Overshadowing all these details is the central notion that, as Carl Sagan put it, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”16 The claim that our most fundamental theory does not describe reality flies in the face of all previous scientific history and is extraordinary by any definition. We dare not adopt the nonrealist view without overwhelming evidence. It is one purpose of this book to demonstrate there is no evidence of this sort—no evidence that quantum physics is anything other than a consistent theory of the real, objective world.
