If I tell you I've got 20 bucks in my wallet, you'd probably believe me. It's possible. It's common. Lots of people carry around a twenty. That's a perfectly ordinary claim. But if I tell you I've got a hundred billion dollars in my bank account, now you're going to want to see some proof. That's not just unlikely - it's extraordinary.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

That line comes from Carl Sagan, and it's one of the best filters for dealing with wild claims in tech and in life.

This isn't a logical fallacy. It's actually the antidote to a lot of them. It's a reminder that the more a claim contradicts what we already know to be true, the stronger the evidence needs to be before we accept it.

And yes, this shows up in database consulting more than you might think.

I've had clients swear that their poorly-designed (not by me, of course) Access database has never had a single data integrity issue in 15 years. No enforced relationships. No input validation. Everyone edits the tables directly. And somehow, it's all perfect. They say, "oh, it's never once lost a record or produced an error."

That's an extraordinary claim.

It goes against everything I know about how real-world systems work. Even well-designed databases need cleanup now and then. But here's someone telling me that their duct-taped, free-range, no-safety-rails system is flawless. So of course, I ask to take a look. I find typos, broken links, duplicate records, orphaned child tables... the usual. And then they say, "well, those are just edge cases. They don't count."

That's where Sagan's principle applies. You don't dismiss their claim outright. You just need evidence. Trust but verify. Because if they're wrong, and you build your solution on top of that house of cards, it's going to come down on you.

Ronald Reagan used the phrase trust but verify in his nuclear arms talks with the Soviets. It wasn't meant as an insult. It was about realism. When someone tells you they've dismantled their missiles, that's a claim you want to believe... but you still ask to see the satellite photos. Same thing in tech. You want to trust your clients. You just need to verify before betting your house on it.

Back in the 90s, I sold a server to a customer who kept complaining that it would mysteriously reboot every evening. By morning, none of the backups or other events had run and the system was sitting at the login screen. He swore nobody touched the machine after hours. I checked logs, swapped hardware, even replaced the server entirely, but the issue kept happening around 7 pm every night. Eventually, I stuck around to see for myself and caught the cleaning crew unplugging the server to plug in their vacuum.

Problem solved.

The point is, the client swore up and down nothing was interfering with the system - and that was an extraordinary claim. Not because he was lying, but because someone had to be doing something. It's a perfect example of why verification matters. Even when people believe they're right, the truth often hides in the details you haven't seen yet.

And yes, Star Trek gave us the perfect example of this too. In TNG: Devil's Due, a woman named Ardra shows up claiming to be a literal devil who owns the planet Ventax II, and demands total surrender. She has powers that seem to prove it. She vanishes, controls the ship, impersonates Klingons. The people panic. But Picard, being Picard, doesn't accept any of it without proof. He investigates, and sure enough, it turns out she's just using advanced technology and illusions. She's a con artist, not a mythological force. An extraordinary claim, dismantled by methodical evidence.

The point of all this is simple. You don't have to reject wild claims out of hand. But don't blindly accept them either. The burden of proof scales with the size of the claim. That's not being difficult. That's just being responsible. Whether you're debunking psychic powers, fixing a broken database, or confronting someone who says they're the devil... always ask to see the bank statement.

And keep an eye on the cleaning crew!

LLAP/RR