Are miracles an 'extraordinary' claim?

[Mithrae]

We often hear that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,' but are miracles actually an extraordinary claim in that sense? Obviously they are out of the ordinary in the same way that winning the lottery is out of the ordinary, but I doubt that anyone here is in the habit of demanding "extraordinary evidence" for the fact that people do win the lottery!

I'd invite consideration of three points in partiular:

• 1 > Miracles do not (or at least don't need to) violate the currently-observed patterns of physics: For example if a transfer of energy had ensured that the Galilean waters had briefly frozen beneath Jesus' feet there'd be no violation of physical law; but that radical reversal of the normal course of events obviously would still be a miracle, still be overwhelming evidence of external agency, even though we couldn't see which strings were pulled to get the job done. Even if the appeal to proscriptive 'laws' of physics were scientifically or philosophically viable to begin with (which it isn't), it simply doesn't apply without first assuming that the strings pulled were violations of those laws!
  
  2 > Miracles have been reported in many if not all cultures, in all periods of history down to the present: That reported observation of miracles is neither confined to ignorant and superstitious eras nor idiosyncratic of a particular cultural tradition makes the assumption that such reports never have any basis in fact considerably less plausible.
  
  3 > There appear to be hundreds of thousands of expert reports of observed miracles over the past few decades, even in the USA alone: A 2004 survey by the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies and HCD Research "found that 74% of doctors believe that miracles have occurred in the past and 73% believe that can occur today," but in particular that "a majority of doctors (55%) said that they have seen treatment results in their patients that they would consider miraculous." Those results seem to be consistent with additional surveys in 2008 and 2010. Extrapolating from the fact that there are over 1 million doctors in the USA, we can infer well over half a million expert reports of observed miracles in that country over the past few decades.

Obviously miracles aren't very common; even if there were in fact half a million miracles in that timeframe (though reason would suggest that in some cases those reported healings have a 'natural' explanation unknown to that particular doctor, or perhaps even unknown to medical science in general) it would still only be somewhere in the order of one miracle per five hundred US citizens in a lifetime. Plenty of folk would go their whole lives without ever witnessing a miracle, and even without anyone they're really close to witnessing one either. But of course that's true of winning the lottery also.

By the arbitrary standards of 'extraordinary evidence' that are occasionally demanded on this forum it's obvious that no miracle report (or indeed almost anything else) is likely to measure up. Some folk have even said that if millions of Christians suddenly disappeared and the skies over Jerusalem were filled with armies from heaven with Jesus at their head, they still wouldn't consider it evidence of a Christian miracle but simply an alien invasion! There are always going to be alternative 'explanations' for any and all reported observations, however ad hoc and purely speculative those may be.

But does the rationale for demanding extraordinary evidence have any merit in the first place?

Is there any reason - besides naturalistic biases - for supposing that miracles constitute any more of an 'extraordinary claim' than winning the lottery or some other individually improbable but overall almost commonplace kind of occurrence?

[Mithrae]

Guessing or theorising isn’t the whole of science. It’s the very first, small part of it. Repeated experimentation is the real ‘meat and bones’, and this is why ‘miracles’ as an explanation cannot ever be a satisfactory substitute.

Agreed, that's why a wholly scientific approach will never prove and probably never disprove the existence of a god and why miracles will never be proven to that standard either. However only a small fraction of the things we accept as truthful and useful knowledge is ever proven to a scientific standard anyway - especially for each of us as individuals - so obviously it would be special pleading to demand that miracles either reach that standard or be dismissed as unknowable/irrelevant/false.

There are no experiments or repeatable observations which can help us ascertain whether or not Alexander the Great really existed and led the conquest of Persia, yet most of us would consider that something which we know with considerable confidence; there are scientific tests which could confirm for us whether or not the people purporting to be our biological parents actually are such, but even for such a fundamental aspect of our own lives most of us don't consider it necessary or even important to pursue such certitude.

We want to understand the world. If something astonishes us, we work to learn the hows and the whys. We stopped being satisfied with ‘God did it’ a long time ago.

Also agreed that we should never be really satisfied with merely resting on divine intervention as the best available theory, but should always be seeking further and better understanding (particularly so in the case of cures for serious ailments!). But obviously that doesn't mean we have to deceive ourselves about the occasions when divine intervention is indeed the best theory available.

When a majority of experts in their field express not only confidence that such occasions do occur but even personal observation of times when divine intervention has been their best explanation, that seems like a pretty strong indicator to the rest of us that it's a highly plausible theory: Particularly versus the incongruity of a scenario in which miracles don't occur and yet a large and otherwise diverse but more intelligent, analytical and better-educated subset of the population nevertheless reports comparable levels of belief and much higher levels of observation of them.

[Diagoras]

[Replying to post 21 by Mithrae]

Agreed, that's why a wholly scientific approach will never prove and probably never disprove the existence of a god and why miracles will never be proven to that standard either.

Let’s take that as a good starting point.

However only a small fraction of the things we accept as truthful and useful knowledge is ever proven to a scientific standard anyway

I think we have to be careful here, as there are a huge range of things we ‘know’ (or accept as true), with a wide range of certainty, using an equally wide range of ‘standards’. The decision we (either individually or collectively) make about whether anything is true, and the certainty which we assign to that truth, is related to what standard is being used.

Some ‘shortcuts’ can be legitimately made to standards, e.g. “I know the sun will rise tomorrow� rests upon centuries of experiment and knowledge by others, not due to any experiment I may have conducted myself. The pragmatic reason to believe anything is true is to use the information to determine what action we take. So we believe more strongly in claims with more predictable outcomes. When you’re told you won the lottery, you don’t believe it at first.

so obviously it would be special pleading to demand that miracles either reach that standard or be dismissed as unknowable/irrelevant/false.

I disagree. The fallacy of Special Pleading occurs when someone argues that a case is an exception to a rule based upon an irrelevant characteristic that does not qualify as an exception. I would argue that a high scientific standard is highly relevant when claims of miracles are made. A miracle, by definition, sits further along both scales of impossibility and probability than almost anything else, therefore our certainty about its validity has to be low, unless that high standard is applied.

There are no experiments or repeatable observations which can help us ascertain whether or not Alexander the Great really existed

That’s valid as far as it goes, but the existence of Alexander the Great was not miraculous. The evidence of history therefore seems appropriate enough to accept the claim. Similarly for your ‘genetic parents’ example, there’s no apparent miracle, so no urgent need to reach for a more conclusive test.

If it were claimed that Alexander could kill a hundred men just by staring at them, or if your parents had both been clinically sterile for several years before you were born, then we’d be right to search for much better evidence in order to believe those claims.

Also agreed that we should never be really satisfied with merely resting on divine intervention as the best available theory, but should always be seeking further and better understanding (particularly so in the case of cures for serious ailments!).

Well said, and I obviously agree 100%.

But obviously that doesn't mean we have to deceive ourselves about the occasions when divine intervention is indeed the best theory available.

<bolding mine>

Taken with the previous statement that we’re agreed on, we appear to have a small conflict between being ‘never really satisfied’ on the one hand, and certainty (denoted by ‘indeed’) on the other.

Perhaps we’re getting closer to a consensus if we consider ‘divine intervention’ as a placeholder for a more complete and useful (I won’t just say ‘better’) alternate explanation. There are (as you have shown by example) instances where it’s most useful to say something like, “We just don’t know - to the extent that God may as well have done it - and we likely never will.� From there, neither theist or atheist can really claim to have gained any useful certainty, however. Perhaps we end up with the ‘least unsatisfactory explanation that’s acceptable to both sides’?

I’m enjoying the debate, by the way. Plenty of food for thought and a chance to practice my logical reasoning skills. Keenly anticipating your further thoughts.

[Mithrae]

Anyone who's tried to answer a child's endless series of "Why?" questions knows that they'll pretty quickly run headlong into their own ignorance: Asserting that this ignorance is a basis for ruling out any particular theory seems rather laughable.

I don't recall anyone ruling-out anything at this point.

Ruling out a particular theory (on the basis of explanations/observations which themselves are ultimately unexplained) is exactly what was proposed in the post to which I responded: "As knowledge increases the need for 'gods' decreases."

There just isn't much anyone can do with an unfalsifiable hypotheses. So, they look for falsifiable explanations instead.

If memory serves scientists are still working on a Theory of Everything, and that theory of 'everything' if and when it comes will account only for the baryonic matter which makes up ~5% of the mass-energy of the observable universe.

Then, scientists will seek out and investigate falsifiable hypotheses to explain the rest of the cosmos. They won't be able to do much with any unfalsifiable hypotheses that are proposed.

As Diagoras noted in post #20, "Unsuccessful theories are never disproven, as we can always concoct elaborate schemes to save the phenomena; they just fade away as better theories gain acceptance." And I think we can all agree that it is at least conceivable in every case to discover a better theory than divine intervention. In my time discussing climate science I often saw 'sceptics' likewise insisting that mainstream conclusions constituted an "unfalsifiable" hypothesis, and it seems to me that the answer is the same here as it was there: Just because critics haven't managed to falsify it doesn't make it unfalsifiable If and when it can be shown that some humans have a natural/genetic ability to regenerate amputated legs overnight, that explanation will obviously supercede the 'miracle' explanation for the surgeons' testimony regarding Miguel Juan Pellicer; protesting that the miracle explanation is 'unfalsifiable' is neither accurate, nor changes the fact that it (alongside the notion that the surgeons conspired to create a fraudulent miracle) is either the best or second best theory available.


#####
#####

We often hear that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,' but are miracles actually an extraordinary claim in that sense?

Absolutely. An "extraordinary claim" in that context is something that is less likely to happen for a given level of evidence than somebody making up the story.

This seems to be circular, presuming something about the likelihood of miracles in order to justify the conclusion that they are 'extraordinary' claims. As I noted at the end of post #16, the scenario in which a god intervenes in some remarkable way several times a day throughout the world seems entirely consistent with all available information (and much more consistent than the scenario of no miracles at all, in the case of doctors' high level of reported observation of them).

Obviously they are out of the ordinary in the same way that winning the lottery is out of the ordinary, but I doubt that anyone here is in the habit of demanding "extraordinary evidence" for the fact that people do win the lottery!

The two halves of your statement refer to different things. A named person winning the lottery is out of the ordinary. The lottery simply being won isn't. "I won the lottery!" demands extraordinary evidence. "Somebody won the lottery!" doesn't.

But does the rationale for demanding extraordinary evidence have any merit in the first place?

Tell a loan officer that you won the lottery and ask for a loan of two million dollars. Tell her that she can use your winning lottery ticket as collateral. How much evidence do you think she'll need before she approves the loan? Your solemn word? The solemn word of someone else that heard that you won the lottery? The solemn word of someone that saw a photocopy of the ticket?

Is there any reason - besides naturalistic biases - for supposing that miracles constitute any more of an 'extraordinary claim' than winning the lottery or some other individually improbable but overall almost commonplace kind of occurrence?

Since you seem to be keen on denigrating "naturalistic biases," now go to the loan officer and tell her that a leprechaun gave you a pot of gold as they commonly do. You're working through a broker to try to get the best conversion rate, but in the meantime you need some liquid cash. A couple million dollars should do it.

All of this seems to be a red herring: You're talking about extraordinary commitment to a conclusion. No-one's asking you to commit a million dollars on the conclusion that divine intervention does occur, and certainly not on any particular instances. It is merely the most parsimonious, comprehensive and data-driven conclusion available for a wide range of anomalous reports and evidence throughout history down to the present, in numbers large enough that assuming there simply must be some 'natural' explanation for all such expert reports (and amateur reports) becomes highly improbable.

[bluegreenearth]

There just isn't much anyone can do with an unfalsifiable hypotheses. So, they look for falsifiable explanations instead.

If memory serves scientists are still working on a Theory of Everything, and that theory of 'everything' if and when it comes will account only for the baryonic matter which makes up ~5% of the mass-energy of the observable universe.

Then, scientists will seek out and investigate falsifiable hypotheses to explain the rest of the cosmos. They won't be able to do much with any unfalsifiable hypotheses that are proposed.

As Diagoras noted in post #20, "Unsuccessful theories are never disproven, as we can always concoct elaborate schemes to save the phenomena; they just fade away as better theories gain acceptance." And I think we can all agree that it is at least conceivable in every case to discover a better theory than divine intervention. In my time discussing climate science I often saw 'sceptics' likewise insisting that mainstream conclusions constituted an "unfalsifiable" hypothesis, and it seems to me that the answer is the same here as it was there: Just because critics haven't managed to falsify it doesn't make it unfalsifiable If and when it can be shown that some humans have a natural/genetic ability to regenerate amputated legs overnight, that explanation will obviously supercede the 'miracle' explanation for the surgeons' testimony regarding Miguel Juan Pellicer; protesting that the miracle explanation is 'unfalsifiable' is neither accurate, nor changes the fact that it (alongside the notion that the surgeons conspired to create a fraudulent miracle) is either the best or second best theory available.

Whether a hypothesis is unfalsifiable or just not falsifiable at this time, how is it of any use to me?

When a claimed phenomenon is declared to be unexplained by the experts, it is my understanding that it means there isn't a confirmed explanation for it. What would be my justification for then declaring the unexplained phenomenon is explained by a miracle? Isn't this the same as declaring an unidentified flying object to be an extra-terrestrial alien spacecraft? If the flying object is declared by the experts to be "unidentified", that inherently means its identity has not been identified. What is the justification for identifying an unidentified flying object as an alien spacecraft?

As for the missing limb story, I never claimed the surgeons conspired to create a fraudulent miracle. However, it is worth pointing out that the story took place several hundred years ago when the general population and even the educated elite were more gullible than they are today. Furthermore, the medical practice during the late 1600's was far less organized and science-based than it is in modern times. As such, it seems to be very plausible that such an urban legend about a missing limb could have emerged out of those conditions.