About the "Sagan Standard"

 Introduction

Atheists can be like a dog with a bone when they find some witty one-liner or superficially clever aphorism.

More often though they betray a tremendous amount of thoughtlessness when it comes to their worldview and its extended application. 

Perhaps you’ve never heard of the “Sagan standard”, which is something like “Hitchen’s Razor”, when it comes to examining claims or, more properly, assertions.

The “Sagan standard”, so named after astrophysicist and science popularizer Carl Sagan, is derived from his 1979 book Broca’s Brain, and is most often presented, sans context, as “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.

The issue is, of course, what do the terms “extraordinary claim” and “extraordinary evidence” actually mean when they’re used?

Defining Terms

Indeed the issue is, as David Deming points out, that Sagan never bothered to define his terms.[1] As a result, no one else seems to bother to define their terms, though some have tried, however the results have been revealed to be somewhat subjective in their scope.[2]

However, some have tried to couch the definition in terms of “probability”, that is the likelihood of an event occurring. Such was presented by the French philosopher Pierre-Simon Laplace, wherein if someone placed a million balls in an urn, with 999,999 of the balls being black and 1 being white, the statistical likelihood of being able to draw the white ball from the urn on the first try would be “extraordinary”.[3]

While true in a mathematical sense, in a practical and real sense the white ball would need to be there. But assuming that one did draw the white ball on the first try, what would the likelihood be of drawing a second white ball from the same urn. Supposing that someone did, you might assume that it was not at all “extraordinary” or that the game was, in fact, rigged.

The Problem of Assumptions

Laplace’s thought experiment of the urn does give us also something of a counter-example in that it matters what one assumes about the nature of things.

Let’s assume for a moment that the urn was transparent and that all one could see in the jar was the black balls. Let’s say that you say to your friend, Dustin, that there was a single white ball in the jar. 

Dustin looks at the jar and says, “I don’t believe you. That’s an extraordinary claim.”

Here’s the question: What evidence would it take to convince Dustin that there was a white ball in the jar, assuming that all it took was evidence?

Could you reach into the jar and fish out the white ball? Or dump the contents on the floor to expose it? Perhaps you show him a video of you filling the jar and placing the single white ball in the jar, would that convince him?

Perhaps, but what if Dustin was determined not to believe that there was a white ball in the jar? What if no matter the evidence that you presented, he simply dug in his heels and insisted that there was no white ball in the jar?

The issue then isn’t about claims, or evidence, or about probabilities. It’s about Dustin.

Ordinary vs Extraordinary

Some might say that a jar full of balls is not extraordinary in the same sense as saying that Jesus rose from the dead, however the analogy I believe is very fitting if we consider the jar to be death and the grave. The balls as all the people who have died, the black balls have not been raised from the dead, and the resurrection of Jesus as the single white ball in their midst: the one who not only died but was raised.

Indeed we can couch any experience in the terms of each of the categories. 

The sum total of our experiences is seen in the jar and they all appear to be one kind of thing (the black balls).[4] However, in the midst of that experience is an outlier that is lost in the statistical noise until pointed out, which is what makes it extraordinary: it stands apart, uniquely.

The unbeliever, the one suppressing the knowledge of God both in terms of his power and nature (Romans 1:20), attempts to appeal to the sum total of their experience for what is or is not true. But what is their power and nature, and why should we assume that theirs is either exhaustive or authoritative? Moreover, upon what basis can they appeal that their experiences are true?

The Categorical Confusion

Indeed, when we consider the totality of experience and group it under the banner of “ordinary” it becomes quite easy to become dismissive of that which one might be considered “extraordinary”. However, whatever we consider to be “ordinary” give us no foundational basis upon which to be dismissive of outlier events that might be labeled as “extraordinary”. The problem is that people often don’t understand what is being claimed or what a claim actually is, as Demings explains,

…[A] claim to achieve heat generation through cold fusion is not “extraordinary,” simply because no one has done it before. The claim can only be “extraordinary” if there have been a very large number of previous trials in which the experiment has failed. And the experimental apparatus and circumstances in these previous trials must have been not merely similar, but identical in all respects. If even one parameter has changed, the balancing of the evidence is no longer a thousand-to-one against heat generation, but one-to-zero in favor of heat generation.[5]

When a Christian claims that Jesus rose from the dead, we aren’t making some theoretical observation about what might happen given a particular set of circumstances, we are saying what has happened as a matter of historical fact. And, as a supplement, if that has indeed happened then there are other certain facts which relate to it which, though not having yet occurred, will occur. Therefore, the atheist has no grounds upon which to appeal against such a fact because it has occurred, therefore the atheist is the one making the “extraordinary claim," simply because they are denying what has occurred.

Who Really Bears the Burden?

What I am arguing here is that, by and large, the burden has been shifted to Christians who believe, not merely because of any evidence, but by the Spirit of God working in them and through them, drawing them to Christ for the glory of God.

The simple fact of the matter is that no amount of evidence can cause us to believe anything since evidence requires interpretation, and interpretation requires certain necessary presuppositions, as the psalmist says,

…[In] your light do we see light.

 

-Psalm 36:9, ESV

Notes

1. David Deming. “Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?”. Philosophia, Volume 44, p. 1319-1331. 2016. p. 1319
2. Ibid, p. 1321-23
3. Ibid, p. 1323
4. Deming notes, “‘Extraordinary’ means numerous. ‘Extraordinary’ evidence is not a separate category or type of evidence, it is an extraordinarily large number of observations. ‘Extraordinary’ evidence is only required when it must be balanced against a very large number of contrary observations.” p. 1328
5. Ibid, p. 1329