Good data and the role of reason

Obviously, one of the themes of my blog is the importance of good data.  In May I was in Oakland, California and there were billboards everywhere about the impending end of the world (Harold Camping has offices there).  I was taken by the fact that a person with such unsubstantiated views could garner enough followers and funding for these displays, and I found myself thinking about what constitutes evidence and rationality.  Well, I wasn't the only one.  Over at Opinionator, the philosopher Gary Cutting (Notre Dame) has posted a piece about this very issue ("Epistemology and the End of the World").  He writes,

What was most disturbing about Camping was his claim to be certain that the rapture would occur on May 21.  Perhaps he had a subjective feeling of certainty about his prediction, but he had no good reasons to think that this feeling was reliable.  Similarly, you may feel certain that you will get the job, but this does not make it (objectively) certain that you will.  For that you need reasons that justify your feeling.

It seems that people almost think you rude today if you ask for evidence, for data.  In an age when there is a preoccupation with what Plato called "mere opinion," expecting some evidence and a valid argument from someone is viewed as almost snobbish.  Mr. Cutting concludes his piece as follows:

The case against Camping was this: His subjective certainty about the rapture required objectively good reasons to expect its occurrence; he provided no such reasons, so his claim was not worthy of belief.   Christians who believe in a temporally unspecified rapture agree with this argument.  But the same argument undermines their own belief in the rapture.  It’s not just that “no one knows the day and hour” of the rapture.  No one knows that it is going to happen at all.