I will add that Shermer apparently had the hots for some hippy chick back in the day. She dumped him, and he has acted like somebody crapped in his corn flakes ever since. NONE of these people are scientifically credible. They simply ignore what they don’t like. You want a dragon in a garage? Then come look in the fucking garage, instead of running away at top speed.
True science–not what you practice–is value free. The word “extraordinary” connotes value, which means that it HAS NO PLACE in scientific discussion. There are two possible conditions: observable, and not observable. If it is observable, it belongs in science. If it is not observable, it is either irrelevant or wrong.
Culturally, what is wrong with you people–and there is clearly a cultish group calling themselves “skeptics” to which one might properly refer in this sense–is that you only apply “reason and empiricism” to claims you already support. What does not support your claims–most notably that materialism is even REMOTELY a consistent position with respect to the best data we have as to how the universe works–you ignore.
True, scientific skepticism is equidistance from both belief and disbelief. True skeptics do not ask “is this claim extraordinary?”, but simply “what is the data?”
To take one obvious example, the work of Cleve Backster is CLEARLY not explainable within a materialistic, mainstream paradigm. Yet he has been ignored for 40 or so years, despite replicating his own work MANY times, and having written a book on it, published some 9 years ago. I researched this the other day and was only able to find ONE effort at replicating his work, and at that by a self acknowledged skeptic. All has to know about skeptical self reporting is that James Randi is the final judge as to whether or not he will give HIS money to someone he hates.
Like all his ilk, Shermer is an angry man dedicated to ideas which are both pernicious and wrong. For actual skeptics, I will suggest watching this video: https://moderatesunitedblog.com//2013/01/cleve-backster.html
Then this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fStmk7e9lJo
That is DATA.