Standards of Evidence
An axiom often repeated among CSI members is the famous quote from Carl Sagan: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." (This was based on an earlier quote by Marcello Truzzi "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof", who traced the idea back through the Principle of Laplace to the philosopher David Hume.) CSI members argue that none of the paranormal claims have met even the most minimal standards of scientific scrutiny.
Read more about this topic: Committee For Skeptical Inquiry
Famous quotes containing the words standards and/or evidence:
“With his brows knit, his mind made up, his will resolved and resistless, he advances, crashing his way through the host of weak, half-formed, dilettante opinions, honest and dishonest ways of thinking, with their standards raised, sentimentalities and conjectures, and tramples them all into dust. See how he prevails; you don’t even hear the groans of the wounded and dying.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No further evidence is needed to show that “mental illness” is not the name of a biological condition whose nature awaits to be elucidated, but is the name of a concept whose purpose is to obscure the obvious.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)