Why Do Claims Require Evidence

Claims require evidence, or else they are disregarded, but to what extent? Evidence is a fact or a piece of information that portrays the validity of a belief or proposition. For example, in science, you cannot claim a theory if it is not backed up with supportive evidence. However in matters like the reason of existence or religious beliefs, to what extent should evidence be provided? In Hitchens quote, he claims that if one makes a statement without providing evidences to back it up, the claim can quite possibly be disregarded without the need to even provide evidences to deem it untrue. However, doesn’t that mean we could disregard Hitchens' statement since there aren't any evidences to his statement? To answer that, one must define the …show more content…
Ethics is one's moral principles that dictates their actions and behaviors when performing an activity. Here, I would disagree to Hitchens quote for the following reasons. One wouldn't disregard their moral principles due to statements that lack proofs. Relating to one of my own personal experiences, during one of my visits to Egypt while I was walking down of the streets of a relatively poor area. I came across a homeless mother with her daughter and I was asked for money. My moral principles said that I should give her money because I should help the people in need whenever I can. What raised the feeling of obligation to do so was the fact that I felt fortunate enough to live under a roof, while she struggled to feed herself and her own daughter. However there was no evidence to whether or not the young girl was actually her daughter. There was also no evidence that her need was genuine and that she is not pretending to be the suffering mother of a child in order to gain the sympathy of people, like me, to make money. However, I could not let myself pass by this situation without helping them just because there was a lack of evidence in the sincerity of the situation. Adding to that, my own lack of evidence to dismiss it. In this case, the word of that women and my reason to trust this woman's words held the largest point of evidence in which I couldn't …show more content…
Generally in science a theory must be proven to deem it true, however evidences are also required to disprove the theory. For example, according to www.missionislam.com, the Big Bang Theory proves that the universe was created from nothingness that resulted from an explosion. Evidences were shown from NASA's sensors on board the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) space launched in 1992 capturing remains from the explosion of the Big Bang. However, scientists do not know what caused the explosion to occur, how and why it happened. Most scientists believe that it is the only rational and provable explanation to the creation of this Universe. Should we disregard this theory due to missing crucial evidences, or strive to discover and search for answers to prove it to be