Argumentum ad Ignorantiam
I have been a long time discovery and history channel fan, but it seems that more and more the are producing horrible shows about aliens visiting earth, ghosts and other things that fuel popular irrational thought. While watching a history channel show that was discussing the “possibility” that aliens assisted primitive cultures with building the pyramids and other intriguing, early architecture, I realized that most of the distasteful programs fall into the argumentum ad ignoratiam fallacy.
There are a few different forms to this fallacy, but two common ones are, 1) arguing the truth of something because it can not be disproved, and 2) jumping to an untested conclusion because you are ignorant to the source of something.
Examples:
1) Statement: Aliens built the pyramids.
No they did not, there is no evidence that points to aliens
Well you can not prove that they did not build the pyramids, so they did. – argumentum ad ignorantiam
2) Statement: There is a funny noise in the cellar at night, and I do not know what it is. The noise must be a ghost. – argumentum ad ignorantiam.
It really bothers me that shows that should be promoting good science are just feeding irrationality in the general public. One of the people on the mentioned (aliens and pyramids) show said something along the lines of, “What I like about the aliens hypothesis is that it forces us to think.” Au contraire my friend, it prevents you from thinking. It creates an absence of thought when complex ideas are needed. It is a cop out.
The truth is that ancient civilizations are much more complex than some give them credit. Do we have the answers for all of the architectural and astronomical mysteries within these ancient cultures? No we do not. But saying, “this ______ is complex, aliens must have helped” gets us no closer to finding the answer to these ancient puzzles.
When we are confronted with mystery and complexity, we need to form testable hypotheses and test these hypotheses to approach the truth. Blaming complexity on aliens or the supernatural is a cop out, generally untestable, and is not productive. Unfortunately popular television is not helping promote critical thinking in society. Shame on them.