Most of us would answer, “Of course!” We consider that evidentiary demand a truism. But Christian philosopher and apologist Dr. William Lane Craig disagrees, calling it a “demonstrably false” presupposition.
Something is awry in his argument from analogy, I think. That a particular number was the winning lottery number doesn’t strike me as “extraordinary.” There had to be a winning number—why not that one? Still, Craig’s objection is an interesting one. I’ve also heard him argue that, granting the existence of an omnipotent being, nothing is truly extraordinary.
I suppose extraordinary evidence is kind of a weird thing to say and possibly even extraordinary claims/events. Why should any kind of evidence be more than ordinary? What exactly is meant by extraordinary? It seems like just a common phrase that is thrown around a lot and is not really meant to be that precise.
Extraordinary could just mean unusual in the first reference and new in the second – Unusual claims require new evidence that we currently are not aware of. Something like that. The basic idea is just a demand for evidence. Not sure how you can get around that.
“…granting the existence of an omnipotent being….”? Oh yes, “Dr.”, let’s assume the truth of the assertion to be proved.
I do believe Dr craig is producing a straw man fallacy, in that he misunderstand’s Hume’s argument. Hume isn’t literally stating that one needs extraordinary evidence to prove miracle’s, he instead basically states that a miraculous event should be believed as true only if it would be even more ‘unbelievable’ for it not to be true.
Oh and i agree one cannot use winning the lottery as an analogy for miracles, as someone winning the lottery is not improbable.
I think he was more responding to Carl Sagan than David Hume.
Mike L, i do believe that in this video he specifically mentions Hume a few times.
But i could be wrong and if so that would make my comment quite ironic lol
I think it sounds pretty silly on face to say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I agree with the statement only because of how I interpret “extraordinary claims” and “extraordinary evidence,” but I think it’s sort of bad tactics to use the sentence when arguing with religious people. It’s a good point, but I’d phrase it differently.
The thing is, what it means for a claim to be “ordinary” is that we already have mountains of evidence for the claim’s possibility. If I claim to own a Honda, you already know that Hondas exist as a particular make of car and that people own them. If I showed you a photo of me next to my car, you’d probably believe me. If I claimed to own a flying saucer, a mere picture of me with my flying saucer would be insufficient proof. You’d suspect that the photo was doctored in some way, and would want much more evidence. That’s not to say we are requiring more *total* proof of the flying saucer claim than the car claim — just that we are requiring more proof *right now*.
The news analogy falls flat too. In history, people have been known to lie. For their own gain. News agencies can do that too. Even “apostles”.
If a single news outlet produces a sensational story which no one else can verify, does that make it probably true?