The
Gold of the Gods by Erich von Daniken
Fallacy
Analysis
Chapter
1: THE GOLD OF THE GODS
· In
the first sentence alone, there is the Appeal
to Misleading Authority: “To me this
is the most incredible, fantastic story of the century. It could easily have
come straight from the realms of Science Fiction if I had not seen and
photographed the incredible truth in person. What I saw was not the product of
dreams or imagination, it was real and tangible” (pg. 1). Here it can be
said that since von Daniken saw the things he did and photographed them, that
they are somehow now cold, hard fact and that every theory he presents
concerning his findings must be true as well. Also, he claims that because he
alone saw these things, that they must be true, even though it is reasonable to
assume that none of his readers have visited these tunnels.
· The
last set of quotes that I want to mention in this chapter are as follows: “Is it [our own age] prepared to decipher an age-old work even if
it means bringing to light truths that might turn our near and dubious world
picture completely upside down?... the history of his origin was entirely
different from the one which is instilled into him in the form of a pious fairy
story” (pg. 10). This to me seems like a bit of Wishful Thinking. There are many people that discover ancient
artifacts such as the ones von Daniken found that want to believe there are
life-changing histories and stories behind collections of these relics that
will somehow undo and completely tear apart all of modern history because of
one statue.
· The
rest of the first chapter was surprisingly boring and a bit of a let-down
considering the name of the chapter. It is basically an inventory of the many
things (made of gold) that von Daniken found during his trip into the tunnels
and his many theories concerning the Incas and how they hid away all of these
treasures from the Conquistadores.
Chapter
2: THE WAR OF THE GODS
· The
second chapter of this book discusses the so called “war of the gods” in which
an intergalactic battle took place amongst the many gods that von Daniken
believes exists, and how the losers of this said “war” retreated to Earth. He
goes on to support this argument by claiming that some of the artifacts that he
found in the tunnels look “very similar” to items such as astronaut suits,
satellites, and even potential “replicas” that could only be the spherical
spaceships used to reach the Earth. Now I will present the most notable quotes
from this chapter as follows:
· One
of von Daniken’s main claims in this chapter is the presence of multiple gods
in the universe. He bases this massive claim off of the unconvincing evidence
of a few verses in the Bible. Specifically, Genesis 1:26 “…let us make man in our image,
after our likeness, and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the air…” (pg. 59-60). This is
most definitely a Hasty Generalization and perhaps even a little bit of Wishful Thinking. As the Bible is such
an ancient document that has been edited and translated so many different
times, it itself is not a very reliable source for the type of claim that von
Daniken made.
· von
Daniken goes on to explain his theory of how the so-called “War of the Gods”
took place, and more specifically how the extra-terrestrial beings that
retreated to Earth got there. One can see evidence of more Appeal to Misleading Authority as well as potential Hasty Generalization throughout the
rest of this chapter. One of the “misleading authorities” is Lord Kelvin of
Largs, a professor at Glasgow University and a well-known physicist during the
1800’s. To quote von Daniken in regards to Lord Kelvin: “Kelvin was convinced that these unicellular vegetable cells – asexual
germ cells…together with meteors or meteoric dust…developed under the life-giving
power of light so that finally higher organisms could emerge from them…” (pg.
65). The rest of the chapter goes on to explain theories that von Daniken
borrowed from well-known scientists including the possible number of celestial
bodies that may exist in the universe, and how there is always the potential
that at least some of them might contain some form of sentient life. This also
represents the idea of an Appeal to
Ignorance, as there is no concrete proof of any of the claims that von
Daniken makes in the second chapter of his book, especially concerning the
potential existence of life on other planets.
I like how you looked at two chapters for the simple fact you see some overlap in the fallacies. You also did a great job explaining and connecting the fallacies to the reading (I haven't read your rhetorical devices yet, but I'll give an argument there).
ReplyDeleteFor both you fallacy analysis and the argument analysis, you did a very good job at explaining to the audience exactly what you wanted to say. The way that you list out the fallacies and the arguments in your other blogpost is very helpful and easy to follow. However, they're both very word-y. Sometimes your audience may not want to read all of that information listed out like that, so maybe a table would be easier to read for future reference.
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