Hitchens' Razor: Kyptonite for the Fringe Communities.

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Greetings. Hitchens' Razor.

Hitchens' razor is an epistemological razor that serves as a general rule for rejecting certain knowledge claims. The razor states:

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

The razor is credited to author, critic, and journalist Christopher Eric Hitchens. It declares that the burden of proof regarding a claim lies squarely with the individual making the claim. If this burden is not satisfied, then the claim is deemed to be unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it. Hitchens used the phrase specifically in the context of refuting religious belief.

The razor appears in Hitchens' magnificent 2007 book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."  The term "Hitchens' Razor" itself made its first appearance in an online forum in October of 2007, and was later popularised by evolutionary biologist and atheist activist Jerry Coyne after Hitchens died in December of 2011.

Some pages earlier in "God Is Not Great" Hitchens also invoked Occam's Razor. William of Ockham, or Occam, devised a principle of economy, popularly known as Occam's Razor, which relied for its effect on disposing of unnecessary assumptions and accepting the first sufficient explanation or cause. Everything which is explained through positing something different from the act of understanding, he wrote, can be explained without positing such a distinct thing. 

Hitchens' Razor has been presented alongside the Sagan standard, "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence," as an example of evidentialism within the New Atheism movement. Both razors are essential when attempting to examine the anecdotal claims that people put forward in the various fringe communities currently at play. When such claims remain unsubstantiated, which is the norm, they remain firmly in the realm of story ttelling. Unfortunately, when it comes to "fringe communities and their anecdotes," nothing is proven invalid and all claimants are telling the truth. Bullshit.

In today's society, many people hold to the erroneous position that it is the responsibility of researchers to confirm the validity, or lack thereof, of claimant declarations. Nothing could be further from the objective truth. The responsibility lies completely with the claimant, and nowhere else. Period.  

Since the vast majority of anecdotal claims never end up being accompanied by physical, tangible, falsifiable proof or evidence, Hitchens' Razor remains the standard. "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." So dismissed the claims remain, where they belong. 

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

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