Extraordinary cars require extraordinary acceleration
Silverbullet sternly informs me: “We ask that you support extraordinary claims with extraordinary evidence.” This claim is so familiar, indeed, well-worn, that it is like putting on a pair of old 501 jeans. The only problem is … it doesn’t fit very well. And why is that? What’s wrong with this delicate and eminently reasonable demand for “extraordinary” claims to pony up some “extraordinary” evidence?
Well this is a token example of a general claim: “Extraordinary xs require extraordinary ys.” Let’s take a look at another example of that claim and then get back to SBs token example.
“Extraordinary cars require extraordinary acceleration.”
What should one make of this statement? For my money, I find it to be true in some cases but not others. After all, a 1967 Alfa Romeo Spyder is an extraordinary little car and yet it is hard pressed to keep up with a Honda Fit off the line.
At least, that’s my perspective. I recognize that a drag racer may have a single thing in mind when he assesses cars: brute force acceleration. But then who says the drag racer gets to decide what makes an extraordinary car? I think whizzing along with the top down on Highway 1 just north of Ventura as the sun sets in the Pacific shows the Alfa to be pretty extraordinary indeed. And I lament the narrow vision of the drag racer who can’t see beyond the 1/4 mile.
And so it is for beliefs. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”? And who decides what counts as “extraordinary”? Let me guess: the naturalist/atheist/skeptic. But isn’t that a bit self-serving? After all, it seems to me that naturalistic, reductive accounts of ethics, deterministic denials of libertarian free will, claims that consciousness just is neurons firing, and so much more on the naturalist/atheist/skeptic’s agenda strikes me as extraordinary indeed.
Tags: atheism, epistemology, evidentialism, justification, naturalism, rationality, skepticism
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Robert Gressis says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 2:27am
I don’t know if the person who forwards the claim, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” means this to be a singular instance of a more general claim. So I’m not sure the extraordinary cars analogy is apt. That said, of course, all the action is done in determining what counts as an extraordinary claim. I agree with you that the claim that all our actions are fully determined is quite extraordinary, literally almost impossible for me to believe. Moreover, I don’t think there is very good evidence for it. Moreover, if I believed that we had Cartesian souls, I would find it even more extraordinary. On the other hand, if I thought the mind supervened on the brain, then I wouldn’t find the claim that human behavior is fully determined as extraordinary (though I know I would still find it extraordinary; I know this because three days a week I’m a materialist w/r/t our minds and the other four I’m not, but all seven days I find the notion that all our thoughts and actions are fully determined to be almost impossible to believe).
You’re right to think, then, that what someone counts as extraordinary will depend on their background beliefs.
That said, even though I’m open to the possibility of their being life after death, ghosts, knowledge of the future, etc., I’m generally pretty dubious of individual miracle claims, and that’s because (1) people like to say they’ve seen extraordinary things, and generally they don’t want it to be the case that they’ve just had a hallucination (or whatever) rather than witnessed an extraordinary claim; and (2) I’ve only been privy to two extraordinary events in my own life.
S1lverBullet says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 3:20am
Randal,
Claims are supported by evidence, but cars are not “supported by” acceleration. Yours is a poor analogy.
Darwin’s claims about evolution via natural selection were once extraordinary. Lucky for Darwin, evidence for his claims, and ways to falsify his claims have been readily available with some hard work and ingenuity. Unfortunately for him, he did not live long enough to see how this hard work and ingenuity fulfilled the genius of his observations and vision. Over the past 150 years, the evidence supporting his claims has truly amounted to something extraordinary, and never has his theory been falsified. Accordingly, his claims really aren’t that extraordinary anymore. It doesn’t take long to think of many other claims that were once, in history, considered extraordinary, until the extraordinary evidence came in supporting them so that they now seem pretty mundane. Thank goodness for the scientists who were stimulated to go beyond the status quo, whose work has shown us over the many centuries, at least until now, that the inherent struggle between natural and supernatural explanations is a zero-sum game with only one victor.
The origins of ethics, the subjective feeling of free will, and the nature of consciousness are much more difficult to study than plants and animals and fossils and DNA and such. The study of these topics is in its infancy. Thank-goodness that scientists are rolling up their sleeves and working hard to help us figure them out.
Thank goodness that they’re out there, collecting evidence.
randal says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 3:34am
SB,
You missed the point of the analogy. The point is not that both are “supported” in some way. Rather, the point is that the dragster’s criterion for an extraordinary car is arbitrary just like your demand for evidence of extraordinary claims which, it so happens, are whatever claimes you happen not to accept.
I admire your deep piety when it comes to your religious zeal that someday science will be able to explain everything from ethics to aesthetics to religion. I wish I could have that kind of unshakeable faith. But alas, many days I feel like a willow snapping about in the wind of doubt. Oh to have the faith of SB…
afpierce says:
Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 12:25pm
SB– how would one go about trying to falsify Darwin’s theories (say their only intent was to demonstrate Darwinism shouldn’t be the only show in town)? Can it be done?
S1lverBullet says:
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 5:47pm
The quick answer is finding rabbit fossils in the pre-Cambrian. This is a rather famous response to your question, once uttered by J.B.S. Haldane.
Given the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the theory of evolution (TOE) today, I think that it would be difficult to falsify it now. The finding(s) would have to be strong enough to overturn all of that supporting evidence.
S1lverBullet says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 4:13am
Randal,
No, I did not miss the point of your analogy.
You missed the point of my post, which is that extraordinary claims are not arbitrary, but are those claims that are poorly supported by evidence and/or that go against the evidence. I look forward to when we discuss this again as you review Richard Carrier’s contribution to TCD.
My “faith” in science is based on plenty of evidence: the spectacular success of science.
This is similar to the “faith” that I have that my 3 month old F-150 will start tomorrow, and this is nothing like the faith that you have in the divine inspiration of the Christian bible, which is based on no evidence at all. Please do not play this tiresome word game with me.
Robert Gressis says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 4:48am
“My ‘faith’ in science is based on plenty of evidence: the spectacular success of science.”
Science has explained lots of factual phenomena, but I’m not sure that it’s ever given the proper account of normative phenomena, other than to explain them away. Is that the idea? That science will successfully deal with ethics, aesthetic, etc., by showing why we think certain actions or morally wrong or why we think certain pieces of art are beautiful?
randal says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 1:30pm
I have an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet jet in the hanger in my backyard. That plane can do anything! Surely it must be able to fly to the moon too.
Conversational Atheist says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 8:50pm
And this claim should or should not require more evidence to be believed according to Randal?
If it should require more evidence, what is it about the claim to have a jet airplane in your backyard requires it?
If it should not require more evidence, I have the same model fighter jet in my backyard — I’d be willing to sell it to you for a very low price.
randal says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 11:51pm
Good to have you joining us CA.
S1lverBullet says:
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 9:39pm
Robert Gressis,
Yes, I suppose.
But I don’t also see why science could not potentially explain how it is that we come to believe what is good or beautiful, as well as why.
Brad Haggard says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 1:05pm
SB,
I can see where you’re coming from, but I think there are other extraordinary claims made by naturalists that aren’t evidentially supported, such as, that matter can give rise to rationality.
I think it does depend heavily on background beliefs.
randal says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 1:41pm
An argument for this problem, the argument from reason, was developed by C.S. Lewis in Miracles and later by Alvin Plantinga and Victor Reppert.
S1lverBullet says:
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 9:45pm
I agree Brad, and I hope that the background beliefs are themselves grounded in evidence/argument.
What evidence/argument one might be aware of at a given point in time is probably arbitrary. Accordingly, one ought to try to avail themselves of the relevant evidence for a claim whenever possible and practical. If we are all having an open and free conversation where we understand the claim and are considering the same evidence, arbitrariness ought to be diminished. Of course, there will always be some bias, and that’s why we have to do what we can to minimize the influence of bias.
randal says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 1:27pm
SB,
I have great faith in science too. I just don’t blindly say that science will one day explain everything. You have to be pretty ignorant of a subject like ethics to think that the “is” enquiries of science can provide a non-reductive account for the “oughts”of ethical discourse.
Sorry, but you are like the dragracer: for you an extraordinary car must do the 1/4 mile in the low tens or its not worth the gas in the tank. I think that’s self-serving and absurdly reductive.
S1lverBullet says:
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 5:13pm
Randal,
YOU WROTE: “I have great faith in science too. I just don’t blindly say that science will one day explain everything. You have to be pretty ignorant of a subject like ethics to think that the “is” enquiries of science can provide a non-reductive account for the “oughts”of ethical discourse.”
Firstly, can you show me where I “blindly said that science will explain everything”?
Secondly, can you explain to me how the possibility that science may not explain everything indicates that the Christian god exists, or how this might bolster the argument that supernatural entities exist?
Thirdly, there are plenty of people who are very knowledgeable about ethics who reject Hume’s is/ought distinction. So your comment is just plain false.
randal says:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 1:22am
On your first question, you didn’t “blindly” say anything. That’s a way of adding some rhetorical tabasco sauce to make the point that you’re espousing a controversial claim without any justification.
To show the problems with naturalism doesn’t make Christianity true of course but defeating a putative defeater for Christianity removes obstacles to that belief’s being true.
Then you say “there are plenty of people who are very knowledgeable about ethics who reject Hume’s is/ought distinction.” Is this meant to be an argument? What kind of reason do you have to think that ethics can be explained through natural science?
S1lverBullet says:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 2:55am
Randal,
When I wrote, “there are plenty of people who are very knowledgeable about ethics who reject Hume’s is/ought distinction” , I was responding to an insult you had levelled against me.
Let me quote you insulting me again: “You have to be pretty ignorant of a subject like ethics to think that the “is” enquiries of science can provide a non-reductive account for the “oughts”of ethical discourse.”
I was pointing out that your insult carries no weight, for it is false: there are people who are well versed on the topic of ethics who reject the naturalistic fallacy and/or believe that science can identify how we ought to live.
I refer you to Searle 1964, Casebeer (that’s a great name, by the way) 2003, Flanagan 2007, Dennet, Harris 2010.
Other supporters include Carrier, Loftus, Pinker, Churchland(s), Baumeister, Bloom, Greene, Pigliucci, Fyfe.
randal says:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:02am
I take it you’re not persuaded by the intelligent design theorists who list over 700 scientists who “dissent from Darwin”, right? What I’m asking you is not to throw out some names but summarize what a plausible non-reductive scientific account of ethics would look like. Something similiar was tried by Quine in epistemology but in terms of building a loyal fan base it was about as successful as Lars von Trier.
By the way, my favorite last name belongs to that German professor Herr Caseomicrobrew.
S1lverBullet says:
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 2:46am
Let’s go back to what you wrote again Randal, “You have to be pretty ignorant of a subject like ethics to think that the “is” enquiries of science can provide a non-reductive account for the “oughts”of ethical discourse.”
I take it, given what you wrote, that you agree with Hume, that one cannot derive an ‘is’ from an ‘ought’.
Can you prove it?
Can you give me an argument for why this is the case that is not an argument from ignorance?
S1lverBullet says:
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 10:05pm
Randal,
YOU WROTE: “Sorry, but you are like the dragracer: for you an extraordinary car must do the 1/4 mile in the low tens or its not worth the gas in the tank. I think that’s self-serving and absurdly reductive.”
Why bother just repeating this assertion, Randal? Why not engage what I wrote about your poor analogy?
Here’s a better analogy: “Extraordinarily heavy items require extraordinary strength to be lifted” or, “Extraordinarily fast cars require extraordinarily powerful engines”.
These are better analogies because they reflect the important relationship between claims and evidence. In the analogies I provided, the fact of this relationship is reflected in the relationship between mass and the strength required to lift it, and between acceleration and the power (actually, torque, but there is a relationship between power and torque that permits the analogy to continue to work) required to produce it.
Your analogy is a poor analogy because it does not reflect that vital relationship between claims and evidence; there is no vital relationship between what makes a car extraordinary and its acceleration.
I have suggested that extraordinary claims are not arbitrary, but are those claims that are poorly supported by evidence and/or go against the evidence.
Naturalists claim that the panoply of life on Earth evolved from a common ancestor. Why do you not consider this naturalistic claim as extraordinary? I would propose that the answer lies in the wealth of evidence that supports it and the paucity of evidence that does not.
The naturalistic claims that you call extraordinary are the ones that are least well supported by evidence, or that seem contrary to our personal experience (which counts as a type of evidence). This does not seem arbitrary to me.
For the record, I also find the claims that we do not have free will, or that consciousness can arise from matter/energy to also be extraordinary. More evidence is required to convincingly make these claims.
However, the fact that there are things that we do not yet know or understand does not suggest to me that we should believe that an undetectable agent is responsible for them.
randal says:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 1:32am
SB,
Analogies, like outfits, are good for one occasion but not another. The analogy I presented was intended to highlight the arbitrariness of the claims being made and I think it did that quite handily.
S1lverBullet says:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:20am
Your analogy was just misleading and missed the essence of the issue.
The tenets of Christianity are extraordinary claims because they are so poorly supported by evidence and because they go against so much other evidence.
Similarly, the claims of naturalism that you consider extraordinary are the ones that are poorly supported by evidence and go against the evidence of human experience.
The claims of naturalism that you do not consider extraordinary are the ones that are well supported by evidence.
When the evidence is considered, what claim is extraordinary is not nearly as arbitrary as you’d like to have your readers believe.
Of course, if you pick a false analogy that does not reflect the important relationship between claims and evidence, you might feel like you’re doing a handy job of making the fallacious point you want to make.
randal says:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:27am
SB,
You offer two criteria for calling a belief “extraordinary”. The first, “being poorly subordinated by the evidence”, is erroneous. The claim “George loves the color pink” may not be well supported by the evidence but that doesn’t make the claim extraordinary. The second criterion is a bit closer to the mark, namely going against evidence. This is precisely what those who suggest that you can naturalize ethics are doing: they’re going against all the available evidence. We can see that there are objective moral facts and free will, et cetera.
S1lverBullet says:
Monday, November 1, 2010 at 9:04pm
Ok, Randal. Glad we can find common ground.
Alexander says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 5:49am
Skimming over metaphors, analogies and whatnots, I’ll note that the claim “Extraordinary xs require extraordinary ys.” is in itself extraordinary, but interestingly does not require evidence.
AcesLucky says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 12:50pm
Rauser is right. Extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence for belief.
For example, Rauser fully believes that Mohammed flew to heaven on a winged horse. We know this is true for Rauser because it is a properly basic belief, especially since millions of people already believe this and find no problem believing it. Rauser’s appeal to properly basic belief sans defeaters is all that is necessary for the claim to be accepted as true. This is why we know Rauser believes it.
And since there can be no evidence that proves the event DIDN’T happen, there can be no defeaters! Rauser is therefore justified in this belief. Correct, Rauser?
Therefore it is ripe for belief. What aren’t you rationalists getting?
randal says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 1:39pm
AcesLucky,
For an orangutan your typing skills are impressive but your analysis is wanting.
AcesLucky says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 6:43pm
Explain how your appeal to properly basic sans defeaters is not this argument exactly.
randal says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 6:53pm
What are you talking about? A belief that Mohammed flew to heaven on a white horse? That sounds extraordinary to me, almost as extraordinary as the naturalistic and atheistic super-extraordinary view of the world. So AL, provide a clear articulation of the conditions of rationality, warrant and knowledge and we can hold it up against a view of moderate, fallibilistic foundationalism and see which is more defensible. Come on AL, light a candle. Don’t just curse the darkness.
AcesLucky says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 7:18pm
What am I talking about? Extraordinary claims vs extraordinary evidence! Your stance has always been justification, not evidence, not reason, not fallibilistic foundationalism but PROPERLY BASIC justification. Why are you now asking all that of me?
In fact when I asked (see: failure to communicate thread), “How do you know ANY of it is of the divine since you can’t distinguish the difference?” you resorted to “This is where an appeal to properly basic belief sans defeaters is relevant.”
You said: “one could respond to your question as an evidentialist, by seeking some properties of scripture that provide unique evidence for its inspired source (e.g. appeal to fulfilled prophecy, thematic unanimity of the testaments, etc). I don’t go that route. Instead I defend a prima facie acceptance of its inspired authority as a properly basic belief sans defeaters.”
In other words, as James put it “You hold your unusual belief about the status of a collection of ancient texts so long as nobody can seemingly prove that you are wrong.”
I therefore contend that you hold that Mohammed road to heaven in the same way that Jesus floated to heaven… sans defeaters, they are both properly basic beliefs. And according to your sans defeaters stance, they must both be valid. Extraordinary evidence be damned.
PS: Are you suggesting these claims require extraordinary evidence, or simply a belief sans defeaters?
randal says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 11:50pm
AcesLucky,
I think you’re not clear on the position. You write: “Your stance has always been justification, not evidence, not reason, not fallibilistic foundationalism but PROPERLY BASIC justification.”
(Puzzled expression followed by head scratching so fierce that I draw blood.)
Foundationalists affirm proper basicality by definition. So why would you think that fallibilistic foundationalism is somehow counter to proper basicality? I can’t help but conclude that you’re quite confused. Perhaps if you addressed my question and explained something of your epistemology — how do you believe your beliefs are rational, justified or warranted — and I would be able to offer you a reply. If you don’t have your epistemic house in order it seems a bit self-serving for you to be criticizing your neighbor’s.
Robert Gressis says:
Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 3:07am
Randal wrote,
“If you don’t have your epistemic house in order it seems a bit self-serving for you to be criticizing your neighbor’s.”
I don’t think I agree with this–it seems to me that you can have problems with someone’s well-worked out epistemological theory even if you don’t have one of your own.
That said, I think people who criticize, say, Plantinga’s moderate externalist foundationalist theory should at least recognize how damnably hard it is actually to come up with a full-fledged epistemological theory that can be used to assess the epistemic status of a staggeringly wide array of claims.
A slightly different way of putting this is: no epistemological theory is without its defects, so even if hole H1 can be poked in epistemological theory ET1, and H1 can’t be poked in epistemological ET2, it doesn’t follow that ET2 is better than ET1, because ET2 might have holes H2 and H3.
AcesLucky says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 8:13pm
Oh, and don’t forget, since you never answered the question:
Explain how your appeal to properly basic sans defeaters is not this argument exactly.
Thanks.
Alexander says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 11:20pm
Ah, randal, this reminds me of the time you tried to pull up the “definition of properly basic” debate on tentativeapologist. And yet here we are discussing it again.
If you follow the strict definition of properly basic, you’ll come to the same conclusions that the Buddha once did, which are (though not worded in the same manner): I began to exist (to be born), I exist (to live), I will continue to exist (to grow old), and I will cease to exist (to die).
Alexander says:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 10:48pm
Really, this is an old cliche that is only used as a generalization, and thus incorrect in only its most specific uses. “Extraordinary” is in the eye of the beholder. Three hundred years ago, if you told someone that you could fly, in the air, at the speed of sound, they would hang you from the yardarm, or *gasp* burn you at the stake for blasphemy. The saying should be reworded as, “the more something is proved to be wrong, the more evidence is necessary to prove it right.” I believe that this is also one of the guidelines to follow in the scientific method as well.
Shawn says:
Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 4:01am
I’ll settle for “ordinary” evidence.
AcesLucky says:
Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 6:42am
Rauser wrote:
“Foundationalists affirm proper basicality by definition. So why would you think that fallibilistic foundationalism is somehow counter to proper basicality? Blah, blah, blah.”
I will not bite. It’s an attempt to change the subject with unnecessary garble.
The subject is: extraordinary claims vs extraordinary evidence. You claim extraordinary evidence is not required for extraordinary claims.
And you support that, not with fallibilistic blah , but with the simple position of a prima facie acceptance as a properly basic belief sans defeaters.
Your appeal to properly basic belief sans defeaters is all that you have required for accepting a claim as true.
Again, you stated, “one could respond to your question as an evidentialist…” “I don’t go that route. Instead I defend a prima facie acceptance … as a properly basic belief sans defeaters.”
Have we not heard that a hundred times? Are you now saying this is NOT the case?
randal says:
Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 1:37pm
AcesLucky, I don’t have a “lure” that I’m trying to get you to “bite”. I simply would like you to explain what your view is. Your previous post shows that you do not understand concepts like foundationalism and proper basicality. So we’re talking past one another. And if you think that basic epistemic concepts are “unnecessary garble” then why even start the conversation?
AcesLucky says:
Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 8:41pm
Do you, or do you not, affirm that ALL that is required for your justification of belief in extraordinary things without the requirement of extraordinary evidence is simple properly basic belief sans defeaters?
AcesLucky says:
Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 8:52pm
How many times are you going to ignore the question?
Do you, or do you not, affirm that ALL that is required for your justification of belief in extraordinary things without the requirement of extraordinary evidence is simple properly basic belief sans defeaters?
Do you affirm this to be your position, or do you not?
randal says:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 3:44am
If a belief were extraordinary for a person then that would imply that they had defeaters to the truth of the belief, so they would require evidence to defeat the defeaters in order to have a justified belief. Another possibility is that they might not have the defeaters but have strong evidence in which case they would have an antinomy or paradox on their hands.
AcesLucky says:
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 1:04am
Still couldn’t answer, could you?
It should now be clear that your position is so untenable that even you refuse to give it an affirmation. (After having said it so many times!)
It is also clear that the foundation of your apologetics is hollow and cannot stand on its own. May I make a suggestion?
Try truth. You know, the verifiable kind.
randal says:
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 3:44am
AL,
Your salty insults are always refreshing. Thanks for that. Actually, I was at the movie theatre today watching Paranormal Activity 2 (which I much enjoyed).