Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

"Evidence, then, should be understood as that which sufficiently establishes a claim as actually true and not just verisimilitudinous" Well, I really wish you would have read what I said about absolute proof in round 1. But since you probably have not I will repeat myself. Nothing is really provable. Give me one provable fact about our universe please. Prove to me that you are human please. How do I know you are not an alien ? The claim that you are human is in fact a result of many observable characteristics that suffice, based on common sense, to grant most people's belief in this claim, but it doesn't mean its really true. We can not know for sure that anything is true. Next you say: "Now, the only reason one accepts the claim of "dog" is because they have prior established evidence. But imagine a world where if someone said "I have a dog," you would have absolutely no prior evidence of "dog," – indeed you would have as much evidence for dog as we have evidence for a dragon in our world. Would the claim be extraordinary?" Yes absolutely it would !!! Imagine a human mission to mars that lands on mars after about 200 days in space. The first thing the first astronaut setting foot there says is: "Huston there is a living dog here on the surface !". That, would of course, be an extraordinary claim ! I think the only thing I would accept if I was in Huston was that long term exposure to solar and cosmic radiation does in fact cause severe brain damage. Next: "And if so, would the evidence sufficient to prove the truth of "dog" in our world be sufficient to prove "dog" in the hypothetical world?" Absolutely not ! In mars to establish such a claim you would have to work a lot harder than on earth. In mars it is not clear how such a complex animal can exist in such a low temperature, low pressure, low resource environment. I already said the following in the first round (you should have read it better): "So an extraordinary claim is a claim that is supported by very weak, or no prior evidence or that may even contradict other available evidence." The lack of prior evidence or the contradiction to other known evidence is what makes a claim extraordinary (thus non-ordinary). If pet dragons were as common as pet cats then there would be nothing extraordinary about the claim "I have a pet dragon". 2. -------------- "If we had the same amount of evidence for casting spells that we did for murder, there would be no argument" You mean the same amount of prior evidence, thus the evidence that exists before the claim has been made ! Great ! but then the claim about turning someone into a cat would not be extraordinary, it would be as ordinary as murder is. Therefore the amount of evidence that would be required to prove -spell casting- would be the same as for murder. 3. ------------- "The idea of the star child being of alien dissent is rejected because there is not enough evidence to establish the claim – ordinary, extraordinary or otherwise." Yes but there is evidence, even scientific evidence, I have stated it, please read round 1. Your job is to explain why it is insufficient to cash in claims about aliens. This is by no means a red herring. If you read the point in round 1, you will see that the evidence is sufficient to grant certain ordinary claims e.g. the fossil is a skull that belonged to an extraordinary human but not enough to grant some more extraordinary claims like it belonged to an alien. In any case you have absolutely failed to address this point, so please try again. Again, I feel that you have not answered any of the questions I raised so I would insist that you read round 1 arguments and address my questions please. Regarding your points: -------------------------- "My opponent seems to be referring to the amount of evidence necessary. The evidence itself still remains ordinary in all the listed examples. The only thing supposedly extraordinary is the amount necessary to prove the claim (though this is also blatantly false)." Extraordinary evidence is, very simple. Its non-ordinary evidence. Hence not the kind you commonly find or that is persistent with everything we already know (or think we know). Extraordinary evidence is such, that when present, arguing against the extraordinary claim becomes more extraordinary than the claim itself. For example if they had found a highly advanced spaceship near the star child's body (which is 900 years old) -- that would be something extraordinary. Attributing this spaceship to anything else other than aliens would be more extraordinary than just attributing it to aliens and somehow also to this star child which was found near. If we found alien spaceships every day, then this would be ordinary evidence, but then again a claim about aliens would also be ordinary. In other cases an extraordinary amount of evidence can also be attributed as extraordinary evidence but I am not sure this semantic difference is important. "To prove that an extraordinary claim is true (actually true and not just verisimilitudinous), requires neither an extraordinary amount of evidence nor that the evidence itself be extraordinary. The evidence to prove as truth both extraordinary and ordinary claims remains the same." No amount of any kind of evidence can ever really prove anything to be absolutely true. (read round 1). Can you really prove anything ? To sum up my answers to your final set of questions (these are just a summary answer the full answers are above): 1. Extraordinary evidence is such, that when present, arguing against the extraordinary claim becomes more extraordinary than the claim itself. E.g an advance spaceship found 900 years ago. 2. If dragons were common animals, then the claim would not be extraordinary. Since they are not really common animals the evidence presented by a single or a few cases would have to be extraordinary. 3. None. If there was then the extraordinary claim would become ordinary. I would greatly appreciate if you could address my claims one by one, just as I have done to yours. I realize this is a lot of work on your part, but without doing so the debate becomes just a senseless point scoring game for votes. Thanks