Astronaut goes crazy
July 25th, 2008 Posted in E.T.Sadly, it appears that former NASA astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell has gone nuts, and is now claiming that he has access to privileged information that aliens exist. Moreover, they have apparently visited the Earth many times and the government of the US is covering the whole thing up.
It is unclear yet whether Dr Mitchell has actually gone crazy, or whether he misses the attention he achieved when he was walking in space. Perhaps he just needs a bit of extra money. Whatever the reason, one thing is useful about this whole embarrassing charade – it shows us a very convincing example of why an appeal to authority is not necessarily a valid logical technique. It’s commonly used by creationists who are so keen to repeat ad infinitum whenever they find someone with a real PhD who once claimed something that seems to back them up. Fred Hoyle‘s infamous and lame ‘tornado in a junkyard’ statement being the most obvious example.
Unfortunately, human beings can be wrong. At our heart, we are emotional creatures, which is exactly what makes us so fascinating and what gives human life such extraordinarily diverse social and cultural traditions. Unfortunately, those same human traits lead exceptional people with brilliant minds, very occasionally, to say complete bollocks.
