"Jack Dominey" <look@my.sig> wrote in message
news:7osfhvo765mq3ogti86hat489tvds60jnv@4ax.com...

In sci.skeptic, <BywRa.81018$ye4.60724@sccrnsc01>, "Kavik Kang"
<Kavik_Kang@hotmail.com> wrote:

I didn't say 'absolute proof', I said that proof is an absolute, their is

a

big difference. Sagan was just wrong. There is no such thing as
"extraordinary evidence" just as there is no such thing as "extraordinary
proof".

No, Sagan's not wrong.  His meaning is clear despite your attempt to
apply a perverse misreading.

What "perverse misreading"?

The quotation is,

I know, I never said that it was anything else.

- Sagan in an interview at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/carlsagan.html.  I can make an
accurate rewrite by saying, "The quality of evidence needed for
provisional acceptance of a claim is proportional to the likelyhood of
the claim," but it abandons the pithy, memorable quality of Sagan's
phrase.

You are the one re-writing it. What it says is ""extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence", which is incorrect. Extraordinary claims
require the same exact type and level of evidence as any other claim. There
is no such thing as "extraordinary proof" and there is no such thing as
"extraordinary evidence". I am addressing what he actually said, you are the
one trying to re-write it into something else... in fact, you did.

By the way, the thread would benefit if all participants would agree
to drop the term "proof" from the discussion.

Absolutely not. The fact that there is no such thing as "extraordinary
proof" is very relevant to the subject.