Extraordinary evidence and extraordinary claims: Is there a relationship?

Victor Reppert links to Roger Pearse who discusses the claim that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Pearse suggests that this has become an unquestioned assumption by atheists (and, apparently, librarians…). He thinks that what this claim is really getting at is a bias to require extraordinary evidence “for whatever we prefer not to believe.”

I think this dismissal of the principle is too quick. There is indeed something more “extraordinary” about the claim that a man rose from the dead than the claim that there are more than 100 universities in Boston. Both claims are, perhaps, surprising, but we require (or, at least, desire) stronger evidence for the former. While “extraordinary” isn’t a technical term, I think it gets at what the issue is.

But this made me think. There is a sense in which any evidence for an extraordinary claim is, as such, extraordinary. In a sense, Pearse is correct that we only have one set of what counts as evidence. There isn’t a special kind of evidence which is only required of extraordinary claims. Perhaps there is just a special amount of evidence required. But consider that we generally expect extraordinary claims to have no evidence, or only clearly spurious evidence. I think one goal of Christian apologetics is to show that the evidence (for, say, the resurrection) is not spurious, however limited in quantity. And if it is not spurious, how extraordinary then is that evidence!

Upon reflection I realize that this is in fact what I require of apparently extraordinary beliefs I don’t hold. I have friends, for example, who accept contrarian views on a number of matters, from the collapse of the world trade centers to intelligent design. It’s not quite right to say that I demand extraordinary evidence. Rather, I just (or should) demand genuine evidence of the usual sort. If there is genuine evidence for a contrarian proposition, no matter how limited in quantity that evidence is, this fact itself is extraordinary and begs for explanation.