I'd have said that the existence of verifiable evidence leaves no room for questioning of the thing thus justified. Whereas a dogmatic assertion without evidence (like this one) gives you the choice; to accept without question, or not to.
And then again, if there's one thing von Daniken's books are full of, it's verifiable evidence. Everything he adduced to prove his theories is actually there, and can be seen as pointing the way he says it points. In some cases we still haven't (AFAIK) come up with a better explanation. The only way to combat that is to assert dogmatically, without any justification and in the face (as it seems) of his piles of evidence, that "aliens have never visited earth, because that would be silly, and therefore he must be wrong," and having taken that as an unquestioned truth, seek other theories to account for his facts.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 03:27 pm (UTC)And then again, if there's one thing von Daniken's books are full of, it's verifiable evidence. Everything he adduced to prove his theories is actually there, and can be seen as pointing the way he says it points. In some cases we still haven't (AFAIK) come up with a better explanation. The only way to combat that is to assert dogmatically, without any justification and in the face (as it seems) of his piles of evidence, that "aliens have never visited earth, because that would be silly, and therefore he must be wrong," and having taken that as an unquestioned truth, seek other theories to account for his facts.
But that's just my opinion.