Robert A. Heinlein captured this feeling of intellectual displacement in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians, returns to Earth only to discover that he is a stranger among his own species, struggling to understand their beliefs, customs, and contradictions.
Skeptics experience a similar dynamic. We move freely through society, yet we remain apart from it—questioning what others accept, examining what others overlook, and refusing to surrender our judgment to tradition or authority. In that sense, we too are strangers in a strange land.
The term far‑out once described anything that departed significantly from the conventional or traditional. It’s an apt descriptor for those who challenge assumptions and resist intellectual conformity. Thus, the title of this blog: Far‑Outlier.
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence (ECREE)
Often called the Sagan Standard, this principle was popularized by Carl Sagan in Broca’s Brain (1979) and the television series Cosmos (1980). It has since become a cornerstone of scientific skepticism. ECREE captures a simple truth: the more a claim contradicts established knowledge, the stronger the evidence must be before we accept it. This isn’t cynicism—it’s intellectual responsibility.
