Clarifying the terms of the Q:
A baseline standard for accepting or rejecting ‘conclusions’ or ‘knowledge claims’ is that evidence is adequate to the claims being made. In a court of law, the evidence needs to point ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ to the guilt or innocence of a defendant. In the sciences, the preponderance of empirical evidence needs to align with a high degree of probability…
Developing the question:
Carl Sagan once commented that ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’. Sagan’s view is a popularized version of an observation by Marcello Truzzi: ‘An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof’. This is an acknowledgement that sometimes people accept claims that somehow go ‘beyond the evidence…
Knowledge Questions:
To what extent are conclusions that go beyond the evidence ambiguous? When is too much relevant evidence counterproductive?
Perspectives:
Religious Knowledge: Near death experiences often involve claims such as ‘I saw a bright light!’ or ‘My life flashed before me’ or ‘I now know there’s a better place after death’, suggesting that the claimants suddenly recognised something more than human at work in the world. Such conclusions seem to go beyond the evidence available to support them…
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