Furthermore, it’s also important to understand how to avoid overapplying this concept, since doing so can cause you to incorrectly dismiss valuable claims.Īs such, in the following article you will learn more about the Sagan standard, understand the rationale behind it, and see how you can implement it yourself in the best way possible. This concept is important to understand, because it can help you identify situations where you need to expect a higher standard of proof either from others or from yourself. This is because there is substantial evidence showing that horses exist, but no meaningful evidence which shows that unicorns exist, which makes the latter claim extraordinary. This signifies that the more unlikely a certain claim is, given existing evidence on the subject, the greater the standard of proof that is expected of it.Īccordingly, if a certain claim is considered extraordinary, meaning that it’s highly unlikely for some reason (such as because it contradicts the scientific consensus), then the person who proposes it is generally held to a higher standard of proof than they would have been if they were to make a claim that is less unlikely.įor example, based on the Sagan standard, if I claim that I saw a unicorn on my way to work, then I would be expected to produce stronger evidence in order to verify that claim than if I claimed that I saw a horse. The Sagan standard is the adage that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (a concept abbreviated as ECREE).
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