Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

quoted in Michael Shermer, "The Skeptic's Skeptic," Scientific American, November 2010, p. 86. | "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." appears by itself in God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007). | Translation of the Latin phrase "Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.".

"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof." in citation