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
meaning of the word "evidence" since it differs from one person to another. One might think to have solid evidence, it must be acknowledged by at least one of the five senses, while others believe that evidence should not necessarily be tangible. This topic is quite controversial as I personally tend to agree and disagree depending on the context, since context may differ from one area of knowledge to the other.
One of many examples of different contexts where evidence can be perceived differently is Ethics.
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
disregard.
In contrast to the area of knowledge ethics, one's reason and word is the least point of evidence in scientific exploration and claims. Instead, sense perception is the largest point of evidence in the natural science. Scientists use most, if not all of the five senses when conducting an experiment. They view all the qualitative data when performing an experiment, in example the color and smell when mixing two elements. According to www.biography.com, during the 16th century, people viewed the Earth to be in the center of the universe. The Church opposed any other proposition due to the fact that this information was provided to the people as public 'knowledge' from the Church. Galileo Galilei, a mathematics professor, improved the telescope of the modern day back then in which he discovered craters and mountains on the moon, a the first four of Jupiter's moons, and that the sun is the center of the universe. After Galileo has published his finding, in which they were backed up with evidences, the Church opposed his questioning of the public 'knowledge', and as a result Galileo was accused for heresy twice. Nonetheless, decades later Galileo's claims were finally accepted and widely spread, in which his improved telescope and proclaims inspired many scientists in making their own scientific discoveries. Personally I believe that a claim cannot be asserted, if there are no solid facts to support it. Therefore that claim should be dismissed until proven otherwise.
A scientific claim should not be disregard, or else we wouldn’t move forward in acquiring knowledge.
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
true?
As previously mentioned, the definition of evidence is controversial therefore I would disagree and also agree with Hitchens' quote depending on the circumstances and context of the subject in hand. For instance, I agree that science should be supported by clear solid evidences. For example, you cannot just claim that smoking is one of the major causes to lung cancer without actual proof to that, can you? However in the case of other areas of knowledge such as ethics, I disagree because one's moral principles and sense of social responsibility towards humanity can be far greater than sheer evidence.