OK, guys I need your help here… my wife has been watching Ancient Aliens (again) and in this episode they are saying things like… why are there no other animals driving around etc. They are also saying that the brain for Homo Sapiens couldn’t have evolved because “it grew too big too quickly”.

Consequently, they are saying that Aliens had to have come down and messed with us genetically.

OK, I’ll leave it up to my esteemed friends to help me point her in the right direction.

TTFN

Is this for real?  OK, I’ll take the bait.

1. Your wife seems to believe that if they say it on TV then it must be true.  Ask her to brush up on her critical thinking skills and find more evidence to support her new found beliefs.

2. The argument convincing your wife is the same as the one for a belief in gods, from incredulity, i.e. “If I don’t have a good explanation for how something happened then God did it.”

3.  Ask your wife to stop watching TV and read some books on the subject.

How about, “There are no other flying mammals except bats…did aliens bring bats to the earth?”

Lots for her to read on the evolution of our genus Homo, the topic being physical anthropology.  Or visit a good natural history museum.  If aliens put us here, what about all the pre-human ancestors we find fossils or bones of?  Plus all their tools, etc.

Learning never needs to stop.  Just because a person finished high school or college, there’s a lifetime worth of learning to tap into.  We’re all ignorant in many fields.

If I could ditch Discovery Channel I would. Trouble is it comes bundled with Nat Geo and BBC and other channesls that don’t generally deal in such rubbish.

PZ Myers over at Pharyngula was making a similar complaint about some patent bullshit on Animal Planet. Apparently, last week they aired some absolute crap called, Mermaids: The Body Found, a completely fictional pseudodocumentary dressed up as reality that claims mermaids exist. Read about it here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/06/10/the-wages-of-pseudoscience/

This sort of crap really pisses me off and I just cannot believe that anyone with even a basic education could watch it let alone take it seriously.

Ask her who created the aliens.

Yeah, that should stump her for a while. Until she watches some more crap on TV.

DarcBird - 17 June 2012 05:48 PM

OK, guys I need your help here… my wife has been watching Ancient Aliens (again) and in this episode they are saying things like… why are there no other animals driving around etc.

Like they saw an alien speed by in his tricked out DeLorean DMC-12.

Answerer - 19 June 2012 10:09 AM

DarcBird - 17 June 2012 05:48 PM

OK, guys I need your help here… my wife has been watching Ancient Aliens (again) and in this episode they are saying things like… why are there no other animals driving around etc.

Like they saw an alien speed by in his tricked out DeLorean DMC-12.

I saw one drinking a pina colada in Trader Vic’s…no wait, that was a werewolf.

Hannah2 - 19 June 2012 03:22 PM

Answerer - 19 June 2012 10:09 AM

DarcBird - 17 June 2012 05:48 PM

OK, guys I need your help here… my wife has been watching Ancient Aliens (again) and in this episode they are saying things like… why are there no other animals driving around etc.

Like they saw an alien speed by in his tricked out DeLorean DMC-12.

I saw one drinking a pina colada in Trader Vic’s…no wait, that was a werewolf.

Was his hair perfect…

If aliens from space messed with us genetically and it accounted for our large brains, then our large brains actually evolved genetically.

If they had tha kind oft power why did they not just do head transplants? Why wait 6 million years for our brains to evolve?

GEEZ people!!

It’s called the ancient astronauts hypothesis. There is a reason it’s called ‘‘hypothesis’’ and not ‘‘theory’‘... (actually it shouldn’t even be called a hypothesis since it’s quite ridiculous)

I have seen the first season of that show and their reasoning is ridiculous. For example: They found a bird like object sculpted out of wood (I believe in Egypt) Which if made bigger was a stable design for an aircraft (not very functional, but stable). You think ‘‘OK a wooden bird, probably a form of art or something’‘. Now listen to what those people conclude from this. They say the following ‘‘This little wooden bird could be a stable design for an aircraft, so they must have had aircraft back in the ancient days. Aircraft weren’t invented yet so it must have been aliens’‘

This show is full of preposterous reasoning and huge exaggerations. It’s scientology for the ‘‘fairly sane’‘. Watch the first episode and count how many times those apparent ‘‘scientists’’ say the words ‘‘I believe’‘.

She’s not a Reagan holdover is she?

Alleged briefing to President Reagan on UFOs posted online

It’s simply an argument from incredulity. It’s an idea, unsupported by any credible evidence.