Without evidence to justify the claim, it isn't a factual claim, and is instead just an assertion.

So, really, (A) is not only correct but the only possible way to really make a "factual claim".

I'm stumbling on the word "fact", I think. An idea being a fact is separate from the communication of the idea. Facts are real things, without respect to the beliefs of the claimant. Thus it's not possible to make a factual claim without an actual fact... I hope that doesn't sound circular.

Maybe I'm just not understanding your question.

 bump

A. can be the only answer

Part of the reason I named my blog Empirical Infidel was because Xians with whom I argued kept referring to things like the resurrection as facts, but could never give any empirical evidence to support their claims. If something cannot be demonstrated to be factual, you shouldn't call it a fact. In my experience, creationists demand huge amounts of empirical evidence from supporters of evolution, but insist they need to provide none to support their views. (I think I'm starting to sound like a broken record.)

True, nevertheless, theists make claims to fact, which is the point of my question: should we insist that CLAIMS to fact be justified.

We should give theist claims to fact the same treatment that we give any other claim to fact.  First, cross your arms.  If you have a beard, stroke it thoughtfully for a second.  After maybe thirty seconds of looking thoughtful, say in a loud, confident voice, "Very good sir.  And where, pray, is your justification?"

I think many theists actually believe their claims to be fact based in reality, and I'm not just talking about evangelical claims.  I'm also talking about less absurd claims.  The fact they can't prove or defend those claims is merely a test by god of their belief.  I also agree there are those who don't hold their beliefs with certainty. 

I don't, however, see how their lack of confidence translates to "we shouldn't press them for evidence."  My ass! I don't care what they believe as long as they keep it to themselves.  They come to my door they're intruding on my time.  They want to intrude on my time I'm taking them to task for it.  The same goes for any situation where they want to push their agenda on anyone else.  They should be pressed to defend their delusional claims. 

Whether they come to your door, broadcast on the radio/tv, write a column in the newspaper or a letter to the editor, any form of communication of their ideas aimed at infecting a non-believer (of their way), they should always be pressed to prove their claim to fact.

Sorry, feeling a bit militant tonight.

I don't like the philosophical definition of knowledge as 'justified true belief'. The word 'true' doesn't belong there - it is too much like question-begging. What we see as clearly true today could well be shown later to be false - having 'true' in there strictly limits the application of the definition to a ridiculously small subset of what the word 'knowledge' is reasonably applied to.

Something like 'justified certain belief' would be an improvement, IMHO.

A.

Fact claims without justification are just worthless noisemaking, so A, unless ultimately you intend nothing except to make a noise, in which case you may as well just say "booger bugs"

I would say that holding a claim as fact is inherently a way of treating it, and that requires justification to be meaningful so clearly beyond that any difference would really seem superficial. An unjustified claim lacks substance, how to properly handle it is like how to properly handle "nothing".

In a similar vein to Bob's answer I tend to think of fact and uncertainty as being mutually exclusive. If you're uncertain about a fact then it's just not a fact, it's a likelhood or a possibility, or even just a curiosity, but it's not a fact. At the point which we discern that we have a fact is when we begin to treat it.

That all said, it seems possible to me that Strafio may be speaking from the standpoint that "facts" in real life aren't the simple neatly isolated epistemic units we'd like them to be, they come with frameworks and details. And, for example, moderate Christians treat the frameworks and details of their claims in a way different to that of fundamentalists.

Using your example - the resurrection - a moderate Christian could say -- "it's fact, a man made a great sacrifice and was rewarded... this act demonstrated that god rewards selflessness" while a fundie Christian might alternately say " it's fact, a man made a great sacrifice because we are depraved and the only redemption for us was to thrash and torture this bloke to death" -- so these theists are treating their factual claim differently in the details and the framework, while they have the same certainty.

Yes, I agree. While there may be differences the fundamental essence of the claim is the same.

What do you mean here? If a claim is unjustified (and could technically be likened to 'nothing') we should handle it by pressing them to either justify it or to concede it is unjustified and therefore to drop it.

I think this would only apply to confirmed facts rather than claims to fact. I would say there is a difference between knowing the [confirmed] fact that my pen will fall when I drop it, and claiming it is a fact that Jesus walked on water. I would suggest that the difference even remains for those fundamentalists that are completely confident/certain in their belief that Jesus walked on water, because it still doesn't meet the level of knowledge. So I am making a distinction between 'certainty in belief' and 'certainty through knowledge'.

In any case, it's not really the level of certainty behind the fact that I think requires it to be justified, it is the mere assertion that it is a fact.

I agree that there are differences, although I think there are certain things that both moderates and fundamentalists share, particularly regarding the elementary aspects of their religion. For instance, both consider it a fact that god exists, that Jesus existed, that he was crucified, and that he rose from the dead. So here the beliefs/claims are identical. I agree with Strafio however that there is clearly a difference in behaviour despite the similarities of the belief. (One of the problems with his argument was the suggestion that a difference in behaviour implies a difference in belief, although it obviously isn't as simple as that, since two or more theists can share the same beliefs but behave differently, due to other influences/variables, conversely two or more theists can hold different beliefs yet behave the same. Although we can make generalities about belief and behaviour, behaviour is not the best indicator of belief.) Hopefully Strafio will respond to your post.


On another issue... do you (or anyone else here) see a distinction between truth and fact? Theists will tend to say their beliefs are both true and factual. I'm not sure I see a distinction. All facts are obviously by definition true, although maybe it cannot be said that all truths are facts?

Well, my conceptualization of "true" in this context has always been "true to the highest degree of certainty currently available."  When scientists talk about the fact that there is an asteroid belt in our solar system, they are technically vaguely cognisant of the fact that tomorrow we could discover that there is no asteroid belt, and we have been deceived by a race of incredibly powerful aliens.  Still, to the best of all scientific observation, testing, falsification, and within the bounds of parsimony, it is a truth that there is an asteroid belt in our solar system.

I suppose I should have been more clear on the definition of truth, as I did not mean to imply that only that which is deductively true would be included.  Honestly, if we were to say "justified certain belief," we'd run into the same problem within some philosophical circles.  The point remains, that which is so certain, either through deduction or probability, that it is beyond all reasonable questioning, can be called "true" for the sake of defining knowledge.

Is that a better explanation?

Okay so Strafio's argument is that the need for justifying factual claims must itself be justified with practical reasons. For example, a 'practical reason' for why we should insist factual claims be justified is that we need an accurate understanding about reality for things like technology and medicine. But then Strafio tries to 'escape' this practical reason for why we need to justify factual claims by claiming moderate/liberal theists do not use their faith in a way that [negatively] influences behaviour, nor do they use it for claims like technology or medicine, hence their claims do not need to be justified.

In short, I say that truth/factual/historical claims need to justified in of themselves, for no other reason than the fact they are objective claims about reality. Strafio requires a "practical justification" for why evidence must be demanded for truth/factual/historical claims. Then, whatever practical justification that is given, he invents a type of theist that does not treat their faith according to that practical justification, and is therefore exempt from the demand for evidence.

 I think we should demand evidence for the following reasons:

1. People desire to hold true, not false beliefs about the world. No one will knowingly hold false information (unless they have an mental disorder). People of course do hold false information, but they think it is true; they don't think it is false and still believe it. In any case, if they want to hold true beliefs then scientific methods are the only methods that can determine whether they are true.

2. Claiming something is objectively true by definition applies to everyone, therefore the implication of such a claim is that everyone should accept it. To claim X is true is to say everyone should accept that X is true. If you are going to say that then you must validate it. 

3. Morals require accurate knowledge; they require facts, so even if the theist only use their faith-based beliefs for moral and value issues (and Strafio agrees they do), then they still require accurate information. Richard Carrier argues this here in his excellent talk: Why science is better than religion and ways has been (His talk is parts 1 to 6, the PZ Myers speaks).

4. People indirectly value scientific principles, usually in the form of their output, i.e. they value their mobile phone, their television, their medication, their car, etc. We should ensure people realise just how important scientific knowledge is, and ensure that we maintain a culture which always encourages it. If they realise the link then maybe they will value the scientific methods in of themselves.

5. Faith-based beliefs will affect behaviour. Even if we could ensure it only produces positive behaviour, the fact it can influence behaviour at all means we must assess the beliefs/claims, because the potential for negative behaviour is always possible. We must also acknowledge that positive and negative behaviour can be subjective.

6. In reality, theists of all types will use their beliefs in decision making. They don't hold their religious beliefs in a vacuum. 

7. Even if we could ensure only positive outcomes from faith-based beliefs, there is still the issue that theists propagate the idea that the method of faith is a virtue; that it is a virtue to believe things without or contrary to evidence, which is a big problem, but worse still, it could be applied in ways more negative ways, indeed, that is exactly what happens. The moderate holding faith to be a virtue essentially shields it from serious criticism, so it essentially becomes socially unacceptable to criticise it. The problem with faith is not what people do with it, rather it is the very method itself! Thus any serious criticism must attack the method itself as unjustified, not what people do with it, and especially not just singling out the 'wrong' use of faith, which entails that there even is a 'right' way to use it. There isn't.

Fundamentally, there is no epistemological, nor any rational basis for why faith-based claims to truth/fact/history should be distinct from any other claim to truth/fact/history. Everyone accepts that scientific methods/values and critical inquiry must be applied to the latter, and they have no reason why they should be applied to the former. 

(Come on, I've explained this to you about 7 times now. Why are you repeating this "Moral need accuracy" argument when I've told you time and time over that I agree and that it doesn't contradict the Ideal Theist's position)

But what does it have to do with your claim that "all[i] beliefs [i]must be scientifically justified"?
There's a difference between valuing science and thinking about about nothing but science.
 

An argument I have no issue with.

The bit in italics begged the question.

That it's necessarily a "big problem" for people to "believe things without evidence" is something you're supposed to be arguing for, not assuming as a premise.

You're yet to produce valid argument in favour of your position.
To be fair, even if there is a valid argument it would still be difficult to work out and word right - absence of proof isn't proof of absence.
But as it stands, you do not yet have anything of substance in your claim.

Yes it is. It is implicit within the claim. If I say the earth is flat, I am making an objective truth claim that applies to everyone, and am in essence saying it should be accepted as true by all. The person does not have to actually say people should accept it, but it is implicit within the objective truth claim.

Give me an example of a RELIGIOUS-based moral/value claim that theists ACTUALLY make that is based on valid, accurate information. i.e. I don't want any of this ideal-faith-that-doesn't-exist-stuff. I want real world examples.

Because you have said that faith is not a problem providing it is used for things that DO NOT require accurate information. And you have said that we can scientifically assess the faith-based beliefs/claims whenever they ARE used for the things that require accurate information. Well, morality requires accurate information, so if theists use their beliefs for moral reasoning then we must scientifically assess the validity of their claims.

Later in your post you prove my point!

Not all beliefs, only those regarding objective reality; truths, factual and historical claims.

You cannot say you value science but then fail to put into practice its principles. Science is about examining claims about reality, so ANY claim about reality must meet the burden of scientific inquiry. You're trying to escape this burden with type of theism THAT DOES NOT EXIST!! If you look at real world theism, then all theists do and say things which must meet this burden.

This simply ignores what I wrote.

Once you accept that faith-based thinking can affect behaviour at all, then you MUST accept that it can lead to negative behaviour. You say we can ensure it is positive with "psychological investigation" however this isn't sufficient. How do you determine whether a behaviour IS positive? Surely you agree that a positive behaviour for one can be a negative behaviour for someone else? See the flaw in your argument? You're always going to end up with both positive and negative outcomes. Furthermore, once you present faith as a virtue and you unleash it to society it will be used in all sorts of ways, which is why treating it as a virtue to begin with is a problem.

1. The fact is may be "proved belief" does not mean it will be applied correctly, because how you should use your "proved belief" is contextual.

2. In reality, an important concept missing from your argument, people will not just use proved beliefs, or if they do, will not always apply it correctly. Yes yes I know you talking about an 'ideal faith' but this is just like someone talking about a hypothetical type of food that does not give you calories. i.e. it is irrelevant to what is important here: real life. If you argument has no basis in real life them you're wasting peoples time.

3. Back in reality, you cannot ensure people will only use their "proved beliefs" in their claims.

No, because you would still be making faith (belief without evidence/contrary to evidence) a virtue. THAT is the problem. THAT is what you're not comprehending. No matter how you spin faith, at the end of the day you still left with the very problem you began with!

No, I was talking about how it would be used in real life, which is all that matters here. I don't give a shit about a theoretical non-existent "ideal" faith. Even if hypothetically your "ideal" faith only resulted in positive behaviour, once this ideal faith is subjected to the complexities of reality, it WILL be used in all sorts of different ways. And as I said above, even if we could ensure it is only positive behaviour, we still face the problem that to others it will not be positive behaviour, so essentially ensuring it is positive is an impossible task!

Again, I am only interesting in how faith-based thinking and religion is used by theists in real life, not some hypothetical non-exist faith in a hypothetical non-exist reality.

The fact you can only attempt to justify faith being a virtue hypothetically is revealing. If you cannot do this with real world faith then you do not have an argument.

No, it doesn't. It wasn't my premise. The problem is it allows people to use their beliefs and assert claims without evidence; without justification. This mean in the real world people will use unjustified beliefs/claims to justify their behaviour, which may be negative, but either way is unjustified.

Faith-based claims to truth/fact/history ARE used for things that require accurate information: morality.

And again, in REALITY, that distinction you just made does not exist. Sure, you can invent a faith that contain this distinction, but it's like me inventing a hypothetical food that does not give people calories. Nice idea, but is totally irrelevant to real life.

I have provided many. In fact I have refuted you here (and you have refuted yourself):

P1) Theists use their faith for moral issues.

P2) We can scientifically assess the validity of faith-based claims/belief if and when they are used for things which require accurate information.

P3) Morality requires accurate information.

C) Therefore we must scientifically assess the validity of faith-based claims/belief.

You have agreed with all of these premises.

My question to Topher was that so long as they made sure that their "certain beliefs", i.e. the ones they use in rational decision making, were justified then what would be wrong with other beliefs lack this justification?

Because they do use their certain or uncertain faith-based beliefs for accuracy, and yet they do not turn to the scientific values and methods which are required. They use their faith for matters of morality, and morality necessarily requires accuracy. You talk about positive consequences, what people desire and what is virtuous being what is most important, what the goal is, but to know what is positive, and to know what people desire, and to know what it virtuous, and to know what behaviour can produce these requires scientific values and methods: it requires empiricism, for that is the only way we can reach conclusions about these things, and it requires progress, the ability to change based on new evidence.

Here's another talk by Carrier, this time only about morality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dce8mE0q4zA (part one of six)

Here his hypothesis of morality:

You ought to do what you would most want to do, if you were reasoning correctly and aware of all the facts.

A) There is nothing you ought to do more than this.

B) You only ever fail to do this for either of two reasons:

1) You are reasoning fallaciously or incoherently.

2) You are ignorant of some of the relevant facts.

Thus, all immoral behaviour is down to ignorance; ignorance of some fact, or ignorance of the fact your reasoning is invalid/fallacious.

In order to claim any moral knowledge, you must be aware of two facts:

1) What desires do people want more than anything?

2) What behaviour will produce that desired outcome?

Only scientific inquiry can know this. So any legitimate moral theory must rely on solid empirical evidence.

Now lets look at the Christian view of morality:

You ought to do X, because doing that will get you an eternal life in 'heaven' (some blissful condition), and not doing that will get you an eternal life in 'hell' (some miserable condition).

That applies to all Christians, and indeed all theists. What separates theists and religions is X, the behaviour they claim you must follow to get to heaven and avoid hell. Other than that, this is their hypothesis. Furthermore, Christian theology by its very nature applies to all, i.e. it is not the claim that only some has to do X, it is the claim that all have to do X, which is based on the assumption that all people desire 'heaven'.

In order for this hypothesis to be true, and in order for others to adhere to it, they must present the following factual empirical evidence:

1) demonstrating that one (heaven or hell) is desirable and the other is not.

2) that people who do X (whatever that is) will go to heaven and other go to hell

You cannot just declare that heaven is actually more desirable, and you cannot just declare that doing X will get you there. You have to demonstrate it.

You might say your 'ideal theist' does not have a strict definition of X, which maybe so, however they still hold that doing X (whatever it happens to be) will result in Y (whatever that happened to be), so the same burden applies to your ideal theists also.

Since EVERY theist, include by your own admission this 'ideal theist', uses their faith-based religious beliefs for moral and value purpose, we MUST apply scientific values and methods to their claims.

Because they also use uncertain beliefs in their rational decision making. The biggest example of this is pascals wager... they might not really be certain of god or something in their religion, but they following along 'just in case'. That is proof that theists do not always rely on 'certain beliefs'.

Here some more proof: as explained above, they also use their faith-based religious beliefs for moral claims (and morality is certainly a basis for how people reason and act), and these moral claims cannot be 'certain' or 'justified' until the required factual empirical evidence is presented, and yet even without that evidence they STILL use their beliefs in a way which even you say they shouldn't. That is proof that they use uncertain/unjustified beliefs for matters which require accuracy and justification.

No panic here. I just want real world examples, that is all I care about. If you cannot do this then you do not have an argument. Period. You even admitted that your not going to try and argue that this ideal theists is real. If this hypothetical faith is not real then why not just skip straight to the actual defence of real-world religious faith. This ideal theist has no relevance to the real world, and therefore has no relevance to any defence of real-world faith.

No, I've not been changing my aims. I've shown many problems with your 'ideal faith', such as those above. The problem is you don't actually seem to realise the ramifications of what you are saying, for example: you say they can use their unjustified, non-accurate religious faith for moral and value issues, however such issues necessarily require justified, accurate, empirical evidence. Next, you say positive consequences are what are important, but you don't seem to realise that to some people a positive consequence is a negative consequence, so you're always going to end up with both, so the claim that you will ensure only positive consequences is impossible. You agree the beliefs will produce behavioural outcomes , but once you realise that these results will necessarily be either positive or negative, not just one, you will see why I've insistent the beliefs should always be assessed.

I've said I don't care about this hypothetical faith because it has no relevance at all to the real world. I think this ideal faith has many issues with it, and I have demonstrated some of them, but even if this ideal faith were a completely good thing, it STILL wouldn't help your argument that real-world faith is good.

That kinds ironic consider it was be you who continued with the 'broken down quotes' while I was building more concise  responses.

I don't think religion is necessarily irrational. I think back in history religious beliefs were the rational position. Belief in god, creationism, etc were all the rational, scientific view to take. My argument is that based on all we know today, all forms of religion are irrational, since you can only arrive at religious views, such as god exists, by ignoring reason, logic and scientific values.

This obviously mean that in todays society the 'correct' uses of religion are by definition irrational, because they do not adhere to reason, logic and scientific values.

Why is it counter productive?

But ideal faith has no relevance to real life. So when it comes to defending real-life faith you cannot rely on ideal faith, unless you can demonstrate how ideal faith relates to real-life faith.

Strafio, you're really not paying attention to what you're saying! You say the ideal theists will only use proved beliefs in moral matters. Well the very problem is the theistic moral hypothesis is UNPROVEN.

Their hypothesis is:

Doing X will achieve Z.

Where X is a given behaviour/lifestyle, and where Z is heaven.

They have to empirically demonstrate that:

a) people really do desire Z more than anything else.

b) doing X really does result in Z, and not doing X doesn't result in Z.

Obviously we have no proof that heaven exist, much less what you can do to get there, nor whether that is what really want above all else, hence the theistic moral hypothesis is based on an UNPROVEN premise. That is why I keep bringing up this argument, because all you are doing it declaring, not demonstrating, that their morality is based on proved, justified, claim. If you disagree and think their moral hypothesis is based on proved justified claims then you must:

a) outline their moral hypothesis. (e.g. what it is they want most of all [Z] and what they have to do to achieve that [X])

b) present the empirical evidence of that moral hypothesis. (e.g. empirically demonstrate that [Z] is what they really want, and empirically demonstrate that [X] will get them that desire.) 

Until you do this you cannot say their reality is based on proved beliefs.

I don't see how this relates, since I don't see what this example has to do with morality. Morality is about what humans ought to do more than anything else.

Anyway, regarding what you said above, I reject that it is a matter of motivation. I would contend that it is down to competing desires: "I desire to be healthy, but at the same time I also desire this unhealthy good."

Yes, agreed. Religious belief may have pragmatic benefits. I agree. Unfortunately, I am not talking about any pragmatic benefits to religious beliefs. I am talking about whether they are true.

I disagree that it enhances their ability.

Scientific methods and values are the only thing that will tell us what people desire most, and also what behaviours will statistically most likely achieve those desire outcomes. Religion and god have nothing to do with it.

While I agree that the liberal theists will most likely reach the same conclusions as the secular humanist about what is moral, because they essentially live by the same moral system, the issues is their reasoning. If they include faith-based unjustified reasoning then their moral hypothesis, then they cannot say their morality is based on a proven premise.

For example, take the moral hypothesis:

Doing X will achieve Z.

The secular humanist and the theists might both agree about what X is, but disagree about what Z is. The fact they may agree to what X is (such as behave in a given way), the truth of their moral hypothesis will depend on whether Z is true, and whether doing X will result in Z. I think you are failing to see this. You seem to think that sharing the same morality means there is no conflict in each persons moral hypothesis. Two people can have the same moral outcomes, while only one of them having the true moral hypothesis., and the other having a false moral hypothesis.

Yes, because if you agree that negative consequences can take place, and you agree that we should try to minimise such consequences, then we must scientifically assess the beliefs because only scientifically and empirically assessing them can tell us what sort of behaviour they may result in. For example, belief A may cause behaviour B and result in consequence C. Whether C is a positive or negative consequence will depend on whether what humans desire, and whether C achieves or negates that desire can only be know through empiricism.

Yes, I made this point a long time ago.

I think accuracy is important here because people will tend to behave in a given way because they *think* the belief which the behaviour is based on is true. However what if the belief is false? Would demonstrating that it is false make them alter their belief, and therefore their behaviour? Maybe it would, or maybe it wouldn't. If the belief causes negative behaviour then we should hope greater knowledge may causes them to think about their beliefs and behaviour.

Interesting idea to combine epistemology and morality. But I think that what you fail to realize is that if in fact what you say is true, then (b) in your original post is true. Why? Well, if what you suggest is true then knowledge claims come and go depending on practical interests and whether one is in high stakes or not. That is to say, what counts as "sufficient evidence" actually raises and lowers depending on practical interests and stakes. I don't think Carrier realizes this, but if epistemic claims are normative and in some sense have moral value, then (b) is true. Still don't believe me? Well, I'll show you. If what you say is true, then the following principle is true:

KO: If S knows that p, then S ought to act as if P is true.

KO can be derived from KB in the following:

KB: If S knows that A is the best action, S ought to do A.

Now if KB is true, then knowledge claims and "sufficient evidence" actually changes in pragmatic contexts as I suggested. Consider the following two cases:

Case 1: John is at the school dorm, he is trying to get home for the summer, but it generally doesn't matter what time he's home. He checked the newspaper before he left the house and it said the train will arrive at 11:00 and leave at 11:30. He considers the possibility that he could be wrong, the newspaper has made mistakes about train schedules in the past but, if he's wrong he could always catch a later train. The stakes are low in this case it doesn't really matter if he's wrong. So he decides to leave at 10:30, it takes approximately half an hour to get to the station so he'll get there in time, but he may get caught in traffic; but really that's no biggy. Besides, leaving too early would mean he has to wait which is particularly boring for him. John is also aware of all the relevent facts in the case.

So John's evidence in this case is the newspaper, and that seems sufficient. It seems his best action is to leave at 10:30. Suppose further that the train does get there at 11:00, and the paper was right. The following reasoning obtains if KB is true. The stakes are low, and John isn't particularly interested in getting on the train at 11:00, he just wants to get home eventually.

1. John knows that the best action is to leave at 10:30.

2. If John knows that the best action is to leave at 10:30, then John ought to leave at 10:30. (From KB)

3. Thus, John ought to leave at 10:30. (1, 2 modus ponens)

Case 2: John is at the school dorm, he is trying to get home for summer, but this time it does matter what time he's home. His mother has made dinner for him and he has to be home before 1:00! He checked the newspaper, and it said the train will arrive at 11:00 and leave at 11:30, just enough time to be home. He considers the possibility that he could be wrong, the newspaper has made mistakes about train schedules in the past, if he's wrong about this one, he could catch a later train but he'll miss a home cooked meal! So, it seems leaving at 10:30 would be a bad idea, he should leave earlier in case he gets caught in traffic.

John's evidence is the same as the first case, the newspaper is evidence that the train will be there at 11:00 and leave at 11:30. But this time (3) is false, but if (3) is false then (1) can't be true (remember we're assuming KB is true and Carrier is right). But if KB and Carrier are right then something like b in your original post is true and a is false. We can have two cases of the same evidence, and one seems sufficient the other doesn't. So "justification and sufficient evidence" comes and goes as the stakes go up and the practical interests change.