So expecting evidence for an assertion, is a way of suppressing the truth?
It's one thing to be open minded, but when considering information, one must consider the veracity. All assertions aren't equally valid. You have
to look at the soundness of the assertions before assigning them credibility. I'm open minded, but skeptical. I ask myself, is this plausible,
credible, reasonable, etc...
One can use principals of logic to analyze claims-
Deductive Reasoning
Deductive reasoning is the kind of reasoning in which the conclusion is necessitated by, or reached from, previously known facts (the premises). If
the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. This is distinguished from abductive and inductive reasoning, where the premises may predict a
high probability of the conclusion, but do not ensure that the conclusion is true.
Deductive reasoning may also be defined as inference in which the conclusion is of no greater generality than the premises or inference in which the
conclusion is just as certain as the premises.
How it works
Somebody could say, "Since the street is wet, it must have rained". However, there is a hidden argument in this statement: "If it's raining then
the street gets wet." Using the premise "If it's raining then the street gets wet" one could argue that "Since it's raining the street is wet"
but not "The street is wet so it must be raining".
This is because the wet street is an unavoidable product created by the rain but the wet street does not have to be caused by rain. The basic
statement "if something then something else" could logically be followed by "something is; so something else must be" and "something else is not;
so something else cannot be". These are the first two basic valid reasoning types. A few examples follow:
[edit] Valid
Since Socrates is a man,
and since all men are mortal,
Socrates is mortal.
Since the picture is above the desk,
and since the desk is above the floor,
the picture is above the floor.
Since a cardinal is a bird,
and since all birds have wings,
a cardinal has wings.
All these sentences are of the form :
a -> b
b -> c
a -> c
[edit] Invalid:
Left wing politicians do not tolerate animal cruelty.
Richard thinks hitting a dog is wrong.
Richard is a left wing politician.
Every criminal opposes the government.
Everyone in the opposition party opposes the government;
Therefore, everyone in the opposition party is a criminal.
These are invalid because the premises fail to establish commonality between hitting a dog and being a left wing politician, and membership in the
opposition party and being a criminal, respectively. This is the famous fallacy of the undistributed middle.
In other words, they are of the form :
a -> c
b -> c
b -> a
[edit] Popular misuses of the term
It is occasionally taught that deductive reasoning proceeds from the general to the particular, while inductive reasoning proceeds from the particular
to the general. This is false - or at least, is not the way logicians use these terms. There are deductively valid arguments that proceed from the
particular to the general (Oscar is grouchy, therefore something is grouchy) and inductive arguments that proceed from the general to the particular
(most Rice University students are smart, therefore this particular Rice University student is smart).
Sherlock Holmes frequently describes his methods as involving deductive reasoning in the various stories about the character. However, most of his
"deductions" in fact used inductive or abductive reasoning; very few were actually deductive in nature. There was nearly always some concievable, if
vanishingly unlikely, way his conclusions could have turned out to be incorrect, a fact exploited by many parodies of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking consists of a mental process of analyzing or evaluating information, particularly statements or propositions that people have
offered as true. It forms a process of reflecting upon the meaning of statements, examining the offered evidence and reasoning, and forming judgments
about the facts.
Critical thinkers can gather such information from observation, experience, reasoning, and/or communication. Critical thinking has its basis in
intellectual values that go beyond subject-matter divisions and which include: clarity, accuracy, precision, evidence, thoroughness and fairness.
en.wikipedia.org...
Occam's Razor
Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or "shaving off", those that
make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. In short, when given two equally valid explanations for a
phenomenon, one should embrace the less complicated formulation. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (law of
succinctness):
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,
which translates to:
entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
This is often paraphrased as "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one." In other words, when multiple competing
theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest
hypothetical entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.
en.wikipedia.org... 
vs. Phil Schnieder's claims which are supposedly based in
the real world 
That's
what i had in mind but i have no proof and i wont dream of trying to defend the notion..... 
