extraordinary claims
Statements defying belief
Extraordinary claims are assertions so far outside established knowledge or everyday experience that they demand unusually strong evidence before acceptance.
The phrase appears most often in skeptical contexts, invoking the principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence—a standard applied to reports of miracles, alien encounters, conspiracy theories, or revolutionary scientific discoveries.
The bar for proof rises with implausibility.
- outlandishStrikingly weird or foreign-seeming
- skepticismDisposition toward doubt
- raise red flagsIndicate warning signs
- proofDemonstration of truth
- evidenceFacts supporting truth
burden · unbelievable · too good to be true · fantastic · wild · bold · audacious · leap of faith · far-fetched · hard to swallow · implausible · incredulous · doubt · eyebrow · conspiracy · flat earth · flying saucers · paranormal
- Carl Saganbillions, Voyager, Cornell, cosmic ocean
- skepticismdoubt, skeptic, doubts, debunker, doubtful
- famous quoteseureka, one small step, e equals mc squared, knowledge is power, survival of the fittest
extraordinary claimscommon knowledge
Widely shared information
conventional wisdom · truisms · self-evident truths · platitudes · received wisdom
extraordinary, claims, extra, ordinary, claim, extraordinarily, ordinariness, ordinarily, claimed