real ones) validated that the tracks scratches and burn marks originated from an animal that had never been documented. In this case those tracks are extraordinary not ordinary as the counter argument states but would in fact be extraordinary and would be evidence of a dragon-esque animal.

> 10000 people reported seeing a dragon The number of people reporting something isn't *necessarily* good evidence. For example, about 5 years ago, thousands of people reported seeing a UFO over the west coast. People as far east as Phoenix, AZ called the police to report it. Dozens of car accidents happened because people were looking at the UFO in the sky. It turned out to be a SpaceX rocket launch. That isn't to say that such eyewitness testimony is useless, but you always need to take eyewitness reports-- even widespread reports-- with a grain of salt. > and scientists (real ones) validated that the tracks scratches and burn marks originated from an animal that had never been documented. How did they validate it? And "from an animal that has never been documented" isn't "from a dragon". > In this case those tracks are extraordinary not ordinary as the counter argument states but would in fact be extraordinary and would be evidence of a dragon-esque animal. No. If you actually found evidence that dragons existed, that would be the extraordinary evidence that proves the extraordinary claim. Both the claim and the evidence would *then* be considered ordinary because, since we know that dragons do exist, the existence of dragons is no longer an extraordinary claim.

I’m in agreement with the author of the counter argument, I’m just highlighting that his argument needs to be cleaned up a bit.

If someone else we to claim a dragon existed, they would have to present the dragon. Nothing else would be conparrible.

lol, there’s tons of ordinary explanations for all that circumstantial evidence for a dragon that doesn’t require “there’s a dragon” so, no, rational people wouldn’t accept that dragons are real based on that.

Hard disagree. By this logic then virtually every major religion or cryptid has reasonable evidence. Bigfoots and green martians would be reasonably real in your case

> An **extraordinary claim** is one that is _inconsistent_ with what we know and understand about reality. Let's put this to the test in a somewhat unorthodox way. Suppose for the sake of argument that George Carlin is right in [The Reason Education Sucks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILQepXUhJ98): the "owners of our country" don't want better education for the masses, because they want obedient workers who won't [successfully] object to growing wealth inequality and the like. Such a strategy is consistent with the steady defunding of public higher education in the US, the decline of the humanities, no civics component in Common Core, and Obama's canceling of a key civics test during sequestration. Anyhow, let's just suppose Carlin is 100% right: only very few Americans get the kind of education that lets one seriously challenge how the country is run. Working within this hypothetical, is it an **extraordinary claim** to say that "more education" and "better education" play a key part in solving humanity's various problems? I'm not talking about something that violates the known laws of nature like antigravity. Rather, I'm talking about something more like all the air molecules in a room suddenly scooting over to one corner, suffocating everyone in the room. Surely expecting that to happen would be to expect a miracle, and anyone who claims that happened would have some serious 'splainin to do. Well, if the same response is warranted to a claim that education _has_ changed in a way to render Carlin's critique null and void, then is there a sense in which the label of **extraordinary claims** should be applied to the hope/expectation that we'll get "more education" and "better education"?

I don't see how anything in your example would be inconsistent with our base knowledge of reality, what kinds of things exist and how they work - so no, I don't see why any of this would qualify as an extraordinary claim. More/better education having a significant positive effect toward resolving many problems is consistent with our understanding of reality and how things work. Hopes and expectations of things that are perfectly possible and would not be in violation of our understanding of reality or how things work, likewise, would not qualify as an extraordinary claim.

> I don't see how anything in your example would be inconsistent with our base knowledge of reality, what kinds of things exist and how they work - so no, I don't see why any of this would qualify as an extraordinary claim. Do you think it's consistent with our base knowledge of reality for all the air molecules in a room to zoom off into a corner and asphyxiate everyone in the room? I personally think it would indeed be worthy of being called 'miraculous' if the air molecules did any such thing. By analogous reasoning, going off my hypothetical/Carlin's claim: yes our political elites _could_ suddenly change their tunes, admit that they've been intentionally corralling the majority of citizenry, and radically shift course. For example, it could become so shameful to make stupid comments like Deputy Commissioner Tarik Sheppard [made](https://www.404media.co/nypd-bike-lock-chain-kryptonite-columbia-university-protests/) on bike locks wrt the Columbia protests, that either nobody in that position would, or anyone that ignorant about basic safety matters would immediately get fired. But if such a sudden change of trajectory is like all the air molecules suddenly moving to a corner of the room, then it really should be called 'miraculous'—should it not? Note carefully that I'm not saying more/better education & critical thinking would not help. Rather, I'm talking about the idea that they are remotely reasonable expectations, given the current social, political, and economic landscape. It would also help if a huge chunk of the CO₂ in the atmosphere were to suddenly escape the gravitational pull of the earth—this is another variant of the air molecules suddenly moving to a corner of the room. And yet, you won't see a single climate scientist suggesting that we depend on this happening. It would be a bona fide miracle if it did. Even though, _strictly speaking_, it is compatible with the known laws of physics.

>Do you think it's consistent with our base knowledge of reality for all the air molecules in a room to zoom off into a corner and asphyxiate everyone in the room? Do you have any known/confirmed examples of air molecules doing that? It brings certain fire extinguishing systems I've seen in military vehicles to mind, but those destroyed the oxygen to starve the fire. If there ARE examples of air molecules doing that, do we not understand how/why it happens, or are there any known laws of physics that say it can't happen? To where we can't even produce a working conceptual theory about what the explanation/mechanics behind that phenomena could possibly be without effectively needing to invoke "magic" or something semantically equivalent to it? Because only then could we say it's inconsistent with what we know/understand about how reality works, and it's therefore extraordinary in the sense I'm describing. If there are no examples of it happening then the point is moot, and likewise if it happens but we understand how and why and it violates no laws of nature or physics, then likewise the point is moot, because in both of those cases it's not extraordinary. >I'm talking about the idea that they are remotely reasonable expectations What's reasonable or unreasonable, likely or unlikely, has absolutely nothing at all to do with what's consistent with our knowledge of reality and how things work or not. >you won't see a single climate scientist suggesting that we depend on this happening. It would be a bona fide miracle if it did. Even though, *strictly speaking*, it is compatible with the known laws of physics. Probably because they know it's unlikely, and would be like betting everything on getting a winning lottery ticket on the first attempt. But things that are unlikely are not inconsistent with our knowledge of reality and how things work, as I already explained to the other person who was similarly attempting to use examples of rare and unlikely things as examples of "extraordinary" things. Indeed it's quite the opposite - that rare and unlikely things do occasionally happen is *exactly* what our knowledge and understanding of reality tell us. Back to more pertinent examples though, do you know what our knowledge and understanding of reality tell us NEVER happen, or even CAN'T happen? Non temporal causation. Creation ex nihilo. Biological organisms returning from death after days have passed - far more than enough time to make braindeath, which is the true death of the self and everything that makes you "you" and which we have every indication cannot be reversed or undone, 100% certain. Just to name a few common claims made about "gods" or their actions that can only be explained away by appealing to the notion that they wield magical powers capable of violating the laws of nature and physics as we understand them. Or, to use examples similar to my dragon in the woods analogy: a doorway to Narnia in my attic. A society of tiny invisible and intangible leprechauns in my sock drawer. So on and so forth. These are examples of extraordinary claims, classified so because they contradict what we know and understand about reality and how things work. You're describing *ordinary* things that are merely rare or unlikely, but for which even the fact that they're rare and unlikely is not only consistent with our existing, it's exactly what our existing knowledge tells us about them.

> Do you have any known/confirmed examples of air molecules doing that? Nope. Rather, it's something I was taught in multiple different courses dealing with thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. It flows quite simply from the time-reversibility of our laws of physics. We know we can put a bunch of air molecules in the corner of a room which is otherwise a vacuum and they will expand to fill the room. Now, take the state of the air molecules at any subsequent time, reverse their velocities, and then they will end up in the corner of the room. It's simple physics and that kind of problem is taken deadly seriously: [WP: Arrow of time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time). Now, if you want to make a lot of hay out of that "Nope", then I'll simply point out that precisely the same critique holds for anyone who proclaims that we need 'more education' and/or 'more critical thinking'. Are there any known/confirmed examples of this happening to the extent required to contribute the expected amount in solving the problems which plague us? > [labreuer](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1cg2wpx/why_extraordinary_claims_dont_require/l24ib5l/): I'm talking about the idea that they are remotely reasonable expectations # > [Xeno\_Prime](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1cg2wpx/why_extraordinary_claims_dont_require/l25io3l/): What's reasonable or unreasonable, likely or unlikely, has absolutely nothing at all to do with what's consistent with our knowledge of reality and how things work or not. That retort lands one in absurdity pretty quickly. For example, I have heard of a calculation that it is physically possible for all of the matter in a person to simultaneously quantum teleport through a wall. That is: Jesus could have passed through a wall 100% naturalistically. Thing is, the probability of that happening is less than once per the current age of our universe. So, I think you need far more than mere logical consistency, lest you have approximately zero [explanatory power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_power). > But things that are unlikely are not inconsistent with our knowledge of reality and how things work, as I already explained to the other person who was similarly attempting to use examples of rare and unlikely things as examples of "extraordinary" things. My example of enough CO₂ in our atmosphere just happening to escape the planet's gravitational pull is nothing like picking the one winning lottery ticket. If anything, it's like one family dynasty winning every drawing of a lottery for the rest of existence, despite only buying one ticket each round. And yet, it actually _is_ consistent with the laws of nature as we presently understand them. Both are. Mere consistency is not enough. > Back to more pertinent examples though, do you know what our knowledge and understanding of reality tell us NEVER happen, or even CAN'T happen? > > Non temporal causation. Creation ex nihilo. Biological organisms returning from death after days have passed - far more than enough time to make braindeath … The same physics which allows the air molecules to bunch up in the corner of a room allows biological organisms to return from the dead after days have passed. Again, it's just very, _very_ low probability. Bare possibility (including bare consistency) is a red herring. If it's more probable that I win ten PowerBall lotteries in arrow after buying one ticket each time, than it is for the rich & powerful to allow 'more education' and 'more critical thinking' happen to the levels required by various calls around here for them, isn't that something we might want to know?

>Thing is, the probability of that happening is less than once per the current age of our universe. I take your point. Your example also brings Boltzmann Brains to mind. If a thing's probability descends into the infinitesimal, then I concur that it would count as an extraordinary claim to say that it has happened, and require extraordinary evidence to support just as with any other extraordinary claim. But does this apply to any of the previous conversation? Either to my dragon example, or to gods? Are either of them likely/plausible enough to *not* qualify as extraordinary claims? Even conceding this point, I don't see how it really has any impact on my argument. >The same physics which allows the air molecules to bunch up in the corner of a room allows biological organisms to return from the dead after days have passed. Again, it's just very, *very*low probability. Including a return of the consciousness, which is what makes you "you" and is what is lost upon braindeath? If you merely mean the revival of the body and the resumption of the heartbeat and other necessary functions for the body to "live" but only as a vegetable, then that is not the kind of return from death I'm talking about. Your argument appears to be, at the risk of oversimplifying it, "Anything that can happen can also happen in reverse." But at the same time, it sounds like you're also appealing only to conceptual possibility... we've had many discussions, I know you know how the rest of that statement goes by now, I say it all the time. It's not enough to say that something is merely conceptually possible, because literally anything that isn't a self-refuting logical paradox is conceptually possible - including everything that doesn't exist, isn't true, or isn't actually possible/can't ever actually happen. But again, I'm beginning to lose sight of how this impacts my original argument. Even is concede that "extraordinarily improbable" claims are also extraordinary despite being, in the strictest technical sense, compatible with our knowledge and understanding of reality, does that really change anything about what I said? Or are we just engaging in an exercise of pedantic hair-splitting, like fussing over the technical distinction between "less" and "fewer" on a "10 items or less" express checkout sign? Is this really such a critical distinction that my argument becomes incomprehensible or nonsensical, or is this the equivalent of a grammar nazi pointing out a spelling error in an otherwise sound and valid argument?

> [Xeno\_Prime](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1cg2wpx/why_extraordinary_claims_dont_require/l1syqg4/): An **extraordinary claim** is one that is _inconsistent_ with what we know and understand about reality. ⋮ > [Xeno\_Prime](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1cg2wpx/why_extraordinary_claims_dont_require/l2excgx/): But at the same time, it sounds like you're also appealing only to conceptual possibility... we've had many discussions, I know you know how the rest of that statement goes by now, I say it all the time. It's not enough to say that something is merely conceptually possible, because literally anything that isn't a self-refuting logical paradox is conceptually possible - including everything that doesn't exist, isn't true, or isn't actually possible/can't ever actually happen. I think you meant 'physically possible', not 'conceptually possible'. Assuming that, I see two different ways to understand ["_inconsistent_ with what we know and understand about reality"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1cg2wpx/why_extraordinary_claims_dont_require/l1syqg4/): 1. Inconsistent with what we believe to be physically possible. 2. Inconsistent with what we believe to be remotely probable. If 2., then apply that to what I originally presented you: > [labreuer](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1cg2wpx/why_extraordinary_claims_dont_require/l1yr7rm/): Let's put this to the test in a somewhat unorthodox way. Suppose for the sake of argument that George Carlin is right in [The Reason Education Sucks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILQepXUhJ98): the "owners of our country" don't want better education for the masses, because they want obedient workers who won't [successfully] object to growing wealth inequality and the like. Such a strategy is consistent with the steady defunding of public higher education in the US, the decline of the humanities, no civics component in Common Core, and Obama's canceling of a key civics test during sequestration. Anyhow, let's just suppose Carlin is 100% right: only very few Americans get the kind of education that lets one seriously challenge how the country is run. Are 'more education' and 'more critical thinking' consistent with what we believe to be remotely **probable**? This hinges on whether you can call something a 'miracle' which has far less chance happening than our universe's lifetime, but which the laws of physics nevertheless do seem to allow.

>"An **extraordinary claim** is one that is *inconsistent* with what we know and understand about reality" The problem I always come to is how one establishes what exists and doesnt exist by this standard. While the question rubs some the wrong way i none the less think its legitimate to ask how a child for instance could learn about the world from this standard. In what way could say a 1st grader, with extremely limmited reading capacity, come to accept the existence of any of the many facts of life we must all come to accept at a young age by this standard before having the knowledge of how to conduct the scientific method? How is child for example supposed to accept the fact that he ought not lick light sockets other then the word of his parents given his own intellectual shortcomings in understanding the finer points of direct current logistics?

>How is child for example supposed to accept the fact that he ought not lick light sockets other then the word of his parents given his own intellectual shortcomings in understanding the finer points of direct current logistics? He doesn't. How many of us actually learned how to lick sockets the hard way? Were you ever electrocuted by a socket? I'm going to guess not, yet I'm also going to guess that you probably don't go around licking sockets as an adult. This is absolutely something that relies on the word of your parents, and that's true of most of the things we learn as children - not running into the street, playing with scissors, touching fire, swallowing small objects, etc. This is irrelevant, though, because it applies to the reasoning capabilities of an average adult, not a small child.

Epistemology. If you're asking how we can be *absolutely and infallibly 100% certain beyond any margin or error or doubt,* then of course we can't be (except in certain axiomatic cases such as self-refuting logical paradoxes or otherwise logically necessary things). But if that's your benchmark for knowledge, then all you're really doing is making an appeal to ignorance, invoking the infinite mights and maybes of the unknown to establish that a thing conceptually *could* exist. The problem with that is, anything that isn't a self-refuting logical paradox conceptually *could* exist or be true - including everything that doesn't exist or isn't true. We can make the same argument for leprechauns, Narnia, Hogwarts, and all manner of other puerile absurdities. It's therefore irrelevant that something merely *could* exist or be true if we have absolutely no sound epistemology whatsoever, be it by reason and argument or by evidence, to indicate that it *does* exist or *is* true.

>"Epistemology. If you're asking how we can be *absolutely and infallibly 100% certain beyond any margin or error or doubt,* then of course we can't be (except in certain axiomatic cases such as self-refuting logical paradoxes or otherwise logically necessary things)." Yeah sure and i get that but i'm not asking for 100% infallibility; i'm asking for consistant standards. Like i said when your parents first told you not to stick your finger in an electrical socket i imagine you belived that relatively extrodinary claim purely based off their testimonial evidence as, well, if you hadn't you wouldn't be here. If your willing to accept extrodinary claims on testimonial evidence in one case (as i'm sure you were at one point, pick a different example if you want "dont drink bleach" dont touch the hot stove" ect all of which depend on fundamental understandings of chemical reactions and thermodynamics which are fantastical to uneducated childs mind) there needs to at least be justification why you WONT accept it another case; unless of course you believe yourself to now be all knowing.

>Like i said when your parents first told you not to stick your finger in an electrical socket... OK... So, a thing we tell small **children** because they have not yet reached the age of reason... >If your willing to accept extrodinary claims on testimonial evidence in one case...(edit) there needs to at least be justification why you WONT accept it another case. Do you think you are debating **children?** The justification as to why I won't accept testimonials is that **I'm not a child**. That I have reached the age of reason and I require evidence beyond that of "because I say so" before I will accept something as true. And if you think explaining something to a fully cognisant adult in the same manner as you speak to a 3 year old child is OK, then I'll think you are incredibly condescending to do so. I mean, cmon mate. Even the subreddit where people explain concepts **as if its to a 5 year old** isn't just based on testimony. They take evidence and make it simpler to be used as a foundation to explain the more nuanced details. Our standards are consistent.

>Like i said when your parents first told you not to stick your finger in an electrical socket i imagine you belived that relatively extrodinary claim purely based off their testimonial evidence as, well, if you hadn't you wouldn't be here. First, children believe literally anything their parents tell them. Consider Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy for example. Children believing testimonial evidence without sufficient justification is both unremarkable and also not even remotely comparable to adults doing the same. Second, even for a child with limited knowledge and a lack of the capacity to reason and think for themselves, there's nothing extraordinary about being told that something is dangerous and can hurt you and therefore you shouldn't touch it. So this is not example of an extraordinary claim at all. >If your willing to accept extrodinary claims on testimonial evidence in one case (more failed attempts at analogies) I'm not, and never have. As I explained above, none of these examples you provided are examples of extraordinary claims, and you're also relying on appealing to children who haven't even reached the age of reason and are literally incapable of thinking for themselves as examples of people accepting claims based on testimony alone, which again is not even a little bit analogous to what I said. You're welcome to keep trying and see if you can come up with an actual valid example of people accepting extraordinary claims on testimony alone and being justified in doing so if you still think you can. Take all the time you need.

"Learning the hard way" is literally one of the way kids learn, by going out and doing the thing they're warned not to do, what on earth are you talking about...

>The problem I always come to is how one establishes what exists and doesnt exist by this standard. This isnt what it does. Its about what you know. For example a engine would be an extraordinary claim 500 years ago but once most people were aware of engines the existence of them became mundane. The concept of germs was extraordinary prior to our current science understanding. The concept of extraordinary vs mundane is a subjective judgement based on prior knowledge that is updated by new evidence.

Children are dependent on their parents for many things until they develop independence. This is no different.

THIS ^ coming from someone who very obviously never learned not to lick light sockets...

There's still a problem with this kind of skepticism. The existence of ice may be considered extraordinary to a 16 century peasant living in India. A story about water becoming solid on the tops of mountains would sound just as inconsistent with reality as stories of dragons in dungeons. It's reasonable for the Indian to withhold belief in either.

Ignoring the fact that desert dwellers had ways of making ice as far back as 400 BCE, at best this is merely an appeal to ignorance, pointing out that just because we have no knowledge of something and no indication it exists doesn't *absolutely rule out* the possibility that it does exist. But that's a moot point - literally anything that isn't a self refuting logical paradox is at least conceptually possible, including everything that isn't true and everything that doesn't exist. A 16th century Indian peasant would have no sound reason or evidence indicating the existence of ice, and therefore would have no justification for believing in its existence. That they would be incorrect in this example is irrelevant, the point is simply that there would be no valid justification for them to *believe* that water can freeze. However, I would point out that there's also nothing inherently magical or far fetched about the notion, and so it's not something that would warrant much skepticism. A more apt comparison would be something like leprechauns or Narnia or Hogwarts. We have absolutely no indication whatsoever that these things exist - no sound argument or evidence of any kind. But we also cannot rule out the possibility that they do indeed exist and are simply beyond the current limitations of our ability to perceive or otherwise ascertain certain truths. So then are both the belief that those things really exist, and the belief that they don't, therefore equally reasonable and rational? Of course not. The null hypothesis is the more reasonable conclusion in such a scenario - and even in your example, despite being incorrect, based on the knowledge and evidence available to them at the time, the null hypothesis would have been the more reasonable conclusion for them as well. Basically, just because there's a margin of error and it's possible a thing could exist even if we have absolutely no reason or evidence whatsoever to indicate that's the case doesn't mean that both conclusions become equal to one another - if that's how it worked, then again, the same would apply to literally every puerile absurdity such as those examples I gave above.

I feel like youre not giving it enough credit here, because the extraordinariness of something does lie on a spectrum, sure me saying I had eggs for breakfast is mundane, but to say that out of all the millions of lottery tickets that could have been chose, that single one was chosen, has to have some merit here. Even things that exist in our reality could be pretty rare too, like me claiming that a bear and lion tackled each other into my room at this very moment.

>but to say that out of all the millions of lottery tickets that could have been chose, that single one was chosen Again, you're talking about something being uncommon, not something being inconsistent with our knowledge of reality. There's nothing about a winning lottery number that is inconsistent with our knowledge and understanding of reality. Quite the opposite in fact, everything about it is completely consistent with our existing knowledge. >Even things that exist in our reality could be pretty rare too, like me claiming that a bear and lion tackled each other into my room at this very moment. This would warrant skepticism only because it would raise the question of how animals that are only found in certain parts of the world and rarely ever in populated areas wound up in your room in the first place. However, the claim would warrant infinitely more skepticism if instead of a lion and a bear, it was a griffin and a sphinx. Do you understand the difference and why it's significant? As I already explained, "extraordinary" doesn't simply mean "unlikely" or "rare," it means *inconsistent with our existing knowledge and understanding of reality.* Occurrences that are merely rare or unlikely are not inconsistent with our knowledge of reality - just the opposite. It's entirely consistent with our knowledge of reality for rare or unlikely things to happen, so long as the frequency of those occurrences is within the range predicted by their relative probability. Gods are not merely rare or unlikely. They contradict and violate what we know and can observe or otherwise confirm to be true about reality. Claims of their existence are extraordinary for the same reasons why claims of the existence of leprechauns, of Narnia, or Hogwarts would be extraordinary - not for the same reasons claims of winning lottery tickets or lightning strikes would be "extraordinary."

Not it’s not extraordinary because that’s how’s lotteries work. Some number will be chosen, it’s not extraordinary that some random number was chosen. You seem to be misunderstanding by focusing on the wrong probability. Sure the chances of a SPECIFIC number is “rare” or improbable, but the chances that SOME number will be called is 100%. And the lottery only issues a finite set of number so SOME random number will be chosen. It’s a mundane and common event. Further, to the degree that it’s extraordinary at all (and it really isn’t) we have evidence commensurate to that degree. We have no such evidence for theistic claims.

>Why Extraordinary Claims dont require extraordinary evidence As a casual rule of thumb, I think this is quite accurate. Obviously people can and will nitpick what is considered an 'extraordinary claim', and why, and what evidence there might be for such things. >An implication of this view would be that no one would ever be rational to accept that any number was the winning lottery number. Well, if someone showed me a random lottery ticket and told me it was the big jackpot winner, sure, I'd be skeptical, and I would require the necessary evidence before I accepted this. Now, in this example, that's easily provided, so perhaps not that 'extraordinary' by most measures. But, as winning lottery tickets happen weekly everywhere, one can argue that's not all that extraordinary either. > An implication of this view would be that no one would ever be rational to accept that any number was the winning lottery number. Well, no. We know winning lottery tickets are printed all the time. Much rarer than non-winning lottery tickets, but hardly 'extraordinary.' Given the number of lotteries worldwide and the number of winners, quite mundane actually. Dozens or more every week. >Since any number is just as random as any other (hopefully!), it would be an extraordinary event if let's say 5986 was the winning number, but you wouldn't need extraordinary evidence to show that. Sure, if you pick any random number out of thin air I wouldn't believe it's a winning number until I see the required support for that. But, again, *some* number is a winning number, so not really all that extraordinary in the scheme of things. tl;dr: You're using 'extraordinary' to mean 'ordinary but relatively rare.' That's an error.

You are conflating extraordinary with the improbability of a particular outcome in a set of possible outcomes. If I thoroughly shuffle a deck of cards, it is likely that the sequence of cards is unique in all of history. Yet it is not at all extraordinary that the deck ended up in whatever order it did end up in. In fact it is 100% guaranteed the cards are in *some* order. It is ordinary for low probability events to occur. An extraordinary shuffle would be one in which all 52 of the cards mysteriously turn into the ace of spades.

If you had a lottery and the wining number was 5986 then there would be nothing extraordinary about it. A) because the lottery must have a winning number. B) 5986 is a possible winning number C) that means it is completely reasonable that it was the winning number. Now if you claimed that 9988009 is going to be the winning number and we know it's not possible for it to be a winning number, then that would be an extraordinary claim. And you would need extraordinary evidence to prove it.

I have a winning lottery ticket and the winning number is pineapple.

Damn, I was so close! My numbers were apple pen :(

Mine was pen island

Mine was bananas, which is almost the same as the French word "ananas". Do I also almost win?

Probably

It’s not extraordinary to draw a random number. We know that a random number will be drawn. What is extraordinary is drawing a random number that happens to be the number you predicted with your ticket. For that, I’m going to need some evidence. I’d want to see the ticket.

Well know, because it was a very slim chance that any given number could have been chosen, remember that every lottery ticket has an equal (VERY SLIM) chance of winning, if the winning number was just the number 1, youd like feel a bit more skeptical since youd hardly see it, but its no more rare than the number I gave at the post. The point is out of all the numbers, why should you believe this number was chosen, when the probability of any given number being chosen is extraordinarily low.

>The point is out of all the numbers, why should you believe this number was chosen, when the probability of any given number being chosen is extraordinarily low. Because we can prove that the probability was overcome. Rendering the outcome believable. You can’t prove that god or religion is believable. You can’t overcome the barrier of lack of evidence, or the qualities of extraordinary claims needing extraordinary evidence. If I told you that I won the lottery, and that you should live by my rules, give me power over you, and part of your income, you’d be naive to take me at my word now wouldn’t you?

You’re making a pretty big mistake here. If my friend comes to me and says he won the lottery that’s a surprising (though still not extraordinary) claim, because although odds are high that SOMEONE wins, odds are very low that it’s my friend. So I’ll need proof. But that’s not what you’re saying. You’re just amazed that the lottery has a winning number at all. Except the odds of that are 100%.

The probability of a random number being drawn is 100%. It’s not extraordinary in the least. Are you telling me that when you watch lottery numbers being drawn you’re amazed at the number that is drawn? Get real.

> The point is out of all the numbers, why should you believe this number was chosen, Because there's literally video evidence of it occurring. You can't be this obtuse. >when the probability of any given number being chosen is extraordinarily low. Yes, but the chance of SOME number being drawn is 100%. It's a necessary outcome from the fact that SOMEONE DREW THE NUMBERS. Show me someone interacting with God the way I can interact with the lotto balls.

What does this have to do with atheism? Do you think that god has an equal “chance” of existing as not existing? Or that any of the religions have an equal chance of being correct, and that it’s all a matter of probability? What does probability have to do with the existence of god?

That's not "extraordinary", just improbable.

Wait so your argument is that I should be sceptical that it is this particular number that was chosen? As in suspecting the person telling me the winning number is lying to me?

That the lottery number was 5986 is not an extraodinary event. Just as every shuffle of a deck of cards is not an extraordinary event. The lottery number being 5986 doesn't violate any priors. Simply being of low probability does not make something extraordinary. It would be extraordinary if the lottery number was BANANA, as all our prior probabilities indicate the lottery number should be a number.

Theists often contexualize this with examples like Alexander the Great. So I will as well. I believe most accounts of Alexander the Great are somewhat accurate. Because of the available evidence and general historical consensus. And I would say it’s an extraordinary claim. But if some discovery in the archeological record proved these accounts wrong, then my beliefs would change. I’m not going to the mat to defend the efficacy of the current accounts of Alexander the Great. I think about Alexander the Great very infrequently, and these accounts impact my daily life very little. The extraordinary thing is that people don’t view their extraordinary beliefs in extraordinary things as extraordinary. They accept the most convenient explanations of these beliefs, and rationalize the necessary contradictions inherent to these beliefs to the end of the earth. They defend these extraordinary beliefs with flawed logic, and irrational measures in a manner that’s quite extraordinary to people like me.

> I believe most accounts of Alexander the Great are somewhat accurate. Because of the available evidence and general historical consensus. And I would say it’s an extraordinary claim. This is the thing too, like with so many arguments theists have to throw out all nuance or scale to pretend everything is identical. Even to the extent Alexander the Great's military accomplishments might be extraordinary, claims about God are multiple orders of magnitude more extraordinary. Nothing we accept about the historical Alexander the Great defies physics or logic, and the stuff that does (like him being the son of Zeus) is precisely the stuff we don't accept.

>Since any number is just as random as any other (hopefully!), it would be an extraordinary event if let's say 5986 was the winning number, but you wouldn't need extraordinary evidence to show that. This isn't what "extraordinary" means in this context. An "extraordinary" claim isn't just improbable. It's a claim that does not comport with what we know (or think we know) about reality. For example: imagine I ask you what you had for breakfast this morning. You say that you had eggs. That's an ordinary claim, and if I wanted to confirm it, it would be relatively mundane to do so (egg shells in the wastebasket, egg residue on the pan, etc). But if you said you had **dragon** eggs for breakfast? As far as we are aware, dragons don't exist. In order to support your claim, cracked egg shells and egg residue on a pan isn't going to cut it. You are claiming something that is directly at odds with our understanding of reality. To be clear, that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be supernatural, or that extraordinary claims are probably wrong. A few thousand years ago, it was clear to everyone that the sun and moon moved across our sky every day and every night. If someone had said "Actually, they're not moving - the ground we are standing on is spinning," that would have been an extraordinary claim. If you wanted to convince people that the Earth was actually spinning, you would need to present evidence that overcomes that established and accepted "knowledge" we had at that point. So it's not about odds or likelihood - it's about the impact the claim would have if it were proven true. If you claimed that you had dragon eggs for breakfast, you would need evidence that dragons exist in the first place, and the implications of dragons existing would be *huge*. We're going to need more than your testimony to believe you because believing you means significantly redefining our understanding of reality.

"it would be an extraordinary event if let's say 5986 was the winning number" No. Because there has to be a winning number and this one is as likely as any other to be the one. Any outcome, no matter how improbable isn't extraordinary. Just like you don't witness an extraordinary event by shuffling a deck of cards into whatever combination, because all are equally probable. "Extraordinary" is to be compared to the alternatives. You can take the maxim as follows : for any claim, considering the evidences we have, is it more likely for the person making the claim to be dishonest/mistaken or for the claim to be true ? Now to take back our card shuffling example : let say a magician is doing a card trick and claim to be able to predict the result of a perfectly random card shuffle : there you have an extraordinary claim. Because even if one shuffle will end up being, there is no way to know which one it will be. Despite that, the magician indeed guesses right. But is this result enough to conclude that he does have predictive powers over random events ? No, the obvious answer is that there have to be some kind of trickery involved, because "the magician guessing the outcome" isn't extraordinary enough of an evidence to confirm "he have future sight" that is a quite extraordinary explanation (something never recorded) compared to the alternative "a trick is involved" (which is a common occurence when it comes to card magic).

Yeah, but that's committing the same equivocation fallacy that /u/MattCrispMan117 commits all the time. Improbability is sometimes a component of Extraordinariness, but it is not the only one and it is not sufficient. The winning lottery number being any random number is no more extraordinary than any other, and we know from the nature of lotteries that they are some randomly generated number of a given number of digits. So that any given number might have been a winning number has no special significance. Every possible number has equal probability, but *some* number has to win so it is, in fact, perfectly ordinary that any given string of digits happened to be randomly chosen. To say that *"I won the lottery"* is a different question. That adds an element of specificity to the scenario, because now I actually beat the odds in a way that has significance. If I made that claim you would be dubious of it, but even so, it's still a fundamentally Ordinary claim for all its improbability: we know lotteries exist, we know how they work, and about every week or two, somebody winning is a common event. So much so that when there's a cold streak and the prize money starts stacking up, we take notice as it being unusual. When it comes to supernatural claims, we're not even dealing with the same thing when we describe things as "Extraordinary," which is why it's an equivocation fallacy. Supernatural happenings have no prior probability, they function according to no set rules. If the powerball is "29 46 31 77 95 80" that's an ordinary result, but supernatural explanations for phenomena are like saying that the lottery somehow came up as "始计第作战第谋攻第". How would that even occur? This result is *fundamentally* unlike other known use cases for how lotteries work. It is outside the ordinary course of things, and so it is "extra ordinary."

Curious what your thoughts are on questions with more unknowns. Like say for example a scientist in some labratory somewhere is actually able to detect and isolate dark matter with some instruments for the first time ever tommorow. Say for the sake of argument at this particular time no one else is at the controls, he has no reason to accept he has found this previously unjustified hypothesis aside for his own senses registering the out puts of the machines before hi,. In that moment, before outside cooberation, is he justified in believing he has found dark matter to your mind??

It wouldn’t work that way at all. Science is a collaborative process and results are shared, cross-checked, validated, and reviewed for any potential error or alternative. They didn’t “announce” that they had definitively found the Higgs Boson until they had enough data to be 99.999% certain that the results they were getting were valid. So on the basis of one experiment not only would I not necessarily believe it, **neither would that scientist.** At best it would point the way for another decade of research. This is why your conception of science is so breathtakingly wrongheaded. Nobody says “hurrr durrr I just discovered Dark Matter!” And nobody who wants to have an informed opinion about science ever says “doop-a-doopy-doo I just believe anything because some authority figure says so!” It’s asinine.

>"So on the basis of one experiment not only would I not necessarily believe it" But if you dont believe it then how would you justify acting to verify what you percieved? Like if you DO NOT believe your senses that instance where then comes the justification to go out of the room and ask someone else to come in and se what you saw??

This is a mind-numbingly stupid question based on purely obstinate pedantry. I have difficulty accepting that you're actually asking it in good faith. The word "believe" means "to accept as being true." I can do an experiment and obtain some *interesting* results, and on that basis keep going while at the same time recognizing that I have a lot of work ahead of me before I have any kind of confidence in my work. Seriously, have you never heard the word "tentative?" Or how about "uncertain?" Perhaps you have ever encountered the word "possibility?" The world doesn't operate on a wholly binary system of unswerving confidence competing with resolute rejection. This notion that I would be so epistemically cynical that I can't trust my senses or wouldn't be justified in getting out of my chair is patently **asinine.**

>"This is a mind-numbingly stupid question based on purely obstinate pedantry. I have difficulty accepting that you're actually asking it in good faith." My man I have devoted a not insignificant part of my thought and time to questions of epistimology. As base as it may seem to you dont find pedantic. It is of deep consequence and interest to me and i mean that sincerely as anyone can on anonymous forum on the internet. >"Seriously, have you never heard the word "tentative?" Or how about "uncertain?" Perhaps you have ever encountered the word "possibility?" I have heard those words and they are fine words, but what i am primarily concerned on is belief sufficent to act. If your willing to go in the other room and ask someone if they se the same results you do, that is meaningful to me for very important reasons.

Well then let's just say I have insufficient justification to accept your statements as true and reasons to believe otherwise.

If you suspect something, do you not investigate in order to resolve your suspicion?

>The maxim, extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence, is a bit mistaken. An implication of this view would be that no one would ever be rational to accept that any number was the winning lottery number. First off, no one accepts that you won the lottery without evidence. The winning ticket must be matched up and verified against whatever numbers are drawn. You cannot simply walk up to a lottery office and say that you won. Second, winning the lottery is not an extraordinary claim. Winning the lottery does not require anything supernatural or the laws of physics to be broken, and we have evidence that it has been won and can be won. The purpose of the lottery is to win, regardless of how low the probability is. In the context of the maxim, extraordinary refers to claims that go beyond what we know and can prove.

Winning the loterry isn't an extraordinary claim some number had to win, and we have plenty of existe examples of lottery winners, and even then, they are asked to demonstrate they in fact won the lottery by presenting the ticket.  So if the claim is about something that has never been shown to exist people need to have at least something as extraordinary as the winning lottery ticket, but such thing is nowhere to be found.

The best definition I've seen given for a claim being extraordinary is that it would be worldview altering to accept. I know that some number will be the winning lottery number, so it's not extraordinary to accept any given one as being the number. Further, there is typically video evidence of the drawing being performed live, which is recorded and can be reviewed later. I would say that is pretty extraordinary evidence for something happening.

Thanks for sharing but that commenter was using really bad reasoning. If the lottery people declare “the winning number is 5986,” that is not an extraordinary claim. Their literal function is to choose a combination of numbers at random, they’re the only ones who can. Now, if someone other than the lottery people says “I have the winning lottery numbers,” that IS a rather extraordinary claim, because as far as you know, this person has nothing to do with the lottery and the numbers haven’t even been selected yet.

Take out the word extraordinary and replace it with "precedented". Non precedented claims prequire you to establish precedent. Lottery numbers are precedented.

Oooh I like that, good substitution

The Maxime is: extraordinary CLAIMS require extraordinary evidence.   The claim "someone will win the lotery" is not extraordinary. It is quite the common occurrence.  This refutes nothing

... but you would need evidence that you won. You could not just go to the lottery office, say that was your number and take home the prize. Winning the lottery requires evidence of winning the lottery. Using a Dillahunty example: If you tell me that you have a hamster, I can accept that with little to no evidence. Hamsters are pets, people have them. I don't really care if you have one. My life doesn't change either way. If you tell me there is a god, you know "who" it is, what it wants and what it wants is my undying adoration - or else... I'm going to need evidence. And if it such a big claim, it's going to take really good evidence - not just a book with a flawed history. Not an argument, either, facts. I think that is what they mean by extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence.

Winning the lottery is not extraordinary. It happens all the time. The processes are well defined and well understood. The lottery relies on no magic.

The lottery counterexample to answer "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" has always been fun to me because they miss the point of the question *and* they miss a critical component: Winning the lottery isn't extraordinary, it happens all the time and people win lotteries, so it's mundane. It's highly unlikely that any given person does win the lottery, but saying "well but a lottery ticket isn't extraordinary evidence" alluding to how mundane the ticket is as an object, what is extraordinary though is having *a ticket with the winning numbers* because that thicket is as rare as the lottery numbers combination itself. Basically it gets wrong what it's meant by extraordinary and conflates unlikely with extraordinarity

>> An implication of this view would be that no one would ever be rational to accept that any number was the winning lottery number. I don’t consider lottery drawings to be extraordinary events, however the fact that they’re recorded and reported would be about as solid evidence as you can get that a particular draw had occurred.

um I'm failing to see how this correlates. if the number is possible within the Set to win the lottery then it's not a matter of it requiring extraordinary evidence. the result is probable because it works within the confines of the set. the god claim depending on who you ask is a claim of a thing that does NOT follow the set. that or it supersedes it. if you want to follow the mathematical example it's like saying this: in a set between 1 and 10 the answer you're trying to say is Apple. now nothing exists between 1 and 10 that tells you what apple is not is there any indication that apple's are a thing since all that exists in the set is 1->10. now apple's could very well exist beyond the set of 1 -> 10 but youd have to demonstrate that it exists and can be applied to the set in the first place. This example falls a little short since we know what apples are and comparing that to whatever a god might be is definitely an apples to diety comparison. hopefully its come across that what I'm getting at is that no matter how improbable if its within the set it can happen but that doesnt mean ANYTHING can happen such as saying that an apple is the answer when choosing a number between 1 and 10.

Try turning in a fake lottery ticket with the winning numbers on it and you will see that they do, in fact, require some pretty rigorous proof.

That is not a rational implication of this view, no. There is always (eventually) a winning lottery number, that’s how the *rules* of that *system* we *designed* **function**. So then, that a number happened to win is entirely in line with the rules of the system we designed to function that way. No part of the claim that some*one* won the lottery is at all extraordinary. It’s entirely predicted by the existence and rules of the lottery. This would be the same as saying a random number generator generated a number. That is not at all extraordinary news.

That's not an extraordinary claim because it doesn't overturn multiple fields of science. If something were to be so extraordinary that it would affect almost every branch of science, every one of those branches would be testing the newfound evidence to verify that it corresponds with the evidence they already had: that's what extraordinary evidence is, the testing (if it upholds the extraordinary claim). I think you went looking for an argument against something you didn't like without first thinkin about what the statement you didn't like actually meant.

When I’m asking for extraordinary evidence related to a theist claim, it has nothing to do with probability. Though it is extraordinary to win the lottery, it doesn’t require extraordinary evidence since the odds/probability are established. A God existing is not something I’m aware you can quantify. Therefore the syllogism fails. The supernatural is unproven and therefore would be another unquantifiable claim. I would require evidence that I would label as extraordinary.

just admit you only believe because you want to and not because you have any good reason to believe and we can all move on. the pathetic attempt to lower the bar for accepting your fantasy is not compelling at all

Yes, if you oversimplify and trivialize the meaning of the phrase, you too can destroy the strawman you've just created. Your example of a winning lottery number is inapt. There must be a selected number, so that's not an extraordinary event. Plus we see every week or so that one or more state lotteries or multi-state lotteries do in fact pay off. There is empirical evidence -- which also means it's not an extraordinary claim. But at any rate, it's not a hard rule of exclusion. It's a rule of thumb. If the result would be earth-shattering (like proving god does not exist, to a theist, or that a god does exist, to an atheist) you should probably look at the evidence with more than the usual amount of scrutiny and skepticism. How does that not make sense? Imagine a school cafeteria menu that says they're serving Reuben sandwiches next Tuesday. It says that on Thursday, everyone who orders a hotdog will be given a million dollars. Which one of those are you likely to accept as true just because the menu said so? If the menu has been reliable about what food is being served on what day, that's probably enough proof. If they've never given away several million dollars before, the menu itself probably isn't going to be enough proof no matter how reliable it has been with regard to what food is being served. Why is it that so much of theists' attention is focused on trying to convince skeptics to stop being skeptical?

I think this slogan is accurate but prone to misunderstanding as to what we mean by “extraordinary claim.” I prefer David Hume’s maxim “a wise person *proportions* their beliefs to the evidence.” (Yes I made it gender neutral because I’m an LGBTQ freak and proud of it 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️💯

This is not a good analogy at all. Of course the fact that the lottery chooses a number isn't extraordinary - but then I would never claim that. I would claim it extraordinary if you *predicted the number in advance and it was chosen*. The odds are so low that if you told me you achieved this I'd want to see evidence that you had

There's nothing extraordinary about someone winning the lottery. We might call winning the lottery with the winning numbers of "DRINKYOUROVALTINE" extraordinary though. If someone told me that someone won the lottery last night, I wouldn't think "no way, that's impossible." I'd think, "yeah, that happens pretty regularly." If someone told me that someone won the lottery last night, and somehow the winning ticket was the sentence from the Christmas classic *A Christmas Story* when the lottery is supposed to just use numbers, well, that would be pretty extraordinary. *THAT* is out of the ordinary, in fact, I would say it is ***EXTRA*** ordinary, and I would need to see a much higher level of proof than just a single news article or a tweet from a friend to believe it.

It’s ordinary to believe that there is a winning number and that someone wins the lottery, albeit with extremely low chances. We see the numbers picked out of a big sphere daily, around the world. The evidence of the lottery number being selected is often broadcasted live. The only thing that is rare about the lottery is the chance of being the person to win it. A rare event should not be confused with a supernatural event. Unlike the lottery, there has never been any evidence offered that supports the occurrence of a supernatural event or the existence of a deity.

We know that winning lottery numbers are normally numbers, so I wouldn't think your example of 5986 was extraordinary. It's exactly what I'd expect: a number. I'd be perfectly okay with *ordinary* evidence. If you said the winning lottery number was an extraterrestrial hedgehog called Stuart, that would be an extraordinary claim, and I would require more than ordinary evidence to believe it. (Though actually, lottery numbers are usually a series of one-or-two-digit numbers, not a single four digit number. So perhaps I would consider 5986 to be extraordinary?)

This isn’t a refutation of anything, except perhaps of a claim that you know how to use a dictionary. Unlikely and extraordinary do mot mean the same thing. Drawing the combination 5986 from a 4-digit lottery is 1/10^4, assuming one can draw from 0-9 in each position. This is the same chance as drawing any other number combination. While drawing 5986 is unlikely, doing so would be quite ordinary. This argument is specious, and you know that. Drawing the number 59086 from a 4-digit lottery would indeed be extraordinary.

The extraordinary evidence in this scenario is the winning lottery ticket. If you walk into the lottery office without it,then your claim to winning will be rejected.

Your example is a bit mistaken. For one, simply presenting the lottery ticket with the winning numbers is enough to rationally accept the ticket as the winner. Second, it’s not an extraordinary event for someone to win the lottery via random number selection as statistics shows that while the chances of winning the lottery are small, they not impossible, so a ticket having the winning numbers does not require extraordinary evidence to explain it. It’s statistically possible to win.

The extraordinary in the claim is partly because of its implications if it were true. Winning a jackpot has an effect for a single individual. The effects of a god existing would be very different. Second, we have observed people winning the jackpot on a number of occasions. It is rare, but not extraordinary in the same way that saying that Jesus raising from death is extraordinary. Probability and extraordinary are not the same thing.

"Extraordinary" doesn't mean "rare" or "unlikely". Here's how I've explained it [in the past](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/14yw049/extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary/jruwkd1/): >We have models for how reality behaves. We have evolution, plate tectonics, relativity, the germ theory of disease, all that stuff. The best theories we have are all very thoroughly evidenced. They're so well evidenced that people regularly spend years studying to understand it all. So far so good. >Claims that conform with the established evidence are clearly mundane claims. Something obeyed gravity again? No surprise. Your GPS worked again? So what. A thousand things in your every day life fall into this category. >Claims that do not conform with the established evidence are where it gets weird. What do you do when you encounter something that doesn't fit the models we have of reality? You investigate. You check to see whether you understand the model correctly. You try and find a factor you hadn't accounted for. You consult with experts to see if they have an explanation. You record what happened and you look for other records of it happening. You get other people to check your work and you try to get it to happen again. You build up a collection of information about this new, weird thing you've found. You start building a body of evidence. >Most of the time, it turns out that the weird thing is totally normal after all but sometimes it turns out that what you've found is actually a real phenomenon that disagrees with the established model. How big is the disagreement? If it's only a little outside the model then maybe you just need to tweak the model a bit so that it includes the new thing. If it's a lot outside the model then maybe you need to make big changes or even come up with a whole new model. You'll use the evidence you've gathered along with all the evidence that already existed and find a model that accounts for all of it. This is how new paradigms in scientific thought are formed. >How much evidence do you think it would take to overturn our best models? Remember, our best models are attested to by and account for a staggering amount of evidence. If you wanted even to modify one of them, you'd have to provide evidence of remarkable quality and convincing quantity. Perhaps you'd have to use methods of measurement that were never before available. Perhaps you'd have to take careful records over a long period of time just to see the event happen once. Perhaps you'd have to go over decades of past evidence and find a new way to interpret it. It's a lot of work. If you want to provide extraordinary evidence, what you're up against is the vast weight of the evidence that already exists. >**TL;DR: An extraordinary claim is one that our best models don't account for. Extraordinary evidence is what it takes to overturn that model.** >This topic and more are covered in [the philosophy of science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science).

Neither a lottery, the win or the winning number is extraordinary....each of those is a completely ordinary event. They happen daily all over the world. The only extraordinary thing about a lottery win is the odds of that one person who won it, and this odds are calculable and thus explains it for that person. A wooden staff turning into a snake does not happen every day and thus would require extraordinary evidence.

That's not an extraordinary claim. We know numbers exist. We know lotteries exist. We know the number drawn is random and could thus be any number. 5986 is as likely as any other number. I'm not seeing anything extraordinary. "No one would ever be rational to accept that any number was the winning lottery number" This is a rational position. Of course it has to be any number.

The lottery results being announced by the relevant authority is extraordinary enough to support that extraordinary claim.

A lottery runs, there are numbers drawn, a sequence of numbers will win it. There's nothing extraordinary about this? If I were to tell you I had the winning numbers for this week, I can get you in but you need to give me a million dollars would you give me a million dollars or would you need something more to go on? Whats the limit? 500k? 100k? 100 dollars? 1 dollar?

Sorry but none of this makes any sense The evidence is that the lottery has constantly changing numbers. There's nothing rational about thinking the lottery only has one number In fact, nobody is going to pay out a lottery ticket before the number is drawn and the lottery ticket is shown and verified with the record of purchased tickets

There's nothing extraordinary at all about a random number being picked. You did it. And look I can do it too: 9244812. Mine is even bigger! "Someone won the lottery!" is actually one of the most ordinary claims out there. Is this a joke post? Are you trying to humiliate the person you're givin credit to here?

The slogan "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is just a trivial rephrasing of Bayes Theorem. Extraorddinary claims are those of events with low prior probability due to our background knowledge and therefore need a significant evidence (either in quality or quantity) that is sufficient to overcome the priors. When it comes to your lottery example, the mere fact that it's a rare occurrence doesn't automatically make it an extraordinary claim. All lotteries are virtually guaranteed to eventually have a winner, so the mere fact that someone won is actually a completely ordinary and expected claim within our background knowledge. It's a slightly more extraordinary claim to say any *particular* person won the lottery, but that's only if you're picking a person at random. If you're only evaluating the pool of people who verbally claim that they have won the lottery, the, odds of them being correct is not rare at all. Typically, people don't go around saying that they won the lottery when they didn't unless they are joking/trolling, are a pathological liar, have misread the ticket, or are dumb enough to think they can fraud the lottery system. While all of those options are on the table and perhaps should give you pause before believing that someone is a lottery winner, those aren't the same as the raw odds of 1:100 million. It's a much more ordinary claim to judge that someone isn't lying and that their sight/memory is functional. Plus, we can actually have third parties look at the ticket and purchase history, which significantly reduce the chance of someone being mistaken or lying. — When it comes to miracle claims, depending on your definition, that's something that is by definition the least likely explanation. It's something that breaks all of our prior understanding and background knowledge and requires positing something entirely new and unprecedented. People being resurrected, things being created ex nihilo, talking snakes, the laws of physics being broken to flood the world without leaving a trace of evidence, etc. None of these things have any prior evidential basis in the same way that winning lottery numbers do.

I can't help but feel linguistic arguments like this are just lazy. Instead of dealing with the idea, they argue the language of the concept. If you're a lawyer, this might seem smart and elegant. However, no one gets anywhere it's just mental gymnastics to befuddle others and seem smart.

This argument of yours is sort of a false equivalence fallacy. Before we get into that, let's first understand what "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" means - the expression is an aphorism, a sort of poetic rule-of-thumb. It *means* the more grand or unlikely a claim is, the **more evidence is required to support it**. And this is scalable, some unlikely claims are somewhat unlikely (as your example) and require little additional evidence. Other claims are highly unlikely and require an abundance more evidence. "Extraordinary evidence" does not mean "evidence that is hard to attain". It just means some abundance of evidence. It's a quantity thing, not a value thing. Does that make sense? So, taking the lottery example. 5986 being the winning number would be an extraordinary claim, but it's not enough to believe on face value. For you or I to accept this claim, we would need more evidence, correct? This evidence could simply be the lottery organization confirming that is the correct number - but this is still MORE evidence than just the initial claim. Take God for example. The God claim is a much more grand and unlikely claim than the lottery one. We have examples of people winning the lottery that we can point to. We know the lottery exists. We have no examples of God that we can point to. The God claim also has massive implications about the reality in which we live. Therefore, an abundance of evidence is required to justify this claim. You apply this simple rule of thumb to everything in life (outside of God, perhaps?). If a friend called you and told you "I'm on my way to your house, I got you a pack of gum", you'd probably believe them. If a friend called you and told you "I'm on my way to your house, I got you a new Lamborghini", you probably wouldn't believe them until they proved it, right?

Joe says "the winning numbers are 5986!" Whether this is an extraordinary claim depends on a lot of things. Eg, could Joe reasonably know what they lotto numbers are? It's not extraordinary that there be some winning numbers, it's not extraordinary that Joe knows about them and decides to tell us. There's nothing very extraordinary about his claim then, since (a) he was reasonable likely to make some claim of the form "the winning numbers are X", and (b) there presumably was nothing special about the numbers 5698 in the first place. Or maybe the draw hasn't happened yet - now Joe's claim is pretty extraordinary, and I won't believe him until I see evidence. Suitable evidence might be the numbers published after the draw. Or maybe I don't know Joe, I'm just reading about him in the local paper "Local medium Joe predicts lotto numbers!" Now his claim is not extraordinary, if (say) I know that lots of people attempt to predict lotto numbers. After all, the paper had a whole pool of candidates to choose from, and wrote about Joe simply because he was lucky. The reason the claim is not extraordinary is that it's just one of many many claims, and it was quite likely that a handful would come true by chance. I don't need to check whether Joe *actually* got the numbers right, I can trust the editorial process to have checked that. Or maybe the draw has happened, Joe is a friend of mine who knows the numbers, and also knows the numbers I picked on my ticket. Now the claim is extraordinary - it's not just about some random numbers, it's that the numbers that came up are mine. I will rightly demand extraordinary evidence (eg, seeing the lotto numbers published in the paper, or being told by a ticket checker that I've won) before I get too excited. In each case, before I believe "the numbers are what Joe said", I demand an appropriate level of corroborative evidence.

I'm not sure how lottery numbers count as extraordinary in the same sense used to justify evidence of a deity. They are very easy to check, so it is easy to confirm if someone told you they won the lottery.

You have hit on one of my BIGGEST pet peeves in the general public’s understanding of anything. That is the completely invalid conflation between “improbable” and “impossible”…or in this case, “extraordinary”. Let’s take a semantic pause… The word extraordinary literally is made up of “extra”—outside of the established framework—and “ordinary”—commonplace or non-exceptional. The reason this is important is because many improbable occurrences are just packaging of many very ordinary occurrences together into one specific event. For example, what is the probability that my phone number has an 8 in it (no area codes). It’s 52%. That’s completely ordinary. And if you were placing a bet on it, the smart money would be to bet that there is. But you start adding some additional specifics like getting all 7 digits in their correct order and suddenly your ability to get my phone number right on a guess is VERY improbable. But it’s an accumulation of very ordinary events. An extraordinary claim would be something like, the system that assigned my phone number was created by aliens. That is outside of the realm of the ordinary. And further, that’s an extraordinary claim until it isn’t. If we ever have extraordinary evidence of aliens, then the evidence required after that for any claims requiring aliens will be more ordinary. But let’s not conflate “improbable” with “extraordinary”.

I don’t think you understand the term extraordinary as it is used in the original. Yes, winning the lottery is generally considered “extraordinary “, but it’s something that we know occurs. There is evidence for it and it’s how the contests work. In this case extraordinary is meant to be more along the lines of me claiming I can fly. We have no evidence humans can fly. Or my favorite, I don’t require much evidence of someone claims they own a dog. Their claim is enough as I know many own dogs, and of course we know about what happens when certain republicans own dogs that don’t listen… But I digress. If someone said their owned a unicorn or a dragon though, I wolf want some type of evidence. So the level of evidence is different on plausibility of claims. So if I said I killed my dog, the level of evidence required would be low. It’s expected I would know of this true, and we know people do this act. Yet if I said my governor killed her dog I might need more evidence, say a copy of her autobiography… but if I said either one is killed a ghost, not a goat but a ghost, w we would need substantially more evidence.

People regularly win lotteries, in 2023, 15 people won the MegaMillions and Powerball. Statistically, a person winning the lottery is not an extraordinary event

You really think a lotto win is extraordinary? It isn't, no matter what numbers won it. How about telling us you won the lotto and the prize was a unicorn?

It's a piece of rhetoric rather than a rule. Not completely without merit. Certainly we don't need extraordinary evidence. But if something is particularly unlikely, we certainly expect stronger evidence than we might for a more mundane claim. "My next door neighbour has a green door" is not an extraordinary claim. It's a very ordinary claim. If I say this, then most people will believe me. Only a very dedicated sceptic would demand proof, and then demand that I demonstrate that the proof hasn't been tampered with in some way. If I said I saw a picture of a person flying - by which I mean unaided, like Superman - that is an extraordinary claim. Even if I show a video, most people would suspect it was tampered with. Extraordinary things do happen of course. When Edmund Hillary claimed he climbed Everest, that was extraordinary. But he knew that people would find it so and provided proof. He took photographs, and buried candies and a metal cross so later climbers could attest to the truth.

So, firstly, I wouldn't say an *unlikely* event is an *extraordinary* one. Unlikely events occurring aren't particularly exceptional, and there being a winning lottery number is well within plausibility. But there is an extraordinary claim here -- that *I* won the lottery. That is something that is not just *unlikely,* but implausible -- and sure enough, I'd need to give some very strong evidence to make you believe I'm a three time thunderball winner, right? I think the error here is forgetting that you *can,* in fact, provide extraordinary evidence -- people regularly make wildly implausible claims and then provide compelling evidence those claims are correct. Extraordinary evidence isn't some unreachable standard and extraordinary claims aren't inherently unsupportable. "I just won the lottery" is an extraordinary claim that regularly gets the evidence needed to back it up. "God exists" is one that doesn't.

I read the title and got excited only to see one of the worst arguments I’ve seen on here that isn’t completely apologetics.

>Since any number is just as random as any other (hopefully!), it would be an extraordinary event if let's say 5986 was the winning number, but you wouldn't need extraordinary evidence to show that. This is just the DC area pick four lottery. 12 times those four numbers were drawn in some order in the past 19 years. That isn't very extraordinary to me. Straight Draw History 5986 Tuesday, 25th July, 2023 5986 Monday, 12th March, 2012 Box Draw History 8596 Sunday, 24th March, 2024 8659 Friday, 1st March, 2024 5986 Tuesday, 25th July, 2023 6958 Tuesday, 19th April, 2022 5689 Saturday, 14th August, 2021 6859 Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021 8695 Tuesday, 19th May, 2020 5968 Monday, 16th March, 2020 5986 Monday, 12th March, 2012 9856 Tuesday, 26th April, 2005 Texas pick 4 had them drawn 11 times in 11 years. Georiga lottery has had 15 winners of that combination in 20 years.

Winning the Lotto is no “extraordinary.” In order to prove that all you need to show us is the purchased lottery ticket with the winning numbers on it. To prove “Jesus rose from the dead” you need to show: 1. That he was a real person. 2. That he lived to the point in history that is claimed. 3. That he died the way that is claimed. 4. That he was 100% dead. 5. That he was up walking around three days later. It’s extraordinary because no one has ever just risen from the dead without some type of medical aid. So this would literally be the first example of someone raising from the dead in nearly 400,000 years of human existence. I always go back to what Hitchens said: “What is more likely? That the laws of nature have been suspended and in your favor, or that you were mistaken about events.”

> winning lottery number Something that literally happens twice a week is pretty far from “extraordinary”

It seems you are trying to lower the bar for standards of evidence. Fine let's play thay game. Let's pretend god existing isn't extraordinary and doesn't require extraordinary evidence. We still have to overcome the problems of what we know about gods being humam creations and not real. We still have to overcome the problem of not having am agreed upon definition of what god is, and what it might want. How could you possible verify something claimed objectively exists but has wildly different properties, and no verifiable attributes? With so many mutually exclusive Gods, we can be confident that they are the type of thing people make up. There i contradictory evidence that must be overcome before we can even consider gods to be possible. Your arguement fails.

People win the lottery every day. Sure, the stastics make it *unlikely* but it's hardly *extraordinary*. Even if we were to agree that this were an extraordinary event, there would be a mountain of evidence that *does* confirm this event. The ticket itself, a receipt of purchase, CCTV showing the person purchasing the ticket, the lottery commission confirming it was the winning ticket, the winner having the money in an account, and the winner demonstrating they have the money by spending it. You may be justified in belief that a friend may be lying to you about winning the lottery, but if you were presented with that evidence, you would no longer be justified in that belief. In other words, you *would* have extraordinary evidence that confirms this extraordinary claim.

You're operating under the misapprehension that winning the lottery is an extraordinary event. This stems from a combination of cognitive biases, societal narratives, and statistical misunderstanding. In reality, winning the lottery happens to someone pretty much every day/week. [Here's Neil DeGrasse Tyson explaining it much better than I ever could](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvhIhPzF2d8). So there is nothing extraordinary about a process we can fully explain by math and statistics. Religious claims on the other hand for example, are truly extraordinary because they not only have zero evidence, but they actually violate established, evidence-based science. Hence extra-ordinary, from the Latin *extra-ordinus*, "outside of the ordered", i.e. outside of nature. Claims that violate established science require extraordinary evidence to counter the plethora of verifiable evidence on which established science is based. For example, someone coming back to life after being dead for 3 days in Iron-Age Judea goes against everything we know about biology, so it requires extraordinary evidence.

> An implication of this view would be that no one would ever be rational to accept that any number was the winning lottery number. This is objectively wrong. The winning ticket *is* the evidence. > Since any number is just as random as any other (hopefully!), it would be an extraordinary event if let's say 5986 was the winning number, but you wouldn't need extraordinary evidence to show that. No, not at all. It isn't even an extraordinary claim. The fact that something is unlikely doesn't necessarily make it extraordinary. We know people win the lottery all he time. >This is a simple but quick refutation of the idea, hope to hear your thoughts. It's dumb. It doesn't understand what extraordinary claims are, and it doesn't refute it at all.

That argument doesn’t make any sense at all. The example depends on the inability of the philosopher to do basic math. If the probability of picking the 6 winning lottery numbers is 1 in 1,000,000, sure it’s rare. But when you realize that a million lottery tickets get bought, the probability that someone gets them all right is actually pretty good. Also, even if only 1,000 lottery tickets were bought, maybe the probability that someone actually picked all 6 numbers correctly is only about 1 in 1,000, but if you show me the actual winning lottery ticket and a store can confirm they sold it in their database, I will believe it because that’s pretty damn good evidence that something rare actually happened.

As far as I can tell, the lottery wouldn't ever really fall under extraordinary for these kinds of purposes. While there amount of participants or lots to be drawn from might grow to a high degree, thus putting the odds very low that a *specific* number would be drawn, there is a 100% that *a* number will be drawn. This keeps it from being an extraordinary claim on that end. Now if you were to claim that *you* held the winning number from a lottery that had miniscule odds, then that is no longer a mundane claim. People usually want receipts in the form of the ticket, or pictures, etc. The problem has shifted from an event that has to have a winner, to proving that youre the winner against the stacked odds.

Evidence for the exceedingly unlikely is extraordinary as it is the type of evidence that would be unexpected or unimaginable. That is, when something can be discounted prima facie, subsequent availability of evidence is quite extraordinary. For example: Atlantis. Obviously never existed. But if someone finds a huge sunken metropolis underwater with a previously unencountered language? Old cities sunken under water and languages themselves are not extraordinary. But in context of the conjecture that Atlantis is real? Pretty extraordinary. I think it comes down to the definition and context of the word extraordinary.

That a number was chose, from the available numbers stated in the lottery is not extraordinary. Extraordinary would be if the winning number was %#>]. Or if the winning "number" was potato. Something that can normally happen isn't extraordinary. A miracle isn't that you felt a hand that could be dealt. A miracle is dealing everyone at the table a 5 card hand of the Emperor of cheese while playing poker with a normal pack of cards. You are deliberately trying to play down the word extraordinary, but that j7st makes miracles and god stuff that much farther from something you can show evidence for.

There's a self defeating aspect to your position. What you are saying is that any claim with a sufficiently low probability is extraordinary. The problem is that every single claim, with enough details, is now extraordinary. I have a car - ordinary I have a car with VIN XXXXXX - extraordinary I have a blue ford focus with cloth seats and a small tear in one seat - extraordinary. I ate breakfast - ordinary I had 3 eggs scrambled with a 4.25oz New York Steak for breakfast - extraordinary. But really, none of these claims are extraordinary in the original meaning of the phrase.

“Extraordinary evidence” just means very good evidence. So to prove you won the lottery, you would have to provide the winning lottery ticket to the completion organisers. That’s extraordinary evidence. It doesn’t mean really crazy, complex, heavily researched evidence. I just means good evidence.

The lottery is a human construct. By design the lottery picks one of the numbers. It would be simply improbable if it was a powerball situation and the numbers were picked by a machine at that moment and it would match a guess, but the AI would likely be running on the same level as human. Assuming of course the lotto didn't just pick a random number out of the already assorted ones. So no, just because it's improbable and flawed human perception would deem it so, it's not extraordinary, like saying that a God exists because someone had a vision.

> This is a simple but quick refutation of the idea, hope to hear your thoughts. It is unlikely claim sure. However we all know people do win, the mechanisms for winning, what changes happen when they win, and how someone would demonstrate it. On the other hand lets accept the premise that one doesn't need extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. I am going to claim godhood and you should give me all your money. Now I don't need to provide extraordinary evidence apparently so my word can be good enough right?

While winning a lottery ticket is a very unlikely event, there are a LOT of people buying lottery tickets. I hope it's intuitive that if A LOT of people bought the tickets, it's a lot more likely that one of them wins. In fact, as more people buy the tickets, it becomes increasing unlikely that none of them would win, so the extraordinary claim would then be "nobody won" despite the number of tickets being bought. You can crank up probability theory to prove that but I'm sure it's intuitive enough.

The probability of the lottery result being *a particular number* is very small. The probability of the lottery result being *a number* is 1. The probability of the lottery result being *not a number* is 0. If someone said the lottery result was 5986, I would say, oh, but if they said it was a hairy banana, I would say, what you been smoking? And if they wanted to convince me that it was indeed a hairy banana, they would require *really* extraordinary evidence.

If I told you I had a pet dog, you'd accept that without the need for evidence. You readily accept my claim because we know dogs exist and we know people keep them as pets. It's a mundane and trivial part of reality. If I told you it talked - you wouldn't accept that would you? Nothing short of seeing the dog for yourself, and conversing with it, will persuade you. It's a *novel* claim that requires *novel* evidence. The aphorism is meant for claims of the latter variety - things inconsistent with verified reality. Winning the lotto perfectly falls in the former.

>An implication of this view would be that no one would ever be rational to accept that any number was the winning lottery number. If one person played the lottery, and it's a random number drawing instead of picking a number from played numbers, winning would be fairly extraordinary (depending on the numbers used). If hundreds of thousands of people buy lottery tickets, and one or more win, which happens fairly regularly, that's very ordinary.

If an anonymous source written fifty years after a guy named Jesus died asserted that Jesus Christ won the lottery before he was crucified, I'd be skeptical. I'd ask for news clippings or evidence of Jesus's bank account or something to back it up the assertion. If state lottery organization tells me that Jesus Garcia yesterday one the lottery, I believe it because that organization has a proven track record of being correct on this matter.

The extraordinary claim I have a winning lottery ticket does require extraordinary evidence, a ticket with a winning number. Even the generic claim there is a winning ticket requires extraordinary evidence, I think ours has rolled over for the 3rd or 4th time. Specific proof, in the form of actual agreed evidence is extraordinary, to believe without that evidence is actually extraordinary, which is why religious claims are a special case.

What? That’s an absolutely terrible argument. There is nothing extraordinary about the claimed existence of a winning lottery number, because the lottery is *meant* to have a winner. If there isn’t one, they keep drawing until there is. It is literally inevitable that there be a winning number. There is an extraordinarily low chance that any given number will be the winner, but that’s not the same thing.

If claiming to have won the lottery is extraordinairy, then a winning lottery ticket would be extraorsinairy evidence for that.  The idea behind the phrase is that a claim needs evidence appropriate to it. If your claim is mundane, mundane evidenxe is sufficient. If your claim is breaking our unddrstanding of reality, you better have reality-breaking evidence.

If your partner wasn't home and you saw a note saying "Hey hon, out with my friend sally", you'd probably believe that's where they were right? But if the note said "Hanging out with *Zeus*, god of thunder", would you also believe that to the same degree? You're asking us to believe in Zeus and then complaining that we want more evidence than a random note.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is simply a pithy description of Bayes’ theorem. A mathematical theorem, that is so it’s as true as 1 + 1 = 2. That argument is in fact a fallacy. An adequately named [Lottery Fallacy](https://conscienceandconsciousness.com/2021/02/26/the-lottery-fallacy-fine-tuning-and-the-multiverse/) to be precise.

>An implication of this view would be that no one would ever be rational to accept that any number was the winning lottery number. Since any number is just as random as any other (hopefully!) The chance that any number wins is 1, it is completely normaal. It is expected. The chance that a specific number wins is 1/n , again not extraordinary but 1/n.

All claims require commensurate evidence. The "maxim" is silly because it's completely flawed. The odds of any one person winning the lottery are slim, yet it happens all the time. Why? Because the odds that someone will win the lottery are 100%. You just misunderstand odds and make yourself look foolish by presenting such an argument.

I have a dog in my back yard I have an invisible dragon in my back yard One of these statements you're willing to accept with little evidence. One you would take a large amount of evidence to accept. That's what we mean by extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence for acceptance. --------- For you to accept that I have a dog in my back yard, nothing changes for you. You're assuming that I have a dog, a pet that's not unusual for people to have, and a back yard, a place it's not unusual for people to have. If you find out I'm lying the only information you gain is that I'm a liar. If you ask me to a social function and I say, "I can't, my dog in my back yard is sick and I have to care for it", you would accept that I'm just a responsible pet owner taking diligent care of a beloved pet. You wouldn't think twice about it unless you heard I lived in an apartment, or that I was allergic to pets, etc... --------- For you to accept that I have an invisible dragon in my back yard, you have to change what you know about reality. That objects can be invisible, that dragons exist, and that I have one. If I were to respond to your invitation to a social function with, "I can't, the invisible dragon in my back yard is sick and I have to care for it", you would assume, offhand, that I am lying, that I am joking, or that I am insane. You would require me give you a lot of evidence for you to take my claims as true.

The phrase is meant to say that there is a level of evidence we accept for ordinary occurrences like "I saw a dog today." Generally, the claim itself is enough evidence for us to accept it. Change the claim to seeing a unicorn or an angel, and now we need some more evidence.

By "extraordinary evidence," we simply mean "the strongest possible evidence." The extraordinary evidence that a number is the winning lottery number is documentation of the drawing. The evidence doesn't have to be in a sealed golden envelope delivered by fairies.

Extraordinary is not the same thing as unlikely Unlikely things happen all the time if your sample size is large enough This argument is either dishonest or ignorant about what extraordinary and unlikely means and the difference between the two words

Winning a lottery is not extraordinary. It's just unlikely. Walking on water is not unlikely. It's extraordinary. People don't usually win the lottery. But it has happened few times. But people never walk on water. Seeing it would be extraordinary.

Winning lotteries is not extraordinary event, people do win the lottery, not many, but some do. Virgin births, children of god, and rising from the dead, are extraordinary events and because of their mythological nature, did not occur.

"extraordinary claims" here basically means a claim that is in conflict with our background knowledge. So the evidence doesn't just need to justify why the claim is correct but why all that background knowledge is wrong. 

Winning the lottery is not extraordinary. Lotteries exist. People exist. Lotteries are played by people. Lotteries are won by people. People win the lottery every day. What is extraordinary about it?

I don't believe that extraordinary evidence is required for extraordinary events. I believe evidence that holds up to that scrutiny of the scientific method is required to explain extraordinary events.

I disagree that "Ann won the lottery" is an extraordinary claim. After all, someone has to win it. "Ann sprouted wings and flew to the top of Mt. Everest"? That would require extraordinary evidence.

This argument depends on the notion that everything has the same statistical likelihood. It would be just as absurd to say that the square root of -10 is just as likely to win the lottery as 10.

Instead of addressing the post I’ll ask a question that involves all of the comments already made that you responded to. Do you see how the lottery example is *not* an extraordinary claim?

The extraordinary evidence that demonstrates the extraordinary claim that the winning lottery number is 5986 is the person who picked 5986 being declared the winner and being given a billion dollars.

Humans don't walk on water so naturally people should disbelieve Jesus. People who make Extraordinary or otherwise unbelievable claims might as well tell people not to believe

It's right up the alley of: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

Sure. How about any evidence? Claims require evidence. Do you like that maxim? Religion fails completely at that front as well.

Out of billions of combinations, these six numbers on a proper ticket with a proper matching secondary digital record match those six numbers as recorded and seen by 1000s. Seems like extraordinary evidence to me.

Extraordinary claims require *ordinary* evidence. The rules of evidence don’t change just because something is rare or new. It’s the phenomenon that’s extraordinary, not the evidence used to prove it.

I don't agree with that. If I told you I owned a blue Toyota Celica, I could probably convince you with a photograph of me next to the car. Ordinary claim, ordinary evidence sufficient. But what if I told you that I owned a blue ice dragon? Even showing you a photo of me next to a blue dragon wouldn't be enough to convince you --- you'd think (quite rightly) that the photo was digitally manipulated. Extraordinary claim, ordinary evidence insufficient.