The Credibility Of Evidence In Research

Evidence has been used to prove the reliability and credibility of a variety of claims for thousands of years. It has been used in the scientific world to come up with theories to understand the way the world works, it is still used now in the legal system, and was even used to prove whether or not a person was a witch (Noll, 2018). The credibility of evidence, however, is much harder to establish than it is to produce eyewitness evidence. The authors from the texts assigned for the class have each produced their own view on evidence. In order to better understand the author’s approaches to evidence, there must be an established universal definition of evidence that each approach draws from. The dictionary definition of evidence is: “something that furnishes proof” (Evidence, 2011). In the case of the paranormal, there is an abundance of evidence, however, in most cases this evidence is often easily debunked or is subjective to one person’s experiences. …show more content…
Often repeated in lecture, Sagan says: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence [however,] extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (Noll, 2018). The paranormal lends itself to having wild claims—witches, talking to dead people, possessions, ectoplasm coming out of people’s bodies—but there is often very little objective proof to support these claims. Sagan’s baloney detection kit (Sagan, 2013) discredits many of the claims made. The authority over these claims are the people claiming that they have these extraordinary experiences and hold a bias that they want to convince their audience of the same. Therefore, eyewitness testimony being examined through Sagan’s detection kit would not hold up because people don’t want to be told that their memories are wrong and become attached to the “I know what I saw”