People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something

Re:People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something by the_af on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @01:59PM (#14656529)

But the burden of proof lies on the side making the extraordinary claim. In the case of flipping coins, there is no extraordinary claim, but there sure is in the case of psychic energy or whatnot.

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Re:People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something by givan on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @04:03PM (#14657744)

I think "extraordinary" should be replaced with not common knowledge, "earth is flat" is always repeated in some way regarding assumptions on reality, think quantum mechanics.

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Re:People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something by DigitalJack on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @02:00PM (#14656543)

That's BS. Whether a claim is extraordinary or not is opinion.

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Re:People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something by the_af on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @02:04PM (#14656613)

Not all opinions are born equal. This is similar to the dodgy assertion of "but it's just a theory!" -- especially when it's a theory for which there is reasonable evidence. There is no reasonable evidence for psychic energy, hence it's an extraordinary claim.

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Re:People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something by occultist_throw on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @02:05PM (#14656625)

Oh, but you're the arbiter of the equality of opinions and theories?

And I thought I was arrogant.

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Re:People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something by the_af on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @03:37PM (#14657515)

Of course I'm not the arbiter, but there is a consensus (based on what works and is repeatable and doesn't require simply trusting based on faith) of what consists of reasonable evidence for a phenomenon. There are some gray areas, but psychic energy falls decidedly in the "extraordinary claims with a lack of evidence" camp.

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